THE 2025 Sunraysia Hockey season swings into action across all grades this weekend.
The senior men’s comp got the ball rolling last night with juniors in action today and the under-16 girls and women’s seniors winding up the opening round tomorrow at the Sunraysia Hockey Complex at the Old Aerodrome sporting facility.
Sunraysia Hockey Association president Liz Clarke is expecting this year’s action to be as keen as ever and is also looking to attract more people to the game.
“We are not the most popular sport in town, but we would obviously like to build our membership and our numbers,” Clarke said on the eve of the competition.
“We welcome anyone and everyone. There are a lot of international people in the area and hockey is the second most played sport in the world so we would like to attract more people into the fold whether they have played before or not,” she said.
“We have senior grades in men’s and women’s, under 16s, under 13s and under 11s.”
The association has also introduced a new, novel version of the game this year.
“We’ve started walking hockey as well,” Clarke said.
“It’s hockey on a smaller pitch and walking only. You can’t run. You’ve still got a stick and ball. We find a lot of our retired players are coming back and having a crack at that and some of our younger players as well.”
The SHA also fields teams in the regional Riverland competition.
“Some of our senior team members play in that and they come out of our four clubs,” she said.
“We have a few things happening in hockey and we try to cover from ages nine to 95. It’s a social, welcoming atmosphere … it’s very family orientated, I play with my 14-year-old daughter and in our club we’ve got about four mother-daughter tandems who play together.”
Action starts at 6pm on Fridays, 8.30am on Saturdays and 10am on Sundays.
The men’s defending champions are Rivaside and Koowinda hold the women’s crown.
