My year so far…

The first semester started with a hiss and a roar, and I’m back to study for my final year!  I passed my three papers with a B average.  Whoop!  All semester long I was training three times a week for hockey with fortnightly trips for training to such places as the lovely Levin, Palmerston North and two ventures across to the Mighty Taranaki. The levels of training and effort I put into my training resulted in my selection into the Central Mavericks Men’s Hockey squad.

This selection led to three team sessions a week with the Central Mavericks (one training in Palmy, one training in Napier and a Sunday game in various locations). All this on top of my usual one club training plus a club game a week led to a lot of planning to reorganise my study timetable.  Once again, I must have impressed the coach

EIT Student – Aaron Ball

enough to make not just the squad but the Central Mavericks starting team.

The National Hockey League finished with Tournament week in Auckland in August.  At the tournament I learnt a huge amount about the game I thought I already knew so much about!  Coaching staff, including Greg Nichol, Dean Hulls and Jake Blanks, and manager and physio were world class. I was living what felt like a professional athlete’s life, ie motel rooms, video sessions, team meetings and schedules based solely around the game for that day.  I had the opportunity to play against both current and past New Zealand Men’s Blacksticks players as well as the world- famous Jamie Dwyer. In the tournament, not  getting the wins we needed meant  we ended up in the last place game.  Winning that 6-1, we made a bit of a statement and  took 7^th place overall.

Passing both my first two tests got this Semester off to a great start. After the week off from hockey, I have a lot to catch up on. So that’s me for now.  The futsal season will be starting soon as well as hockey 5s so I will “blog” again soon once that’s underway…

P.S.  Thanks to all my supporters who spur me on to better performances and to those who helped by sponsoring me to tournament!!