Underwater hockey thrives in capital region
As ice hockey approaches its season finale in the Stanley Cup final, a group of Ottawa players is gearing up for the year's big moment in another form of the sport.
Three young women from Ottawa are headed to Portugal in August to compete in the underwater hockey world championships.
They're part of a sizable league of Ottawa-area enthusiasts who partake in the sport.
"It's growing everywhere," said Alain Belleville, an underwater hockey coach and long-time player. "From all over Europe especially, North America, South America, Asia, Africa."
Players in the capital region take to the pool mainly at the Gatineau Sports Centre, where the Gatineau-Ottawa Underwater Hockey Club hosts a half-dozen divisions and has games three days a week.
The equipment includes sticks, gloves and masks, though there are key differences. Sticks are only a foot long and must be held in just one hand, while masks are of the scuba variety. The puck is made of metal encased in plastic and, weighing three pounds, sinks to the bottom of the pool.
Players also wear snorkels to help them gulp air when they come up for a breath and fins to propel them along the bottom as they stickhandle and pass.
Like ice hockey, there are referees as well as plenty of passing, fancy stick handling and wicked slapshots.
"There are six players as opposed to five plus a goalie," said player Kimberly Grattan, who's headed to Portugal. "We don't have a goalie in underwater hockey because nobody can hold their breath that long."
To score, a team must shoot the puck into a three-metre-wide metal net that consists of a short ramp up to a trough. The puck has to hit the bottom of the trough or its 18-centimetre-high backing.
Perhaps the biggest difference, though, is that underwater hockey doesn't get a lot of spectators.
"You have to be in the pool to see actually what's going on," said Ottawa player Laia Navarro, a Barcelona native who's doing post-doctoral work at the University of Ottawa. "So we don't have many fans and followers."