Tauranga Womens Indoor Hockey Team

Our Tauranga Women's Indoor Team; the first in many years; competed at the NZ Indoors held in Auckland in December 2024. Each and every game, saw this young team improve in skill, team play and speed. Indoors is another exciting pathway for our players.

The team finished 5th out of 8 teams in the Senior Women's division. Superb result!

The Team: 

Photo back row L to R

Ruth Tuiraviravi (Manager), Laura Nilson, Imogen Aulding, Anna Edmeades, Nikayla Bradley, Kelly Hudson (Coach)

Photo front row L to R

Maddie Smith (GK), Georgia Browne, Kayli Tuiraviravi, Taylah Carter, Rachel Hudson ​​​​​​​

Selection Process and Criteria

All representatives will actively exhibit the Tauranga Hockey values – Respect, Integrity, Inclusion.

Indoor Hockey is a fast paced, high intensity, skillful, whole-team game. Tauranga Hockey is excited to support a women’s team in 2024 to National Open Tournament, the first representative indoor team in recent times.

The Tauranga Hockey Indoor programme has an emphasis on the collaborative development of all participants (players, coaches, officials). The 2024 indoor campaign will focus on consolidating basic skills, developing sound indoor hockey rules awareness, and acquiring foundational tactical concepts, in a positive, thriving, participant-centered environment. Participants will need to understand all on-court positions.

A key contributing factor to the success of this campaign will be the positive connection of the group, so individual participant character and values plays an important part in the make-up of the team as a whole.

Players for this campaign must be age 18 and over*

The selected squad will contain the best group of players for the team.

Selectors are not limited to, but should consider the following factors in their assessment:

Attitude:                                  

• Engagement with team and officials, reaction to errors (self & others), body language

Team/Squad Orientation:   

• Interaction with team, connection on & off the court, personal responsibility, honesty, openness, respect

Communication:                  

• Providing/receiving direction to/from teammates, listening, responding to communication, body language

Potential to Improve:            

• Willingness to learn, peer support, self-correction throughout a game/tournament

Competitive Ability:              

• Engagement in contests, reactions to turnovers, response to pressure situations

Physical Capabilities:           

• High levels of effort

Tactical Nous:                        

• Positional play, reading the game, decision making, understanding of team structures

Technical Competencies:   

• Core basic skills, passing connections, set piece skills, elimination skills, defensive skills

Additional considerations:

• Tournament spaces may be offered to those who have not had a tournament opportunity in 2024.
• *Spaces may be held for guest player/s or players with Indoor Hockey knowledge/experience - this is with the view to broaden the uptake of indoor specific skill acquisition and enhance the ability for practical tactical implementation. 
• *Special dispensation may be granted on a case by case basis

Equipment

Indoor hockey can be played with outdoor sticks, there is no requirement for new sticks to be purchased, however, both specialist hockey stores in NZ carry limited indoor brands that you can try.

The main difference with an indoor hockey stick is weight, as you aren't able to hit the ball in indoor, so the sticks are thinner much lighter.

An indoor hockey ball is also a little lighter than outdoor, and has no dimples. 

Many players choose to wear a protective glove on their left hand, as the game is often played with the stick low and parallel to the ground.

Rules

The main differences between indoor and outdoor hockey:

Indoor

6 a-side including GK

Unlimited substitutions (often multiple players at a time)

3 GK substitutions allowed per game

9m shooting circle

Smaller field and slightly smaller goal than outdoor

3m defensive distance from a free push / travelling into circle

Push passing only (no hit, sweep, flick, scoop, tomahawk), shots at goal can be raised (flicked), with danger rule applying at all times

Players aren't able to push the ball directly into an opponent (this is dangerous and referred to as 'drilling'

Players aren't allowed to have four points touching the ground; for example, two feet and a hand on the stick is ok, but, two feet a stick and a knee is not ok

Players aren't allowed to 'trap' or block a player against the boarded sidelines, or along the backline, and must allow an 'out', a sticks-length space for the ball to be passed through safely, without it being allowed to be intercepted