Hockey is plunging into deeper waters

Hockey is plunging into deeper waters
Rachel Stokes

Razor sharp skates, a cold arena and men checking each other violently into the boards define hockey, right?

Wrong. Think again.

Now think swimsuits, snorkels, fins and astounding lung capacity.

“Think hockey without the ice,” states the New York Underwater Hockey website.

That’s right. Hockey is plunging into deeper waters.

Underwater hockey is a relatively new sport, where players struggle for a weighted puck while submerged under as much as 10 feet of water. Ice hockey players brandish extremely long sticks, but their underwater counterparts handle a much smaller tool. In order to manipulate the three-pound puck, underwater players employ a wooden stick that is typically no bigger than 12 inches.

Along with the stick, an underwater hockey player’s essential equipment includes a mask, rubber fins and a snorkel.

“You wear the fins to help you go up and down,” says Maki Inada, an assistant professor at Ithaca College and avid underwater hockey player. “And you wear snorkel gear so that when you’re at the surface you can still breathe but still watch the play that’s going on at the bottom,” Inada says.

The objective of the game is essentially the same as ice hockey. Each team strives to accumulate more goals than their opposition. A team scores by guiding the heavy puck into the opposing team’s goal. However, these pucks will never find their way into a submerged net.

“If you’re a poor man’s team you have little PVC tubing that just sort of marks off the goal,” Inada says jokingly. Regulated and tournament game-play is more intensive, however. “The regulation goal is a metal trough and you have to get the puck into the trough,” she says.

Six players are in the water for each team at any given time, but there are no goaltenders to keep watch over the goal.

“There’s no goalie, because no one can stay down,” says Inada. “There’s usually three forwards and three backs that rotate through, defending the goal,” Inada says.

Teamwork is the most essential part of an underwater hockey game, and also one of the most rewarding, according to Inada. “The thing that I really love about underwater hockey is that it’s a team sport,” she says.

“Success– putting the puck in the goal trough at the bottom of each end wall — this ultimately depends on teamwork, since no one can hold her breath forever,” the USA Underwater Hockey website states.

Inada echoes this sentiment, saying, “You have to be able to communicate with your teammates and pass [the puck] off to them, and get the passing communication going even underwater.” She says that this aspect is very challenging but also says, “I just find it really fun.”

Underwater hockey provides an outlet for myriad people to excel yet still have a good time. The New York Underwater Hockey website says that any person is welcome to play on one of their co-ed teams, regardless of their experience. Inada also emphasizes that almost anyone can play underwater hockey.

“It’s targeted to anybody; young, old, big small,” Inada says. She says that it’s nearly impossible to tell who would be successful in the sport, and almost prophetically adds, “The water equalizes all kinds of things.”

Even so, it takes practice to thrive at underwater hockey. There are numerous drills that teams use during their intense practices. These drills work not only to help with swimming and submerging, but also condition the players’ lungs. To make things more interesting, each drill’s name is an acronym that refers to the way the player completes it.

“We call them BOGDATs, which is an acronym for ‘Breathe Once, Go Down And Touch,’” Inada explains. She also says that the team swims lengths as, “HUHOs and HOHUs, which are half under [the water] and half over, or half over and half under.”

These athletes also practice to perfect their puck handling. According to Inada, one important move is referred to as a flick. With this technique the player propels the puck up to five feet by forcing it up and off of the bottom of the pool.

“You rotate the puck up on its end,” Inada says. “Basically it gets air and can now fly much further,” Inada explains.

Underwater hockey has only been around since the 1950s, according to Inada. She says that the sport is growing in popularity, but many people are still unaware of its existence.

“Most people have never heard of it,” Inada says. “You can kind of test if people are paying attention to your conversation if you say, ‘Oh yeah, I play underwater hockey,’ if they don’t respond to that you know they’re not paying attention. But if they’re like ‘What!?’ then you know that they were paying attention.”

The following for underwater hockey in the area is growing, due in large part to Inada’s work with New York Underwater Hockey. The team practices twice a week in Cornell’s Teagle Pool, and always welcomes interested players.