Underwater hockey is making its debut in the 30th Southeast Asian Games and the Philippine team is making sure to make a splash.
Dennis Valdes, president of the Philippine Underwater Hockey Federation, which is the sport’s governing body in the country, has noted his teams’ hard work and dedication, traits which he hopes can be translated into medals.
“I believe the Philippine UWH Team will do very well at the SEA Games. I am personally hoping to get four gold medals out of four events. Of course, this cannot be guaranteed, but our athletes are training very hard for this goal,” said Valdes.
Also known as Octopush, underwater hockey is a sport in which two teams compete to drive a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool into the opposing team’s goal by propelling it with a hockey stick.
Four gold medals are at stake in the men’s 4×4 and 6×6, and women’s 4×4 and 6×6 in two days of competition set Dec. 2 and 3 at the New Clark City.
“At the beginning of our SEAG journey last December, I told the prospective athletes, ‘I want one year of your life.’ This has not been an exaggeration. All have sacrificed an enormous amount of time this year. They have had to ask their families for understanding, their bosses at work for support, and most importantly, their own selves for the drive and capacity to keep training for an entire year just to peak during the week of SEAG,” Valdes revealed.
In order to ramp up the training of the underwater hockey players, the federation sent players to the Australian Underwater Hockey National Championships in Cairns, Australia, where the PH team’s top athlete in Christian Policarpio played on the New South Wales Men’s Masters team, which bagged its second gold medal at the Aussie Nationals. Policarpio is a flight attendant.
“For the Men’s Team, we have high hopes for our forward Topz Policarpo. For the Women’s Team, it’s our forward Nadj Buenafe. We hope that both will score a lot of goals for Team Philippines,” said Valdes.
The teams’ overseas exposures have been coupled with their continuous training, with the help of coaches provided by the Philippine Sports Commission.
The men’s team is expected to mix it up in the gold medal running, while the women’s team is the team to beat after winning the Asian Championships twice.
“The preparation for the SEAG has been an incredible journey for the athletes, plus all the people around them, who are so supportive of their efforts. Looking back at the year, I can say that whatever happens during the SEA Games, all can be assured that Team PHI did everything possible to attain the golds. We all trained, we all got support, we all gave what we could. We hope that all that is good enough to attain four golds,” said Valdes.
“Our fiercest rival is expected to be Singapore, although the Indonesia and Malaysia Teams are also training very hard,” he said.