Canadian national team and UBC varsity field hockey player Hannah Haughn discusses balance, toughness, and a growing game.
“It’s crazy. I don’t sleep very much.” Between studying and playing for both the UBC varsity field hockey team and the Canadian National team, Hannah Haughn doesn’t have a lot of time to just chill out. “It’s really hard, it is, but I love it. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t.” With balance comes organization: “The good thing about being super busy is that it makes you prioritize, school-wise, and plan. So you kind of just do the most necessary things – what’s due the next day and stuff.”
The UBC varsity team is arguably the best team on campus – last weekend they took home the title of Canada West champions for the 25th time in team history. But, Hannah says, their consistent success doesn’t seem enough to draw in the crowds: “We don’t get that many people – a lot of them are personal friends. We don’t get fans out, per se. And I think the problem with that is that it’s an outdoor sport. I mean first of all, the weather is unpredictable – if it’s pouring rain, who wants to go stand in the rain and watch some team play? And the second thing is that because it’s an outdoor sport you can’t charge people money, and therefore it’s less marketed as a sport on campus because with some other sports you can go and it’s inside and Blue Crew is there, whereas Blue Crew doesn’t really cover our games. It’s something that we’ve been trying to change and obviously Facebook and social media has helped that.”
On top of this, field hockey is a sport that most people only have a vague understanding of. The West Vancouver Field Hockey Club, through which Hannah played club field hockey throughout elementary and high school, is the largest of its kind in North America. Yet the sport remains foreign to many in Canada. I asked Hannah to attempt to sum field hockey up in just three words.”Fast-paced – I guess that’s two words – intense, and …skilled. You need a lot of skill. You have to be skilled to play, but again it’s hard to understand if you’ve never seen a game. It’s got a lot of rules. We’re trying to change it, but that’s tough.”
To some, field hockey might sound like a mix between ice hockey and soccer. But neither of those have automatic free hits, which allow the fouled player to carry the ball from the place of incident. Nor do they have short corners, which see all but four defenders sent to centre field as the attacking team circles the shooting circle (known as the D, the shooting circle is the only area on the field that one can score from. All shots fired from outside the D do not count as goals if they enter the net directly).
“Oh and you can only use one side of the stick,” Hannah adds. “And when you’re trying to compete against ice hockey – which is one of the most popular sports in the country – people just seem to see little value in learning so many new rules.”
“Also, I think that there’s a stigma against the sport already,” she continues. “You know, girls play with skirts, and all of that.” The toughness of the sport, in some eyes, seems tied to these uniforms. But field hockey players only have shin guards, a mouth guard…
” – and a concrete ball,” Hannah finishes for me. It’s actually solid plastic, which is probably just as bad as concrete when it hurtles towards you at close to 100km/h.
“It’s not for the faint hearted, that’s for sure. It can be dangerous.” She’s not kidding.
At 20, Hannah already has 62 caps with the Canadian National team at a senior level. (A cap is “an officially recorded international appearance for Team Canada” according to fieldhockey.ca). This commitment has made Hannah a well-travelled individual, but schoolwork and international tournaments do not always leave room for one another. “When I’m away I try and do as much as possible, but I mean with training and games and stuff there’s only so much you can do. You’re there to compete, so I don’t stress about it. When I get back I just get caught up as fast as I can.” The hope is that it will all be worth it, and that we’ll see our women’s field hockey team represent Canada in the Olympic games one year.
But for now, Hannah has more immediate goals to achieve. Now one of the senior members of a UBC team with nine rookies, Hannah feels confident in the team. She and her teammates hope to take home their fourth straight CIS field hockey championship in Toronto this weekend. “We leave next Tuesday and we’re one of two CanWest teams going, so UVic is going as well. It will be exciting, and it’s always nice to kind of test yourself against other teams cause we haven’t played anyone from out East yet.”
Hopefully UBC will turn the league’s first ever ‘three-peat’ championship into a four-peat. We’ll be sure to cheer them on from here in Vancouver!
If you want to watch the live stream of the 8 games this weekend, they run from Oct. 28-Nov. 2. Live the action!