Friday 7 November
By Elly Pugh
With a hard and fast ball whizzing around the field, ferocious women running you down and only a wooden stick to defend yourself, women’s hockey at the Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games can only be described with one word; fierce.
This is certainly no news to Tweed Hot Shots player Julie Chapman, who suffered an unfortunate ankle injury in yesterday’s match.
“I shot over to steal the ball and my foot stayed behind,” she said.
“The doctors couldn’t really tell me anything because of the swelling.”
Though this is perhaps her worst injury of her 40 year history with the sport, it is not her first.
“I’ve got dents all up my shins, but you play through the pain,” said the hardened hockey warrior.
“That’s the way of the game though, you can’t compete if you’re tentative or scared, you have to be tough.”
The sacrifice was not in vein however, with the Hot Shots securing a place in the finals, although Julie is disappointed that her position will now be off the field, in the dugout.
“I should try to play though, if anyone hits me in the ankle I won’t even feel it, plaster is better than any shin guard,” she laughed.
Women are often seen taking tumbles on the turf and injuries of all sorts are common in the ruthless sport, keeping medic Neil McCoy on his toes.
“We get a lot of twisted ankles, fractured fingers and bruising, it’s mainly the legs, their legs that get a beating,” Neil said.
“They’re definitely tough ladies though; they all take a few knocks.
“I had one woman from Papua New Guinea have the ball hit her right in the clavicle, and she didn’t even blink an eye.”
The iron hockey maidens are the Games toughest, with Neil saying that the women are more hardened than the men.
“The women seem to take it a lot better, they’re not quite as high maintenance as some of the gents,” he said.
The new system was born here and filagra this is not anything that we would like to see. Caverta although better in some elements but not important for us.
