Hockey: Tournament bid a well-timed decision

Hockey NZ boss Hilary Poole. Photo / Dean Purcell

Hockey NZ boss Hilary Poole is no gambler - more a "show me the money" - type but on both counts she has come up a $1 million winner in gaining hosting rights for the men's Champions Trophy tournament which hits-off at the North Harbour Hockey Stadium on Saturday.

Pitched, apparently, into a bidding war with Dubai and Malaysia to step in late to take over from supposed hosts India, Poole, as conservative as ever, took a deep breath but quickly got her sums to add up.

"Time has definitely been the challenge," said Poole. "The FIH called me in the week leading up to the NHL finals weekend and asked if we would be interested in taking over following their decision to take the tournament away from India.

"My initial reaction was one of 'you can't be serious' but when we looked at and took into account our ongoing push for a proper international calendar of which we want to be part every year, I spoke to our board and my team.

"For the High-Performance people it was a no-brainer. The chance for the Black Sticks to play a tournament like this in the lead-up to the Olympics was too good to miss. Quickly I could see we could get the stars in a line and went for it."

Poole was rung on August 5 by September 9 the agreement was signed.

"I got the feeling the FIH were glad. Ken Read, who chairs the FIH competitions committee, came over and had a look at what we were proposing and went away happy. We knew the turf had been FIH certified. The only box we couldn't tick was lighting [not up to television standard] hence the need to play daytime only."

Since then Poole has been on a virtual 24-hour roller-coaster but yesterday confirmed tickets for finals day (December 11) had all but gone - just 100 of 3000 left. For opening weekend 80 per cent have been sold while all season tickets - a snip at $145 for six days of international hockey - sold out 10 days ago. All corporate packages have been sold.

Poole is further encouraged in that 50 per cent of pre-sales have been taken by people outside Auckland.

"We are on track to make a surplus but I don't want to say that until it has happened," said Poole. "I suppose it's just me but until it is over and we have got through without any unforeseen hiccups I don't want to be over confident.

"Yes, we are in a no-loss situation before a ball has been hit and that's what we wanted. We had to be totally risk-free. That's just how we do things these days.

"We have had great support from Major Events, Auckland City, Sparc, the New Zealand Community Trust and other commercial partners including Lotto Sportswear, Ford, Juice TV, Panasonic and our naming rights supporter Owen Glenn."

In a first, FIH president, Spaniard Leandro Negre will be here during the tournament.

"We want to be on the circuit," said Poole. "What better way to show we are worthy of that."