Underwater hockey
Underwater hockey, also known as Octopush in the United Kingdom, is a limited-contact sport in which two teams compete to manoeuvre a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool into the opposing team's goal by propelling it with a hockey stick.
A key challenge of the game is that breathing devices such as scuba gear cannot be used during play. Participants must hold their breath when completely submerged. The game originated in Portsmouth, England in 1954 when Alan Blake, a founder of the newly formed Southsea Sub-Aqua Club, invented the game he called Octopush as a means of keeping the club's members interested and active over the cold winter months when open-water diving lost its appeal. Underwater hockey is now played worldwide, with the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques, abbreviated CMAS, as the world governing body. The first Underwater Hockey World Championship was held in Canada in 1980.
History
Originally called "Octopush", the original rules called for teams of eight players, a bat reminiscent of a tiny shuffleboard stick called a "pusher", an uncoated lead puck called a "squid", and a goal known at first as a "cuttle" but soon thereafter a "gulley". Apart from 'pusher' and to a lesser extent 'Octopush' much of this original terminology is now consigned to history.Underwater hockey was started in the United Kingdom by Alan Blake in 1954. Blake was a founder-member of the newly formed Southsea Sub-Aqua Club, he and other divers including John Ventham, Jack Willis, and Frank Lilleker first played this game in the Guildhall Baths in Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
The first rules were tested in a 1954 two-on-two game and Alan Blake made the following announcement in the November 1954 issue of the British Sub-Aqua Club's then-official magazine Neptune: "Our indoor training programme is getting under way, including wet activities other than in baths, and our new underwater game "Octopush". Of which more later when we have worked out the details".
The first Octopush competition was a three-way tournament between teams from Southsea, Bournemouth, and Brighton underwater hockey clubs in early 1955. Southsea won then, and they are still highly ranked at national level today winning 20 out of 52 national championships.
The sport spread to Durban, South Africa in the mid/late 1950s, thanks to the spearfishermen of the Durban Undersea Club, when dirty summer seas prevented the young bloods from getting their weekly exercise and excitement. The first games were played in the pool of club member Max Doveton. However it soon became so popular that weekly contests were held in a municipal pool. The UK's Octopush used a small paddle to push the puck whilst the South Africans used a mini hockey stick. Whilst the "long stick" version of underwater hockey did spread outside of South Africa, the UK's 'short stick' version ultimately prevailed and is how UWH is universally played now.
In the Americas, the game first came to Canada in 1962 via Norm Leibeck, an unconventional Australian scuba diving instructor and dive shop owner, who introduced the sport to a Vancouver dive club. Ten years later, the Underwater Hockey Association of British Columbia was formed and received support from the BC government.
Underwater hockey has been played in Australia since 1966, again because of Norm Leibeck, the same Australian who returned from Canada with his Canadian bride Marlene, and it now attracts players from a wide range of backgrounds there. The first Australian Underwater Hockey Championships were held in Margaret River, Western Australia in 1975. A Women's division was added to the championships in 1981 and a Junior division commenced in 1990.
In Asia, the game first came to the Philippines in the late 1970s through growing awareness of Octopush within the scuba diving community.
Footage from British Pathe of an early game at Aldershot Lido in 1967, and from British Sub-Aqua Club archives, is evidence of the evolution of the sport in terms of equipment and playing style. It can be seen that the game was much slower and the puck was not flicked at all, in contrast to the modern sport where the substantial changes in equipment, team size, and other factors have helped make the game the international sport it is today, with 68 teams from 19 countries competing at the 18th World Championship in 2013 at Eger in Hungary making this the pinnacle in terms of international competition to date.
Geography
| Country | First Played | Article | Body | National Team |
 Great Britainefn|name="NI"|Underwater hockey is organised on an all-Ireland basis, therefore information about the sport in Northern Ireland is grouped with the Republic of Ireland.PlayTwo teams of up to ten players compete, with six players in each team in play at any one time. The remaining four players are continually substituted into play from a substitution area, which may be either on deck or in the water outside the playing area.Before the start of play the puck is placed in the centre of the pool, and the players wait in the water whilst touching the wall above the goal they are defending. At the start-of-play signal members of both teams are free to swim anywhere in the play area and try to score by manoeuvring the puck into the opponents' goal using only their stick. Players hold their breath as they dive to the bottom of the pool. Play continues until either a goal is scored, when players return to their wall to start a new point, or a break in play is signalled by a referee. Games consist of two halves of fifteen minutes with a three-minute half-time, with teams switching ends at the end of the first half. Timing of games can vary by competition due to a number of reasons, most commonly organisational logistics; however, tier tournaments tend not to see any variation. Unlike most other sports, formations are read from front to back instead of back to front: The typical playing formation is 3-3 consisting of three forwards and three backs. Other common formations include 2-3-1, 1-3-2, and 2-2-2. Formations are generally very fluid and are constantly evolving with different national teams being proponents of particular tweaks in formations. One example of this is New Zealand with their "box formation". During the game, each team gets unlimited rolling substitution with the four players in their sub box. Substitution strategy is imperative in underwater hockey as errors might result in a foul i.e. too many players in the play area at one time or a tactical blunder. There are a number of penalties described in the official underwater hockey rules, ranging from the use of the stick against something other than the puck, playing or stopping the puck with something other than the stick, and "blocking". If the penalty is minor, referees award an advantage puck: the team that committed the foul is pushed back from the puck, while the other team gets free possession. For major penalties such as a dangerous pass or intentional or repeated fouls, the referees may eject players for a specified period of time or for the remainder of the game, or even - in the case of very serious or deliberate fouls - for the remainder of a tournament. A defender committing a serious foul sufficiently close to his own goal may be penalised by the award of a penalty shot or even a penalty goal awarded to the fouled player's team. Often players who are most successful in this game are strong swimmers, have a great ability to hold and recover their breath, and are able to produce great speed underwater while demonstrating learned skills in puck control. It is also important that they are able to work well with their team members and take full advantage of their individual skills. Variations of play4-a-side4-a-side underwater hockey is when there is four people per team playing at a given time. The teams usually consist of up to eight players with four subs. 4-a-side competitions are less common, though notable examples are the Hamilton 4-asides, Dunedin 4's, and the BOA 4s.ClassificationThere have been debates throughout the sport's history on its classification as either a breath-control sports or an extreme-apnoea sport. Though a 2023 study on submersion times in matches ranging from club friendlies to national championship matches found that the average player's submersion time was 12.1 seconds when in possession of the puck and 9.3 when without the puck, thus falling short of the 45 second breath hold requirement for clarification as an extreme-apnoea sport.EquipmentPlayers wear a diving mask, snorkel and fins, and carry in one hand a short stick or pusher for playing the puck. A full list of equipment is given below:SwimwearThere are usually no restrictions on swimwear, however baggy trunks or shorts are not recommended as they reduce speed and increase drag in the water. Typical swimwear is swim briefs or jammers for male players and athletic style racerback two-piece swimsuits with drawstring bottoms or one-piece swimsuits for female players. Additionally, wetsuits are not allowed according to Rule 3.3.8 of the CMAS International Rules for Underwater Hockey, Eleventh Edition.MaskA diving mask is used for several reasons:
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