The Northland contingent in the Blacks Sticks' trip to Hong Kong next week has doubled with the addition of Melanie Oakden to the squad.
Oakden will accompany the NZ women's hockey team to the international quadrangular tournament as the New Zealand umpire.
Oakden is new to international umpiring this season but the
appointment seems to signal that Hockey NZ sees her as something of a rising star.
Adjudicating at the tournament offers the Whangarei umpire a chance to gain further experience after she was awarded her international badge earlier this year for umpiring in the Australian-Black Sticks series.
The exotic atmosphere of China is nothing new to her after she spent two years on the Chinese mainland as a teenager when her father took up a job in Shanghai in the mid-1990s.
"I'm quite accustomed to Asian culture after attending an international school there and when my husband and I went back for a honeymoon in March, I managed to pick up the basics of the (Mandarin) language again," she said.
Because of her ease with the Chinese culture, she would be a good candidate as the Olympics are in Beijing next year _ but Oakden said she still had some distance to go in terms of international umpiring before she landed that kind of appointment.
"I'm still three or four steps away from making an Olympic list. First you get your international badge, then you have to make the most promising list, then there's another list before you get the chance to umpire at a World Cup or an Olympics," she said.
New Zealand originally wasn't going to compete in the tournament but its proximity to the Oceania Olympic Qualifying Tournament means they will use it as a warm-up tournament.
The team flies out on Tuesday, minus Oakden, who joins them after their warm-up game against Hong Kong on Friday. The Black Sticks, which now include just one current Northlander Charlotte Harrison, then play Korea, China and India.
The team then leave Hong Kong for Australia and the Oceania tournament but for Oakden that's the end of the trip.
A full season of National Hockey League appointments awaits Oakden soon after her return, with the top provincial competition starting on September 22.
