UBC - Vancouver !

a history of the UBC underwater hockey club

By Arthur Hastings

In the mid-1960's the Vanquatics scuba club learned how to play from a magazine article. They played it at club nights to foster regular participation and to maintain snorkel diving skills and fitness. In the early 70s inter-club contact among divers in the Vanquatics, the University of British Columbia Aqua Society and the Simon Fraser University scuba club led to the university clubs starting their own underwater hockey teams. It wasn't long before the UBC and SFU scuba clubs were challenging each other to games of underwater hockey.

Neither team could win in the other team's pool. The depth of water of the UBC pool was 3 to 5 metres and the depth of the SFU pool was 1 to 2.5 metres. The SFU players weren't used to swimming the extra 3 metres to the bottom or to the surface. The UBC players were used to fewer players around the puck and longer delays for the opposition to arrive in the play. The UBC players weren't ready for SFU players swarming the puck.

The effort to form the Association of British Columbia Dive Clubs brought several scuba clubs into contact with the keen underwater hockey players. By the mid-70s there were enough players a form a city league of men's teams. The clubs formed the Underwater Hockey Association of British Columbia.

Women entered the sport when the men's league teams allowed a seventh player in the water if one or more players were women. Some of the men brought out their wives and girlfriends. It wasn?t long before women had learned enough for the seventh player provision to be dropped. By 1979, there were 3 women's teams playing in Vancouver.

The development of underwater hockey in Vancouver took a two-pronged approach. The aim was to develop elite players and to build the base of new and intermediate players. In 1980 Vancouver had a competitive league of 5 men's teams and 4 recreational teams. The UBC club was in the recreational league. Its players were students who had played only a couple of years and were no match for the teams with more experienced players.

The leaders of underwater hockey in Vancouver applied their vision, organizational skills and energy to organizing the first world underwater hockey championships. It was played in the newly constructed UBC Aquatic Centre in 1980. It is not widely known that women?s teams from the USA and Canada played at the first world championships.

Underwater hockey in Vancouver became focussed on developing elite players. Without a concerted effort to attract and train new players fewer and fewer novices took up the sport. There was attrition and by 1984 there were just four mixed teams in the Vancouver. By the mid-90s there were only two clubs, one at UBC and one at SFU and by the late-90s there was only one club at UBC.

The UBC club still attracts one or two novices a year. It welcomes any new players and UBC students play for free. It costs new players nothing to start as there is lots of good gear in the club?s box of underwater hockey gear. In the last couple of years the club has attracted experienced players from Alberta, Quebec, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa who come to UBC to study or to Vancouver to work. The ratio of experienced players to novices joining the club each year is 2 or 3 to 1.

The UBC club plays twice a week at UBC. Generally, there are 15-20 players out. On Sunday mornings, the game is played in the mid-section of the pool with a depth of 1.5 to 2 .5 metres. On Tuesday evening the game is played in the deep end with a depth of 3 to 4 metres. Many of the players also play at "retro hockey" on Thursday nights at another pool. The pool has a slope, a smooth tile bottom and the puck is the old lead/brass type.

UBC continues to play a high level of underwater hockey. Most of the regular players have played at least one World Championships. Several players are on Team Canada 2006. Two members are on the Women's Elite Team, two members are on the Women's Masters Team, one member is on the Men's Elite Team and seven men are on the Open Masters Team.

The UBC Aquatic Centre does not conform to the CMAS rules for pool design and it has a very slow bottom so when the club hosts major tournaments it holds them at the Commonwealth Games Pool in Victoria. The UBC club is hosting the Pacific Coast Championships October 20 - 22, 2006.