This winter sport season Hockey Manawatu has seen a new club enter the women's club competition. It has been over 20 years since Bush has entered a women's team.
The community has supported the start-up of this club, with the Waireka Community Trust sponsoring the teams uniforms, goalie gear, andteam supplies. We are extremely grateful for the large donation they made to support our dreams of getting a senior hockey team entered into the Manawatu competition.
It is great to see many community members getting back into the sport - despite many of the women having not played since high school, they are raring to go for the season ahead.
The team is playing in the women's premier competition after Covid-19 resulted in the premier and premier reserve grades being combined. There is a total of 13 teams entered this season, fighting to win the premier and premier reserve trophies.
The season hit off on Saturday, June 20 and is set to wrap up in the middle weekend of October. This season the team is coached by Aaron Inwood, a premier men's player, who has had experience coaching age-group representative teams, we are grateful to have him on board.
The team has started off well. The first game was against College A, a premier women's team, we got the first goal in but came off second-best with a 5-1 loss. Our second game was a tough fight against Massey Premier Reserves, whom a third of the Bush team played for last season. We came out on top after dominating the pitch and taking our first win, 2-0.
The Bush team is looking forward to their only home game this season down at Bush Multisport Complex on Saturday, July 11 at 2.30pm against Feilding Women's. It would be great to see the community down there showing their support.
We are grateful to the community for allowing our dreams to be a reality. Watch this space as we hope to continue to grow senior hockey for our community.
