HOCKEY
THE Orange Men’s Hockey Association John Davis Motors Hockey Superleague is back and with the kinks from last year’s inaugural tournament ironed out Scott Baker, the brains behind the concept, is confident this year’s edition will be bigger and better.
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As per last year’s competition, the 2016 Superleague will feature the Renault Royals, Mazda Maulers, Suzuki Strikers and Volvo Vikings playing shortened, attack-based, round-robin games - a format Baker described as “Twenty20 cricket for hockey” last year.
But this year, based on feedback from players and spectators Baker and his fellow organisers have modified a few rules and streamlined the drafting and scheduling process ahead of the first round on Sunday, June 5.
Already Baker said there is a substantially increased interest compared to last year.
“At this stage last year we had 35 players and I was concerned. This year we have almost 50, and we may face a problem of having too many players, that would be a good problem to have though,” Baker enthused.
“Player excitement is great, everyone’s looking forward to this as the highlight of the season. The young guys like trying to show the older guys new tricks and the older boys like showing the young guys they’ve still got it. It’s a good measuring stick for the lower grade players playing against Premier League Hockey players too.
“It’s effectively the same format, just some small tweaks after feedback through the off-season. We’ve adopted the scoring structure from the Indian Hockey League, two points for a normal goal, one for a penalty goal.
“We’ve eliminated the goal from outside the circle from the feedback, but we’ll have our other novelty rules in place like the joker players and bonus goals.”
The Renault Royals claimed last year’s inaugural title, but with the competition’s draft system it remains a lottery as to which side will be stamped as premiership favourites leading into the first round.
“The process will be selecting out of hats for Premier League Hockey players, first graders, second graders and so on, this should make the reams as equal as possible,” Baker said.
“Once teams are picked we will have trade options, to make sure a team isn’t stacked with too many players from one position and to ensure each team has goalkeeper options and so on.”
The skippers of the sides are to be the same as last year, with Daryl Kennewell to lead the Royals, Adam Hurford to skipper the Maulers, Alex Said to lead the Strikers and Darryn Marjoram to captain the Vikings.
The 2016 Superleague draft is scheduled for this Friday at 7pm, at the Ophir Tavern. Any interested players should contact Baker.