UWH in Vancouver

Player profile: Melanie Johnson

I started playing underwater hockey in 1991 when I was attending at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada.  At that time, there were no women playing regularly at this location.  Vancouver had previously had many female players but by the time I was introduced to the sport, most had retired.  My first practice in our 4 meter (13 foot) deep pool was a bit daunting, particularly as I didn’t know how to use a snorkel and my ears would squeal every time I tried to get to the bottom.   I currently play defence and primarily centre-back (i.e. ‘goalie’ or ‘6’).  I am also not one of those versatile players who can play forward or back as I am not very reliable in the forward-line and am more likely to get hit in the head with a pass from a back than to pick it up on my stick.

I played my first tournament after having attended about 4 practices in our deep university pool.  I had to borrow all the equipment from a friendly US player.  I was hooked, though I think my experienced teammates were a bit worried after our big ‘team talk’ that I had to ask whether a ‘forward’ was the same thing as a ‘winger’.

My 20-year hockey career has taken me to multiple World Championships (every 2 years from 1996-2008 when these events were, for the most part, still called World Championships) and in the past 6 years to multiple other international competitions.  In Canada, we consider ourselves very fortunate if we can field more than 2 complete women’s teams at any tournament, including our Nationals.  In my hockey life-time we have never had more than 3 women’s teams any Canadian tournament.  Travelling to international events is generally the best way to play against other strong women’s teams, though in the past few years a women’s tournament has been run in the US which has been a nice.  I was amazed when I attended South African Interclubs a few years ago in Durban and there were 11 women’s teams.  I wish Marcin good luck in his recruiting efforts to get women playing hockey in Poland!

The Vancouver group plays 3 times per week at 2 different pools.  Currently we get about 10-16 players out to each practice.  In the last 2 years, we have switched back to playing with a brass puck as the tiles in both our pools make for a really slow game if we play with the plastic pucks currently available.  Fortunately, one of our players developed a brass/lead ‘Retro Puck’ that performs exceptionally well in both our pools and has significantly improved the speed and quality of our local games.  Very recently, our inventive hockey puck developers created a ‘Borg’ version of the RetroPuck to use in our poor visibility pool.

Check out the debut of the ‘Borg’ puck in Vancouver here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQSSSGSzQ6g

Underwater hockey in Canada

At this time, the number of underwater hockey players in Canada is unknown.  On average, there are approximately 150 players who join CUGA (our National hockey body) each year and these are generally players who attend larger tournaments where CUGA memberships are required.   There are many other people playing underwater hockey in Canada, though exactly how many is unknown.  The age range of players playing in Canada is quite broad, from our youngest junior players at around age 6 to our master’s age players up to age 74.  There are approximately 21 clubs in Canada with the most active participants being in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec (the cities where hockey is played in Canada are listed below).

One of the questions I was asked answer was to compare UWH in Canada to other countries.  However, I haven’t attended underwater hockey practices regularly in many countries, so it is hard to provide a comparison.  One of the nicest things about going to practices in other countries is that all the players seem excited to have someone from out of town come to their practice.  I know that we feel that way in Vancouver when anyone comes to practice from another city or country.  In any UWH city I have been to, players have always been more than happy to loan gear, provide transportation to a practice or help sort out a place to sleep.  One other thing that I think might be different in Vancouver compared to some clubs is that we don’t have referees for any of our regular games.   I know some countries are fortunate to have refereed practices.

Canadian underwater hockey clubs (in 22 cities):

British Columbia: Port Coquitlam, Prince George, Vancouver and Victoria
Alberta: Calgary and Edmonton
Saskatchewan: Saskatoon
Ontario: Brampton, Cornwall, Guelph, Hamilton, Kincardine, London, Ottawa, Peterborough, Sault Ste. Marie
Quebec: Montreal (more than 1 club), Quebec City, Rimouski and Sherbrooke
Nova Scotia: Halifax
Yukon: Whitehorse