Hockey: American skipper's just part of a whole

American captain Lauren Crandall (foreground) with striker Katie O'Donnell (top) and midfielder Michelle Vittese, after training at the Unison Hockey Stadium, Hastings, yesterday. Photo / Duncan Brown

Every so often those who assume the mantle of captaincy also need to remind themselves why they are there and what is their part in the whole.

"As a captain, I wear an armband and flip a coin," says United States women's hockey team skipper, Lauren Crandall, after training in Hastings.

"We're not a mono-only captained team. We have pop-up captains within the team so we're full of leaders," says Crandall, whose team will compete in the international eight-nation Hawke's Bay Cup tournament, which starts on Saturday and is the premier draw card of the 13-day annual HB Festival of Hockey.

"Sometimes I need to be a follower and other times I need to lead so we share that responsibility," says the 31-year-old, who believes it is a sense of individual accountability that drives her troops.

Crandall appreciates every team she has been involved with has had a common goal but to talk about it and turn it into a vision is another thing.

"Every day when you walk on to the field you know where your goal is and your creative individual plan of how you're going to achieve that."

Defenders and forwards' individual goals differ but the sum of those intentions tends to ensure there is a collective gain, putting them under one umbrella.

"We talk about how we want to achieve that vision and that's kind of how we build our culture of hard work and just determination ... because you know everyone else in the world is doing the same thing."

The youngest US player here is 23 and the oldest 30, but in their squad at home the youngest is 20.

Building a rapport with individuals from myriad backgrounds is essential.

"I don't want to be part of a team that there is a certain cookie-cutter personality where somebody can't be themselves because somebody else doesn't want them to be themselves.

"A team can succeed when you can appreciate everyone for how special their personality is and people can embrace that to lift one another up."

Crandall, a fulltime member of the US team who works part-time as an employee of a rubber floor manufacturing company in Pennsylvania, emphasises there are boundaries within the team culture that offer a purposeful way of using them.

Becoming vocal for the sake of it is rendered useless.

"One day I may be more vocal than somebody else but if somebody who is really quiet is vocal one day it has that much more impact because it's purposefully needed."

The Americans, who play Australia at 3.30pm on Saturday after the China v India game at 1.30pm to signal the start of their campaign, bring a fast-paced physical game to the nine-day tourney in their maiden outing.

"We're trying to develop our own brand and find our strength as a team, which I think is speed and being able to move up and down the field very quickly," she says of a side that has rocketed to a world ranking No5 coming here.

Crandall feels the seven other nations - defending champions Argentina, Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand - are bringing different styles of play that will require them to be versatile in approaching and overcoming Asian, Pan-American and Australasian challenges.

"To be able to come to the hockey festival to pack a little bit of everything is great training and development for our team.

Crandall, who hails from a sporty family, took up field hockey when she was 13 at middle school.

Having moved with her parents, Tim and Amy Crandall, and siblings Shane (basketball), Lindsey (soccer) and Kailey (volleyball), she wanted to play "the beautiful game" but the school had no vacancies in the squad.

"I was looking for another sport to play so my parents said go for hockey.

"I don't know how they did it but they drove me and my siblings everywhere we wanted to go." The exciting thing about the US, she says, is that people have myriad codes to choose from with all boasting elite sportspeople.

"I always wanted to play soccer but field hockey I learned later in life so I developed a love for it because it was different and new."

Ironically it was the similarities between soccer and hockey that made the transition easier.

"I actually learned the rules of hockey two years after I started playing because to me, tactically, it's the same as soccer." However, the confinements of hockey make it more difficult because, unlike soccer, you can't just kick a "long ball" although the sport of sticks does have "the aerial".

"You have to create a lot more as a team in small unit play in field hockey."

Pennsylvania is in many respects the cradle of hockey civilisation in the US but she likes to think the sport is finding more traction outside the northeast region where 22 of the national reps are residents from the 30-member squad.

"It's not so much in the south of the United States, and in the Midwest we have a little bit, but there's a big gap from the Midwest and California, essentially in the West Coast, that play."

She thought she had a future in hockey while attending Wake Forest University, in North Carolina.

"The year after I committed they won a championship so that's when I realised they were really good and if they wanted me then I must be doing something right."

The Americans love New Zealand, finding it welcoming and offering a "small-town feel".

"We've come from our winter so the No1 thing is the weather because we haven't seen sun for a long time," she says, before stressing prospering on the tier-one Unison Hockey Stadium turf is no doubt the bigger picture.