News

Indonesia field hockey of dreams

2011-10-21 17:10:00

How do you take your hockey? On field or ice? Running or gliding? Hockey has ancient roots in Egypt and Ireland, where it’s known as hurling, as well as in North America. Most people are familiar with ice hockey, which requires expensive infrastructure — or arctic climates — and has a reputation for its full, bone-crushing contact. But physical attacks are strictly prohibited in lesser-known field hockey — considered to be a much safer sport, and increasingly popular in Indonesia.

In the Indonesian field hockey scene, the name Deny Fahruddin carries some weight. An avid player for almost three decades, he’s working to develop the sport across the archipelago.

“Field hockey is less popular than football among Indonesians, but apparently the number of local field hockey clubs is actually growing,” Deny said. “Most local field hockey clubs were established at the university level, and Jakarta alone has about 16 clubs that are regularly involved in local tournaments.”

There are also strong teams in North Sumatra, West Java, Yogyakarta, East Kalimantan and Papua that can put up a good fight against Jakarta’s teams, said Deny, who is also the deputy head of a legendary field hockey club here.

That club, called International Sports Club of Indonesia (ISCI) Hockey Jakarta, was established in the 1980s in Ciputat, South Jakarta.

“The ISCI is one of the oldest field hockey clubs in Indonesia,” Deny said. “It was only for expatriates in Jakarta at first, because the field we used to use belonged to an exclusive private sports club.”

Since moving practices to a field in the Senayan sport district, however, the ISCI welcomes anyone to join the club. Today, about 70 percent of members are expatriates and 30 percent are Indonesian. The country’s only other expatriate field hockey club, called Hockey Club Kombinasi, is exclusively for Dutch expatriates.

As field hockey gains steam, Deny wants the National Education Ministry to include it in the physical education curriculum for primary schools, especially “because we see the rising interest in the sport by college students here. “We’ve recently created a free field hockey school for interested 6 to 15 year olds, and the reaction has been positive,” he said.

Aside from regular practices, the ISCI hosts a number of tournaments and goes on tour — a domestic hockey tour twice a year and an international tour four times a year. Through traveling, the club hopes to maintain relationships with hockey clubs outside of Jakarta, by participating in small tournaments and “friendship sparing” with teams in the cities it visits.

Every May, the ISCI also organizes its annual tournament in the capital, inviting clubs from all over Indonesia, Southeast Asia and the world to play in the Big Durian. Thus far, a Swiss team holds the record for traveling the longest distance to take part in the competition.

Field hockey teams usually consist of 16 players, including 10 primary players, a goalkeeper and five substitutes, who may enter or exit the game an unlimited number of times and in any combination. In each match, 11 players (including the goalkeeper) battle against their opponents for two 35-minute halves.

A field hockey field, or pitch, measures just over 91 meters long and 55 meters wide, while the goals at each end are two meters high and three-and-a-half meters wide. A semi-circular area 14.6 meters from the goal is known as the shooting circle. There’s no “offside” in field hockey, but a player must be inside the shooting circle or the goal will not count.

Players don’t need to wear much padding as body-checking is not permitted. The field hockey stick is about 91 centimeters long, with the grip descending into the handle, shaft and head. The head curves into the face — the curving nub, which is the surface used to strike the ball, is the characteristic feature of the field hockey stick, clearly distinguishing it from an ice hockey or hurling stick.

As deputy head of the ISCI, Deny said he arranges practices and deals with administrative matters. But the ISCI focuses as much on friendship and camaraderie, he said, as it does on sport itself.

“ISCI hockey is more than just a hockey club,” Deny said. “We’re a family.”

ISCI www.iscihockey.com