Young New Zealanders experience the thrill of adapted hockey

A group of young New Zealanders with vision impairments took to the hockey turf in October to experience the thrill of adapted hockey. 

The exhilarating sport is an adapted form of traditional field hockey, played using audible balls so that players who are blind or have low vision can identify where the ball is.

​Blind Sport New Zealand Awareness and Engagement Coordinator Stephanie Brown said the hockey skills session was organised by Blind Sport New Zealand and Counties Manukau Hockey Association to promote inclusion and raise awareness of the sports on offer for people with vision impairments.

It was held at the Blind and Low Vision Education Network (BLENNZ) Homai campus in Auckland, utilising inflatable goals from Packaworld International for player safety and to make moving the goals around for different training drills easy.

“The majority of the students had not played hockey before and they all had a great time learning some new skills. For this beginners’ session we used large brightly coloured audible balls, standard hockey sticks and the fantastic Packaworld goals,” Ms Brown said. 

The success of the October hockey skills session meant Blind Sport New Zealand and Counties Manukau Hockey Association would look to run more of the events in future, she said.

“We are aiming to run regular sports sessions at the BLENNZ Homai campus. These will be for hockey and for other adapted sports as well.”

Packaworld Chief Executive Peter Roberts said he was pleased to see Packaworld gear being used to bring the joy of sport to young New Zealanders of all abilities.

“We’ve enjoyed a great relationship with the blind sport community globally through our role as a developer and supplier of full-sized portable goalball goals, inflatable futsal goals for blind football, and portable rugby posts for visually impaired rugby. 

“It’s absolutely brilliant to see our inflatable hockey goals being used in New Zealand to provide opportunities for people with vision impairments to enjoy the sports they love.”

While blind field hockey isn’t currently played internationally, there are many blind ice hockey competitions especially within North America. Adapted hockey can be enjoyed in New Zealand via specialised sports programmes, including the Counties Manukau Hockey Association’s Parastix programme. 

>> For more information about Packaworld’s inflatable hockey goals, visit the Hockey Packagoals page of our website.