“The Road to Gold”

Eastern Southland Hockey

 Not since 1976 have New Zealand tasted the sweet success of Olympic Hockey Glory.  The way hockey is tracking in New Zealand gives us all hope that it won’t be the last.  With both the Mens and Womens National teams earning Commonwealth Medals, Bronze and Silver respectively, the excitement about future success grows. 

With two spots available for Oceania teams in both competitions, these sides are all but guaranteed another shot at Olympic Glory and one that they aim to take. With the success and growing excitement in the National teams comes the flow on effect to schools and associations.  Growing numbers and growing support has seen facility upgrades and full builds happening all over the country. 

A bumper season has seen TigerTurf NZ install 7 surfaces during 2010-11, stretching from North Harbour to Christchurch, with an 8th being installed in India.  Our ability to manufacture specifically for individual projects and to meet install times and within budget have continued to keep us at the forefront of hockey in New Zealand.  Our quick response times and local support is key to looking after our valued customers. 

2010-11 Summer season saw all three of our Hockey installation teams put to work with a busy schedule of installs.  With 4 surface replacements (Waikato, North harbour, Auckland, Wellington), 2 surface upgrades (Greymouth, Stratford) and 2 full build projects (Counties, Nunweek) our teams were constantly on the go.  With new water based facilities becoming available to areas such as Greymouth and Taranaki we have already heard that the excitement and interest in hockey has grown swiftly.  Such facility developments will hugely benefit the skills and developments of players both young and old. 

Our top of the line WETT surface continues to be the pick for many with 6 out of the 7 surfaces using this yarn technology.  Young players will get the opportunity to grow up playing on the same surfaces used by our international stars, and the waterbased facilities will help extend the life of a hockey player as are easier on the body than old sand turfs. 

TigerTurf’s own Blair Hopping, Business Development Manager for Hockey and current Blacksticks player, knows first hand what top class facilities have done to develop hockey.  “The young players coming through the system today have developed some amazing skills, skills that i couldn’t have dreamed of performing on some of the old surfaces.  It is these skills and the changing game of hockey that we as a Turf Manufacturer have to keep up with.  We constantly need to bring world class surfaces to the table to match the world class skills.” 

TigerTurf have always looked to be right on top of developments in hockey and by having staff members such as Blair Hopping, and previously 200 test veteran Darren Smith, we have done so very successfully.  Success that we now bring to the associations and schools of New Zealand.  The future is bright and the return to Olympic success is once again a prospect for the Blacksticks squads.  Lets make sure we continue to get behind all our teams and drive them on down the “Road to gold”.