Underwater What?!

As a continuation of the road trip update, here's my chance to inform the world (or the small sliver of it that reads this blog) about the wonders of underwater hockey. We went to the Gold Coast in Queensland for the NSW Blue Rings Junior Underwater Hockey team to compete in the national championships. Before I came to Oz, I received an email from the PT I'm working with asking if I wanted to come to the championships. I told a lot of friends and family about it and laughed and made fun of Australians for it for weeks. Well, turns out the joke was on me because Americans play it as well, and practically no one in Australia has heard of it either. It was invented in the 1950s by the British Army and is sometimes known as "octopush." There are 2 teams playing with snorkels, masks and flippers on the bottom of the pool. Each player has a stick that's about 12 inches long, and the puck is weighted and slightly heavier than a hockey puck. There are buzzers that sound underwater whenever someone scores or gets a penalty. You can watch from outside the pool, but it's kind of difficult to tell what is going on. The best way to watch is to put on a mask and snorkel and get in the pool to watch underwater. I have never snorkeled before. This small tidbit of information was almost enough to make our team's coach have a heart attack, aneurysm, etc. They were all in total disbelief and thought I was kidding (most everyone here is excellent at swimming and snorkeling). After a quick lesson, during which I thought they were lying to me (I made sure I saw one of the guys spit into his mask before doing it myself), I was in the pool taking in large quantities of water. After a minute or two I figured it out and really enjoyed it! It's quite fun to watch underwater hockey, the game itself is not that different from regular hockey. The kids on the team are excellent swimmers and in really great shape. The sport is really demanding physically, so it's great to see them involved and enjoying it so much. In Tasmania, underwater hockey is played in the schools, so their teams are quite good. Our team ended up coming in 4th place. They weren't expected to make it to nationals, so they were quite happy with that. And now for a quick photo recap:

The team, including physios and coaches. They are kind of like the Bad News Bears.
The start of the game:
Half time:
"Working"
All suited up and ready to play!