Volunteers have been preparing for weeks now, but come Friday Bathurst Hockey Association will be ready to host over 300 of Australia's best young hockey players.
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From Friday to Thursday, Cooke Hockey Complex will host close to 100 games in the 2021 Australian Hockey Under 15s Championships.
Tournament manager Mel Bestwick said the championships will not only be big for the local sport but for the local region as well.
"It's a huge deal. We haven't had anything like this before and we don't expect to host anything like this again," she said.
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"To have not only a national championship but players and their families coming from all over Australia is huge. It's big for not only Bathurst hockey but Bathurst in general.
"I believe everything will be booked out. Obviously all the families will be looking to have dinner and stuff throughout the region. I know a lot of them have been here prior to Easter, so it's definitely massive coup for Bathurst."
It's expected that there'll be 12 teams competing in the girls tournament - ACT, Northern Territory, NSW State, NSW Blue, Queensland Gold, Queensland Maroon, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Victoria Development, Western Australia Black and Western Australia Gold - with all the same teams except Northern Territory to compete in the boys competition.
There'll also be some Bathurst talents on display during the championships, with Lily Kable selected in the NSW girls number one side (NSW State), while in the NSW Blues' outfit Tayla Grabham, Macey Fulton and Maggie Thompson have all been picked.
Bestwick's son Ollie will be playing in the NSW State boys team, while her husband Kent is the assistant coach of the NSW State girls team.
"It's a massive achievement for those guys who were selected and what better than represent NSW on your home turf," Bestwick said.
"This has been a six month process for them, from going to two sets of trials to doing their own individual training, then working through the centre of development training.
"It's been a six month window for them and they're still working hard to hone their skills but they'll have a few days rest before they go into training on Thursday."
Bestwick believes the work the local association has put in to prepare the facility to host the championships has been fantastic.
"The work is definitely second to none. We've had a great small group of volunteers that assist us," she said.
"It's a massive task, one that we're willing to take on because we like these sort of championships. The work doesn't stop when the championships start.
"It's massive to be able to showcase our awesome facilities on how we can run events.
"We obviously pride ourselves on the job that we do here, from a local level. Now it's been recognised that it can host a national tournament.
"We could've done that without Hockey NSW's support and we're thankful that Hockey Australia has put its faith in us to host this."
Play gets underway on Friday, with Monday a rest day, with medal matches to be held on Thursday.
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