Swifts

April 6, 2011

The 3rd Annual Celebration of Women in Sport was held on April 3rd, 2011 at the Pacific Institute for Sport and Excellence in Victoria, BC. The luncheon honoured a variety of women involved in sport and also featured keynote speaker Kristina Groves, a four-time Olympic medalist in long track speed skating.

This year, Krista Thompson was honoured as the 2011 Women in Sport Coach of the Year. This is a very deserving award for Krista, as she has been highly involved in coaching field hockey of a variety of levels for many years. Currently the assistant coach of the UVic Vikes field hockey program with Lynne Beecroft, Krista spends her “free time” devoted to the field hockey community.

Krista helps organize practice plans for the Victoria Junior League Association, coaches and runs two Vancouver Island Ladies league teams (Lynx I and Lynx II), organizes coaches and practice plans for the BC Schools program on the island, head coaches the U18 Island High Performance program, offers coaching to other Vancouver Island Ladies league teams – all on top of her duties with the Vikes field hockey program. To cap it all off, Krista has spent the last couple of years learning from and helping out the Senior Women’s national field hockey team and more recently has focused her attention as the Junior Women’s national team assistant coach. She returned in late March from the Junior National team’s first tour of the year to San Diego in a 4-test series against the USA where Canada was successful in 3 of the 4 games.

Krista has contributed so much time and energy into developing young athletes that this award is very deserving for her. She is a mentor to so many aspiring field hockey players and her devotion and passion to improve the sport of field hockey in Canada is truly evident. We would like to congratulate Krista on this amazing accomplishment and we look forward to her success as she continues to improve field hockey in Canada.

Photo shows Krista Thompson (center) with Lynx athletes that she has coached (From L-R): Kathleen Leahy, Annie Walters-Shumka, Sarah Keglowitsch, Maddie Secco and Jaymie Tucker. Leahy, Keglowitsch and Secco are current members of the Canadian Junior National team.

Photo credit: Kathy Gaul
Write-up: Ali Lee

Congratulations to Lynx 1 member, Kathleen Leahy, who was recently named A-Channel’s "Amazing Kids." Oak Bay High grad, future UVic Vikes Field Hockey member and most recently named Junior national Field Hockey team member, Kathleen has shown tremendous ability both in the classroom and on the field. Whether it be running, soccer, field hockey or another sport, Kathleen is constantly excelling as an athlete. She demonstrates true leadership on the field and her humble nature only adds to that. Congratulations to Kathleen and we are all expecting to see great things from her!

You can view the A-Channel news clip on Kathleen at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grYCBwspKnU

Every year several athletes are able to receive financial assistance due to a non-profit organization known as the Canadian Athletes Now Fund and this year five members of the women’s national team were chosen to each receive $6000. As individuals this money helps cover costs of team levies, travel, food and rent. Every little penny helps the team especially since this year, each athlete donated $2000 towards the team program, which gave the coach $10, 000 to plan some new tours. In order for Canada to excel on the world stage we need to gain more experience, which means traveling to play games and therefore fundraising. Each team member fundraises over $2000 per year and our resources are beginning to run dry.

The Canadian Athletes Now Fund helps supply our team with the funds we need to get moving the right direction to qualify for London 2012! On top of that, the CanFund helps many, MANY other athletes in all varieties of sport. It is for this reason that we believe donating to the CanFund will not only help each of us as individuals but also a"TEAM CANADA" as a nation-wide multi-sport team and family. Please think of the athletes this holiday season and realize that every amount truly makes a difference in our lives. We are playing with passion and pride for you as a Canadian! We want to help do you proud and this is a great way to show your support.

Donate now at : www.canadianathletesnow.com or http://goo.gl/1JRTp

Most of you will have seen these already as they have been posted on the FIH website for a few weeks now. VMFHL will start the season Sept 18 with these new rules in place for our League. (As decided at the Club Reps Board Meeting Aug 31) The Club Reps decided not to wait til Jan 1st so as to avoid rules changes mid-season.

Changes to the Rules of Hockey (for international competition with effect from 1 January 2011 with reference to the numbered Rules in the 2009 edition) are as follows:
Rule 9.15:
“players must not force an opponent into offending unintentionally”. This Rule is deleted.
Rule 13.1:
location of a free hit. This former Mandatory Experimental Rule becomes a full Rule of Hockey.
Rule 13.1.d:
“a free hit awarded inside the circle to the defence is taken anywhere inside the circle or up to 15 metres from the back-line in line with the location of the offence, parallel to the side-line”. The option of taking the free hit “anywhere inside the circle” is deleted.

Rule 13.2:
taking a free hit, centre pass and putting the ball back into play after it has been outside the field. This former Mandatory Experimental Rule becomes a full Rule of Hockey.

Rule 13.3.h:
“taking a penalty corner … until the ball has been played, no attacker other than the one taking the push or hit from the back-line is permitted to enter the circle”. When an attacker enters the circle before permitted, the penalty corner is taken again except that when attackers persistently enter the circle before permitted, a free hit is awarded to the defence. In the full printed set of Rules, the penalties which apply for an offence during the taking of a penalty corner will listed in detail.

Rule 13.9.a:
for an offence during the taking of a penalty stroke”. If the stroke is taken before the whistle has been blown and a goal is scored, it is taken again.

Rule 13.9.c:
“for an offence during the taking of a penalty stroke … for any other offence by the player defending the stroke which prevents a goal being scored”. Instead of a goal being awarded, the penalty stroke is taken again. This means that Rules 13.9.c and 13.9.d both now lead to the penalty stroke being taken again.
Any questions about the information above should be addressed to: info@worldhockey.org.

Hi everyone,

As the field hocke season draws near I would just like to take this opportunity to inform everyone of the upcoming leagues we have available for field hockey.

1. VILFHA
- The ladies league will run Sept 18, 2011-April 2011
- We are looking for new members so if you are a coach, at a school or would like to post flyers we have created an official "recruitment poster" available in the Document section on the right hand side of our website at www.vilfha.ca

2. Thursday Night Co-ed 7-a-side League
Games are at 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m UVic Contact: Chris Dahl (bartbandyshaw.ca)

3. Windsor Park Grass Hockey League (Co-Ed)
Recreational, played on grass
Runs Sept to end of November
Contact: Lorne Carnes (lornecarnes@shaw.ca)

THANKS and PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU REGISTER ONLINE WITH FIELDHOCKEYBC.COM IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE AS A COACH OR PLAYER THIS YEAR!!!