Leo F BPS

Hi there, Leo here again and yes, I’m back, the holiday was great.

I have been doing some research and I have found some pretty interesting stuff lately, here are some interesting facts that are dot pointed below:

1. Did you know that players from 5-81 are playing hockey all throughout Australia?
2. With participation Australia wide, Did you know that Hockey is the only major sport to have a national competition with teams represented by each state and territory!
3. Hockey in Australia has a continuous growing amount of registered players, Hockey Australia has recorded 142,962 players from 880 clubs from all over the country for this year (2007). In 2004, they recorded 106,623 players. In 2005 they recorded 129,391 players and last year they recorded 137,924 players, so you can see how much players keep registering to play hockey all throughout Australia.

Hi there, me and my family are going away for a few weeks travelling along the SA coast to Adelaide, if you would like to see what we’re up to, come visit us on:

http://fitzysontheroad.wordpress.com/

Well most people I know, know more about how yellow cards and red cards work in Soccer, but in Hockey it gets a little confusing. There are Green Cards, Yellow Cards and Red Cards!

• Green Cards: Are warnings, So if you backchat an umpire or do a bad tackle you can get a warning. Also if you go to hit the ball and it’s a really big swing with a lot of people around you, that can be a warning as well. Even if you argue with an umpire about something the umpires missed you still might get a warning. Sometimes you might get a warning for wasting time (if the ball’s gone out of bounds and you take a long time to get it purposely).
• Yellow Cards: Means that the umpires chose to send you off for how long they want to, 5 mins at the least though, So if you already have gotten 2 Green Cards then  you will next get a Yellow card. You would get them for things like swearing at an umpire or threatening to hit an umpire and even bad tackles.
• And Red Cards: Off for the whole game! Same again 2 Yellows= a Red. If you did hit an umpire or hit a player you would get sent off straight away. Also if you were swearing and arguing at an umpire continuously then that would lead to a Red Card. A really bad tackle you would get sent off (For eg. if you tripped a player or hurt them in some way).

Well I hope that taught you a bit about what would happen if you misbehaved on a hockey field!

Leo

Hi there, A few weeks ago I received a letter from Hockey Geelong saying “…you have been nominated by your club and been selected by Hockey Geelong to paticipate in the Hockey Geelong Junior Academy Program for 2007…” This Program I’ve been invited to is called “The Blue Grommets” and starts in October sometime, I’m already excited! What happens is there will be 6 coaching sessions that are run by 6 experiened State League Players/Coaches(one of them was even an Olympian!). In those six sessions they will cover:

1. Hitting technique,
2. Tackling,
3. Stick skills,
4. Trapping,
5. Penalty strokes/flicks,
6. Nutrition,
7. Sports Medicine,
8. Dribbling

Also on the 15th of September all the members of the Blue Grommets get introduced at the Hockey Geelong Grand Final!

Leo

If you want to know more about this blog then go to http://fitleobps.globalstudent.org.au/welcome but if you want to know more about me, my team and when and where I play hockey then read this post.

I play once a week of Hockey, I have training with Newtown on Wednesday 4.30pm, and I play Hockey for Newtown on a Saturday or a Sunday each week, when it’s a Saturday it’s at 8.15 or 9.15am and when it’s on Sunday it’s at 8.45am. My team is called Newtown White, the other teams in U/13 are Newtown Gold, Newtown Maroon and Saints. Our team is changing from 1^st place on the ladder to 2^nd place to 3^rd place all the time and the grand final is coming up soon so I hope our team gets to 1^st or 2^nd so we can be in the grand final.

When Hockey Geelong run events like U/13 country championships or the U/13 Geelong Hockey Carnival we had special training sessions on Monday at 5.30pm to get ourselves ready.

Here is a photo of my team, Andrea is our Coach (on the right)and Peter is our Team Manager (on the left), and the team is:

Ruth (our goalie), Meg, Ainslie, Oliver, Jordan, Will, Ronan, Tom C, Jackie, Luke, Ryan and Tom H.

I think our team is really good and that we are improving all the time, but I hope we’ll be good enough to get in the grand final that’s coming up soon. I’m going to explain about about who plays what position in our team. First off, I usually play a Right or Left Inner or maybe sometimes a Wing. My favourite positions are Centre Half Back, Wings and Inners.

Ruth is our goalie, She only just started a couple of weeks ago and she’s improving every week.

Meg plays a Half Back mostly, sometimes she plays out on the Wing but I think she’s better at defending.

Ainslie, also a defender, plays Full Back, improving every week, every now and then she gets a run out on the wing like Meg.

Oliver is usually the other Inner with me, so him and I work together on the field a lot, He is one of the very skilled players in our team. During Corners Oliver is usually the one to push out the ball and Jordan or I usually would receive it and have a shot at goal. (Mostly it is Jordan who takes the shot as he has a really powerful hit)

Jordan is a very skilled player, he plays Centre Forward usually, him Oliver and I (as we are the the most experienced players on the team) we are the ones who work together to get the goals.

Will also helps us to get the ball up to the goals, He plays different positions all the time, a Half Back, a Wing or an Inner, improving every week.

Ronan usually plays Half Back or Wing and is very useful at times when he gets the ball and passes it up to one of the forwards.

Tom C is a great Half Back. Because I play Right Inner mostly, he is like my Half Back as he is Right Half Back. If you read my post “Hockey, Hockey, Hockey” you will see that Half Backs are the ones who would take the free hits on their side (right or left), and Tom does that very well, passing the ball to me on free hits, on the sideline and during play.

Jackie is one of those players who is still learning and improving, and she’s getting better at that. The one thing she’s improved on heaps is trapping the ball. She plays Wing mostly.

Luke, a great defender, in Centre Half Back he is able to put the most pressure to the opposition, I think he is the best at doing that in our team. When the opposition is coming down with the ball he just runs out straight away and attacks him/her, he doesn’t care if he gets hit in the thumb by a stick or ball, he just goes on putting pressure on the opposition.

Ryan, also a very talented player as he is only 9! Two things he’s really good at is hitting the ball and running fast with the ball, he swaps around a lot from a Half Back to a Centre Forward.

And Finally, Tom H, a really good Half Back with good defending skills, just like Luke he puts on a lot of pressure to the other team and he has some really strong hits sometimes.

Hi there, if you have read through this blog you will know about ‘U/13 Vic Country Championship Reps!!‘ and ‘A Weekend of Results!‘. That was all about the Jun/Jul Victorian Country Championships I was in for hockey. But now I going to talk to you about how I went in the August Geelong Hockey Carnival.

On Sunday the 12th of August I got up at 6.00am not really feeling that well, and that was the day I was competing in the Geelong Under 13 Hockey Carnival. All the games were held down at Stead park (that’s where I play hockey for Newtown every Saturday or Sunday morning). There were 8 different teams competing in the competition Ballarat, Eaglehawk, Geelong 1, Geelong 2 (my team), Glenelg, Mornington, West Gippsland 1 and West Gippsland 2.

The games that we played were 14 mins long, so there were no 7minute halves or anything just a 14min game. (Pretty short I reckon, but it was better than nothing.)

1. Our first game was at 8.00am and we were against the other Geelong team, Geelong 1. By the time it was 8.00 I was feeling a bit better but I still didn’t play my best. We ended up losing that game 1-0 but I was kind of expecting that result because I knew the other Geelong team’s players and I knew they were slightly better than we were.
2. The next game was at 9.15am and I was waking up more, so I felt much better playing that game. Eaglehawk were a tough team to play against, but I still got the goal for our team(a good one too). What happened was when one of my teammates had the ball at the top of the D, he hit the ball and shot for goal, the ball wasn’t going in and I was there for the ball to deflect off my stick and it just bounced into the goals! So we were celebrating about that. 1-0 was the score.
3. We played Mornington at 10.30am, and won again! 2-0.
4. Next we played West Gippsland 1 at 11.45am and the score was 1-0. We won.
5. Our 12.45pm game was a much harder game against West Gippsland 2 as it turned out to be that no-one scored. But I actually think that our team was kind of getting a bit tired by then as we had more opportunity at goal.
6. Then we had a 1.30pm game against Ballarat and still no-one scored.
7. And finally the last game at 2.15pm against Glenelg was very tense because we new we had to win this game so we would come 2nd place on the ladder (the other Geelong team won all their matches). Since we were just getting so tired we unfortunately drew 0-0, but we had way more chances at goals than them. One of our teammates even got a yellow card for a minor offence.

The final result was: I think we played very well, got a bit tired in the end but we did good enough to come equal 2^nd on the ladder.

I think I will just stick to playing hockey when I actually feel healthy…not when I’m sick! It’s not really much fun playing out in the cold with a cold!

It was another one of those good experiences to get out there and represent your association, I guess it’s just supposed to be a whole lot of fun!!

Leo

Hi there if you were wondering about some rules or facts about a game of hockey, you can read this post and the next one which will explain all about the players positions, here I will explain about how umpires get their message across to the players when he/she blows the whistle.

Some rules in the game are important to know about, because if an umpire blows the whistle and is showing signals with their hands, you would need to know what they mean. Here are some ways the umpire might point with his/her hand. (By the way these photo’s are of me.)

• This one is what they call 16 yards, it is when an attacker shoots for goals but it misses and goes out and doesn’t hit anyone else’s stick. The defending team then takes the ball up to the top of the D and it’s their free hit. Also 16 yard frees are taken if one of the defenders wins a free inside the D.

      

• This one is just a normal free hit that isn’t inside one of the two D’s on the field, the free hit is to the team that is going the way the umpire is pointing with his/her hand. Most ways to get a free hit is:                                     

Say if I had the ball and someone on the opposing team came up from behind me and reached over with their stick to tackle me from behind it would be my free hit,

Another way is if I had the ball and a player came to tackle me I could trick them and push the ball onto their foot, because if the ball hits your foot then it’s a free against you,

One of the other simple rules is the ball cannot hit the back of you stick or the round part of your stick, only the front, flat bit or it’s a free against you,

If someone hit the ball high in the air and it does or it’s pretty close to hitting someone then it’s the other team’s free hit,

‘Obstruction’ is a word you would here a lot from an umpire, it can mean a lot of things: if someone came up to try and tackle me and their stick clashed with mine it would be my free. It can also mean: when I’ve got the ball and a player comes to attack me, if I turned my back to him/her and bumped him/her out of the way then it would be their free hit because I am stopping them from getting to the ball, so that’s also ‘Obstruction’. The final one I can think of now is ‘3rd man obstruction’, which is exactly the same as ’shepherding’ in footy except it’s not allowed.

Umpires would definitely blow their whistle if a player came up to me if I had the ball and they started chopping and whacking their stick onto mine to try and get the ball, umpires would call that for dangerous play, also if someone fell to the ground and played while they were on the ground it would be a free against them for dangerous play.

      

• Now to move onto something else, this one is a bit obvious, when the ball goes out of bounds it’s obviously the opposition’s free. This is one of the umpires decisions that they don’t have to blow the whistle for unless only the umpire sees that it is out. The umpire can only say that it’s out of bounds on one of the sidelines, if the ball goes out on one of the back-lines (the boundary line where the goals are), then it’s either a Short corner or a Long corner.

•  I know your probably wondering ‘what on earth is Leo doing here?’ Well it’s just something umpires do before before a match, they blow there whistle and hold up 2 fingers to indicate that there is two minutes before the game starts.

• This one is just a long corner, and if you go to mind map 4 you will see the long corner bit of writing , you can read it to see what they are about.

• Also we have short corners, again go to mind map 4 and read them to see what they are.

•  As there are two umpires all the time in one game of hockey (one on one half and one on the other and they would usually stay running along the sideline), what happens when a corner is being played down on the end where one umpire is, the other umpire stays on the half-way line and sticks his/her hand up. What that means is he/she is waiting for the remaining defenders to run up to the half-way line. If you read mind map 4 you will See that only 5 defenders can be involved in a corner.

• Now I have a goal signal, you do the same things with your hands when you do a short corner except you turn and point the opposite direction. Because for short coners you point directly at the closest goals, but for a goal you do the opposite. And I think it’s pretty obvious how a goal is scored, when the ball goes over the line! Although there is a trick to getting goals, you can only score a goal from inside the D So if I had a shot for goals outside the D, it went in without hitting any one’s stick it would be a 16 yard hit, if it went in but only hit a defenders stick (or goalie) then it would be a long corner, but if it went in and came off one (or more) of my teammates stick then it would be a goal! Oh by the way there is no such thing as ‘touch’ in hockey as there is in footy!

Well there you have it, there were all the signals an umpire uses that I can think of now! So now you won’t have any problems with understanding what the signals mean… I hope.

Leo

Hi there, as you know I’m doing my passion project on grass hockey, and I have just thought, for those who do not know much about hockey, that I will write about all the players positions. Usually each team has 10 or 11 players on the field and a goalie. Sometimes teams like to have 3 Full Backs or/and 3 Half Backs if they have lots of players. Here are the main positions:

DEFENDERS

• The Goalie obviously stays in the goals all the time, they can run out if they wanted to stop the ball. They can use any part of their body to stop the ball because they are all padded up with really thick shin pads and everything, they always hold in their right hand a stick and their left hand is just covered up.

• Left Full Backs and
• Right Full Backs take their teams free hits inside their defending D(16 yrds), sometimes if the goalie runs out to attack and maybe falls over or something and doesn’t have time to run back into the goals, it would be the full backs’ job to run back and be ready in front of the goals to cover the goalie.

• Left Half Backs and
• Right Half Backs are like the goalies shields or bodyguards, they try and stop the ball from getting to the goalkeeper, they also might help with the full backs to defend, that’s their job as a defender. As an attacker they take the free hits that are on their defending half (half backs) and they would usually pass it to one of the Inners or Wings. Also they take the Long Corners.

• Centre Half Backs would usually receive the pass back from the centre at the start of a half or when a goal has been scored, they sometimes might want to support their Full Backs if it’s necessary. Every time their team gets a free hit in the centre of the field, the Centre Half Back would take it so he/she gives the forwards a chance to run up and give him/her someone to pass to (the should pass it wide to a Wing or Inner). they need to also prevent centre field attack from the opposing team, because it otherwise gets to crowded.

FORWARDS  

• Left Wing and
• Right Wing are mainly forwards and shoot goals, but when it’s a free hit to the opposing team in the Wings’ area, they would be ready for anything, they would get down low with their stick on the ground and eyes on the ball if the opposing team would hit it, but if they pushes it to one of their teammates, the wing would come in and attack straight away. Wings work with the inners and the Centre Forward during their play of the ball to try and get a goal or work a free hit or Corner.

• Left Inside and
• Right Inside are usually called ‘inners’ for short. They have a similar role to the Wings, they work with with forward to shoot goals. Something that no other positions would do is that they can switch sides if they wanted to, or if one inner finds that the other is leaving a gap then that inner would cover for the other inner. The Inners do the same as the Wings when it’s their opposing teams free hit, except if the free hit is more in the centre of the field then they would mark opposing inside left/right immediately.

• Centre Forward is the main forward and attacker, basically like Midfielder in soccer but plays more centre. Centre forwards do a lot of running because 1. the field is big and 2. that’s their job! Of course they are the ones who would try and get most of the goals, they are usually working with the Centre Half, Inners and Wings a lot of the time. The Centre Forward would work out who is taking the Short Corners and who will receive it. The Centre Forwards in defence don’t do much but they still need to mark a player.

Well their you have all the players positions, I hope that has helped you a bit to understand how the positions work. Cya, Leo

Well, Since I made it into the Geelong team, (I suggest that you read ’U/13 Vic Country Championship Reps!!‘before reading this) we went up to Melbourne for pretty much the whole of last weekend(30th  June & 1st July). On Saturday we had to wake up at 6.00am. I didn’t really mind getting up so early to play 5 games, it was worth it but the only thing I didn’t like was how the games only went for 28 mins each (14 min halves). The first game was at 8.30am in Hawthorn and we played against Glenelg. We won easily 4-1. The next game wasn’t until 2.00pm so we went shopping and went to McDonald’s. Then we had to drive to Essendon for the next four games, the 2.00 game we won against Goulburn Valley 3-1. Then at 3.30 we had an easy game against Central Victoria we won again 8-1. The next game was a more challenging game as it turned out to be a draw against Albury team2. But then at 6.30 our last game on Saturday which was another tough game, I think we started to get a bit tired we lost 1-0 against Albury team1. Sunday we had a game at 8.00am in Hawthorn again, this game was the last game unless we played well and got into the grand final. But as we drew against Wimmera we didn’t know, then our team manager came over to us and said we were in the grand final at 2.30 against Albury team1 again. But unfortunately we lost 1-0 but it was a close game and at least we had made it to come 2nd as the team got a medal each. 

                            

Overall I was proud of the results and I think that it was a fun experience for me, and I’m looking forward to the next carnival in August that I am competing in!

For the past two Mondays I along with alot of other hockey players in Geelong (that’s Newtown, Saints, Geelong, Deakin, Christian College ect.) have been going to try-outs for a team in the U/13 Victorian Country Championship Squad to Represent Geelong. The first try-out, there were four groups on four different tasks. The first one I was in was just dribbling the ball into the “D” and shooting at the goal keeper. The second one was just hitting the ball to people in a shape of a diamond. The third one, there was two lines of about four people each, the people in the front of each line where facing each other, one of them had a ball had to dribble it up to the middle and then pass it to the person in the front of the other line so they could do the same. The last one we just had to dribble the ball in and out of a row of cones (Indian Dribble). We did all that while there were five people with clipboards and they were judging us on how well we did so they could chose who gets into the team. The second week we just played a game of normal hockey and that was when they told us who got into the team. I was so happy to hear that I had made it!

So now, me and the team are going to play on the weekend out a Melbourne, Saturday our first game is at 8.30am then we have 5 more games after that! On Sunday we have a game in the morning and if we make it to the finals we play at 5.00. Well it’s going to be one big weekend for me! Wish me luck, Bye.

Hi there, three posts below you will see “A message to all umpires” I suggest you read that before reading this, otherwise you won’t know what I am talking about. So what happened last weekend 23/6/07 on Saturday morning, I umpired my first U/11 game of Hockey. It was much more fun than U/10’s, because U/11’s are more skilled and spread out on the field more so it’s easier to see the ball and to see what’s going on. It is also more fun to watch because sometimes one of the players would run down with the ball and almost shoot a goal. Anyway after Harry (he was the other kid umpiring with me because a game needs two umpires,) and I finished the game we got told to go and write down our signatures because all umpires do that and something that I didn’t expect, they gave me 5 dollars!

     

 So then I thought. ‘Well there is another U/11 game coming up in 1/2 an hour, so I think I will do that!’ So from now on every Saturday morning I am going to umpire two U/11 games of hockey and earn myself $10 each time!! ( I got myseft a proper job now!!)

Cya.

Hi this is the fourth mind map I have done.

Now you will be able to see all the things I have added on since my first Mind Map.

 

Hi, here I have my third mind map! Click on it to see the changes I’ve made.

To umpire a game of hockey can be very hard sometimes, especially for U/10 games. That’s what I do. I umpire an U/10 game of hockey every week with Dad. He’s more experienced than I am at umpiring, he does it all the time for different age groups. Some of the bad things about umpiring U/10’s are:

Basically I stared playing Minkey when I was about 7 or 8 yrs old, dad got me (and my brother) into it because dad plays hockey as well and he is a very good player. Ok so what’s ‘Minkey’? Everyone asks me, well it’s like mini hockey for little ones 9 yrs or younger and all you really do is get taught how to play and have lot’s of fun. It’s just instead of having to do U/5’s or U/7s or U/9’s. So anyway one or two seasons of Minkey and I liked it so I went on to U/10’s then U/11’s and now I am currently playing in U/13’s and I am getting better and better every year.(Oh by the way the age groups order is: Minkey, U/10, U/11, U/13, U/15, U/17, U/21 then seniors hockey(for adults.))