Funding for women’s hockey gets the axe

Women’s hockey in New Zealand is being sidelined by a lack of funding.

The national women’s team is even having to rely on funding from India, to be able to travel and play there in May this year.

Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) allocated $400,000 to women’s hockey last year but this year the women’s teams will receive nothing.

The decrease in funding has come as a direct result from the women’s poor performance at the Beijing Olympics.

Hockey New Zealand says it is doing its best to support the Junior Black Sticks’ 2009 campaign despite a lack of funding from SPARC.

Although SPARC has refused to fund the Black Sticks women’s team, it has continued to support the Black Sticks men’s team.

Based on the men’s performance in Beijing, SPARC increased its funding from $400,000 last year to $700,000 this year.

HNZ team service manager Iain Stewart says it would help women’s hockey if funds could be transferred from the men’s to the women’s campaigns but SPARC funds each team separately.

“Although SPARC doesn’t have a say in how we directly spend the money, we cannot transfer funds from the men to the women.”

SPARC’s decision to refuse funding for the 2009 Black Sticks women’s campaign is also affecting the New Zealand Under-21 Junior Black Sticks women’s team.

In August, the Junior Black Sticks women’s team will compete in the Junior World Cup Tournament in Boston, USA.

Faced with the decrease in funding from SPARC, HNZ has allocated $30,000 from its limited budget to the campaign.

Mr Stewart says without this extra funding, costs for the two week trip would have reached up to $10,000 per player.

Even with the additional funding, costs will be around $8000 and players are expected to pay this themselves.

Current member of the Junior Black Sticks women’s team Kate Savory is finding it difficult to find time to fundraise around her vigorous training schedule and demanding university work.

Savory is playing for three teams at the moment and her costs can already reach up to $2000 a year.

“My student loan pays for my rent. Working over summer helps me to get some savings, but I’m lucky enough to have parents who can afford to help me out with my hockey.

“I don’t know how I’m going to afford $8000 though,” she says.

The 15 other teams competing in the Junior World Cup in Boston are China, Netherlands, Spain, Chile, Egypt, England, Korea, Argentina, Germany, South Africa, Lithuania, Australia, Belarus, India and USA.