Familiar sports in a new light

One of the joys of the Olympics, as I wrote in a previous blog post, is getting to see sports that I normally wouldn't get to cover. 

One of the other cool things is seeing the sports I see on a regular basis, but executed at the absolute highest level. Nothing against any of the teams I cover, but they are not at an Olympic level and seeing them played at that level can give one much more respect almost instantly.

Earlier this morning (Wednesday) I boarded another bus at the Media Transport Mall and made my way to Oi Field Hockey Stadium for a semifinal battle between Netherlands and Great Britain. Now, I have seen more than my share of field hockey games in my more than 20 years covering high school sports around New Hampshire. And I have covered some very good field hockey teams, teams that have won state championships and/or competed for state championships on the regular.

However, the field hockey I saw this morning was certainly at another level, as it should be, given these are some of the best players in the world. Now, even after 20 years covering field hockey, I still get confused by some of the rules, and that did not change this morning, but I did notice that the whistle got blown a lot less in this game than it does in a normal high school game. The speed of the game was much quicker, with crisp passes moving the ball up and down the field very quickly

There was another very noticeable difference, so much so that I asked a young woman sitting in front of me who seemed to be with The Netherlands team. As the players prepared for a penalty corner, they all went behind the net and came back with more pads and protection on their body. The very nice young woman in front of me explained that the defenders on the corner have to put on pads and face protection before every corner and then they quickly discard it to the end line when the corner is over.

Another unique thing that happened that I did not have an answer for was at halftime, they turned the sprinklers on and soaked the field. I assumed, with the very hot temperatures (the "feels like" on my phone said 106 and that was not on the turf), it was a method used to cool the field, but Plymouth field hockey coach Ashley Laufenberg shared a piece she read that said it is done to ensure the ball glides smoothly and to save players from friction burns. You learn something new every day.

The pitch at Oi Field Hockey Stadium is soaked by water at halftime of today's semifinal game.