KEY POINTS:
For just about every American sports-loving male, hockey means just one thing - ice hockey.
Up there with baseball, American football and basketball, ice hockey is one of the sports in the United States.
Field hockey hardly registers as a blip on the sporting radar.
Oh, they have
played hockey, the field version, at a few Olympic Games - notably in 1984 in Los Angeles and again 12 years later in Atlanta when the sporting superpower played host - but generally American male hockey players are unheard of in their country.
They are here for the Olympic qualifying tournament as the 27th nation on the international federation's rankings - but realistically are miles away from claiming one of the 12 spots in Beijing.
The United States is squeezed between Austria and Netherlands Antilles (at 25th equal) and 28th-ranked Bangladesh on the latest FIH list of their 75 hockey-playing nations.
Coach Nick Conway is philosophical about the place hockey holds in his adopted country, but that does not stop him pursuing his dream of encouraging more, and better, players into the sport.
The most experienced player in the US team is Steve Danielson. By the time this tournament is over, he will have become the first American male to play 90 times for his country.
Patrick Harris, 22, who played his 50th in their second game against France on Sunday, and his brother Sean, 21, who will have 27 caps by the time he leaves, are nephews of Tom Harris - who is regarded as the godfather of American field hockey.
As Conway points out, the 50-plus caps won by Patrick Harris have taken him six years. A Black Stick can do it in two, a top European in a year.
"If Chicago succeeds in the bid to win the 2016 Olympics, it would be a dream for field hockey in the US," said Conway. "We already have an under-21 team with 16 [American] passport-holding players. We are also building an under-17 team with those Olympics in mind. But we face a real battle to get people to accept that men play hockey in our country.
"We are not getting tier-one athletes like the big sports but we are making progress. For a long time most hockey players were expats from Commonwealth or Asian countries settling in the big cities.
"The only real hotbed [still] is Moorpark, which blossomed after the LA Olympics. Ninety per cent of the team here is from Moorpark."
There is no national league as such in the United States, rather players get together once a year for trials with teams from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (Moorpark) and Washington DC.
Conway, a transplanted Brit who trained with the England team in North Carolina in 1993 with an eye on the Atlanta Olympics, opted to stay Stateside and has been involved with the sport since.
He has coached the US men's team for the past two years following three years as assistant coach with their women's team - which included a trip to Auckland for the Athens 2004 qualifiers at Lloyd Elsmore Park.
Back Downunder, Conway is relishing being in a hockey environment.
"To play here is great. This is like heaven," said Conway as he looked out over the three water turfs at Crown Relocations Stadium. "This is as good a facility I have seen anywhere."
A far cry from the one-off, one week round-robin tournament he attends each year in the States.
"We are ranked 27th in the world, but I think we can compete at a higher level than that. The difference between 27th and 16th is consistency," said Conway.
And playing numbers.
While the top countries have hundreds or thousands playing, the United States has but 35 senior players from which Conway can, realistically, select his national side.
"There are less registered male players in the US than most clubs - anywhere else in the world - have. That is something we have to try and change."
He points to the huge steps taken by the American women as encouragement to keep going.
"They are ranked 11th in the world with their players now getting 30 caps a year," said Conway. "They have arguably the best structure in the world. The colleges are offering scholarships to players from around the world. The improvement in their game has been tremendous."
While Conway faces a huge challenge to ever get close to that, he realises it will not be easy.
* OFF THE ICE
1930: US men's national association formed
1932: Played at their first Olympics (Los Angeles), finishing third of three teams. Also competed at the Olympics in 1936, 1948, 1956, 1984 and 1996.
1993: National association (men/women) formed
