It has been a privilege to be the captain of the Burnside Boys Hockey First XI, and I am pleased to say that the future of Hockey at Burnside is in capable hands. There were many changes and challenges that we had to face throughout the year, which we conquered together.

At the trials, before the start of the school hockey season, I could tell that this year was going to be a challenge for all participants. All players who trialled for the hockey team knew the basics of the game, but with differences in knowledge of hockey the season was going to be a tough start.

The team had much to improve on when all of us turned up to the first training session, including refining the basic hockey skills, developing the game knowledge of the juniors, and working on the overall communication within the team on and off the field. Throughout the year we worked to develop everyone’s skills and knowledge of hockey. Our coach, Sam Cox, worked tirelessly with everyone to develop their basic skills so that we would be ready for our first game of the season.

As the season progressed, we gathered some mixed results from our Friday night hockey games, and everyone was resilient and worked well together. Some key memories that I have from the practices were that the senior players were willing and capable of helping to mentor the junior players in our team, giving suggestions for gameplay and how their basics can continue to improve. The junior students improved all aspects of their game, including better passing and trapping, movement off the ball, channelling on defence and overall gameplay.

As the season came to a close with tournament week dawning, the Burnside Boys Hockey First XI became a team that worked together rather than just being a group of individuals. The team played in the Johnson Cup tournament in Christchurch, and after some difficult pool games, including against the two finalists, we came 4th in our pool, which meant that we played two more games, drawing them both to come 7th overall. I am proud to say that I believe that the Burnside Boys Hockey team is in a great position to be competitive in the next few years and I look forward to hearing about their accomplishments in the next few years.

We had a team break-up where the team enjoyed going ten pin bowling and doing laser strike. This was a nice time to say a last goodbye to the Year 13 students (Malek Connor, Will Knight, Dev Pandya and myself) and for players to reflect on how the team and themselves individually progressed throughout the season. A final game was organised of the Burnside Boys vs Burnside Girls and this last hurrah was made for players that would be leaving Burnside at the end of this year.

I would like to thank all the players, Sam our Coach, and Mr Watson our Manager, for such a wonderful 2022 Burnside Hockey season.

MacK Dalzell