Hockey takes aim at nationals

AS part of its bid to secure the 2025 Australian Country Championships, Hockey Ballarat is looking for support to develop its facilities.

Hockey Ballarat president Tony Ford said that although the current pitch and change rooms at Prince of Wales Park have served them well, they have outgrown them.

“The way the game is growing in this city, we need a second pitch and new changing facilities, just to keep up with that expansion,” he said.

“It’s one of the few sports in the city that can boast equal numbers in men and women, as well as boys and girls.

“Our change room facilities, in particular, just aren’t keeping up with what people expect these days.”

With the national Country Championships involving 12 teams from around the nation, the event holds potential to bring in over $2.8 million in economic benefit to the city based on Shepperton’s experience hosting in 2019.

Hockey Ballarat’s senior competition committee chair Jeff Sly said they are pushing for two pitches side-by-side and an upgrade to the changing rooms before they can facilitate the championships.

“There’s nothing that Shepperton did that Ballarat couldn’t do bigger and better,” he said.

“We’re really pushing because we’ve seen a push for changing facilities in football and netball and our facilities are just not up to scratch.

“A greenfield site is something we’re really looking for and we think it could be done for $6 to $7 million.”

Although hockey has previously been included in the City’s master plan for the Prince of Wales Park precinct, the work is still yet to be commissioned.

Candidates running for the local elections joined hockey players and staff on the pitch to investigate the needs for future developments into the facilitates and the sport itself.

Current North Ward representative Cr Daniel Moloney said it’s a sport that’s growing in numbers and that a new, green field site would make sense as the next step forward for the league.

“The old sale yard has awesome potential … you could easily fit in two hockey pitches and changing rooms there,” he said.

“The other option is out in Miners Rest, we’ve just purchased some land on the corner of Cummins and Howell street, there’s room there for two footy fields and hockey fields as well.

“It’s huge for the young people, … these events expose young kids to national grade competition and having country-based championships here is really important.”

Mr Ford’s granddaughter and avid hockey player Vera Stapleton said it would be an eventual goal of hers to play at the national championships here in Ballarat.

“We definitely need another pitch so then we can host games here,” she said. “There’s around 70 teams who want to come but we couldn’t because we only have that at one court.

“It would be so nice to have a new pitch all to ourselves and not have to share with other groups.”