THE best players from the Premier League Hockey competition testing themselves against Sydney rivals - that tantalising prospect will be part of a bumper pre-season weekend in Bathurst.
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While PLH has staged pre-season gala days in the past and will do so again at the Cooke Hockey Complex in March, Hockey NSW participation manager Kate Pulbrook wanted to do something bigger.
Her idea was to revive the Premier League Hockey All Stars.
"I'm really looking forward to it, it should be a whole lot of fun," she said.
"I think personally, having been involved in Premier League and been involved in that team and now that I'm in this role, it's great what it does for our region.
"The more we can promote it and show people in the region how good the competition is, the better. Sometimes I think that people feel like the Sydney competition is better and stronger and you have to play down there, but you don't have to."
It was 14 years ago that the competition fielded a men's and women's Premier League Hockey All Stars team.
They were initially just named as merit squads at the conclusion of a successful season, but then PLH president Dave Watson organised a double-header against the ACT Academy of Sport.
Though that was a once off, Pulbrook is aiming to have the Premier League All Stars game as an annual pre-season fixture.
She also fully intends that there will be both a women's and a men's outfit to represent the region.
"Every year in March we will aim to have a round-robin pre-season opportunity on Sunday and obviously the Saturday All Stars game against a team," she said.
"Whether it's against the same team every year we're not sure, but we'll just see how it goes.
"People said 'Well what about the men's because it didn't go ahead last year?' and I said that I don't care. We need to get the men up and going.
"That [member] survey we did at the end of last year, we put the All Stars concept in there and asked players what they thought and all the feedback was really positive around it."
Clubs have been asked to nominate players who are interested in being an All Star then a selection panel will work out the squads.
The prospect of seeing players like St Pat's Millie Fulton, Souths' Sarah Watterson and Bathurst City's Kelly Baker in the same outfit as talents such as Orange's Eva Reith-Snare, Parkes' India Draper and Lithgow stars like Clare Bosman and Hannah Kable is exciting.
"I'm looking forward to seeing how they come up, just the young players who are coming through our region, just the last five years we've really started to push through some really good players," Pulbrook said.
Just which Sydney club the All Stars end up playing will depend on if any COVID-19 travel advisories are in place. Pulbrook said that if Sydney-based outfits are not an option, she has contacts in the Wollongong, Newcastle and Central Coast regions as well as in the ACT.
"The Sydney comp doesn't start until the week after, so it is a perfect opportunity for those teams," she said.
The All Stars will play on March 13, while the PLH gala day is set for March 14.
