THE SUPER INDOOR CHALLENGE

Super Indoor Challenge (SIC) is a sports organisation delivering quality indoor hockey experiences to New Zealanders through a variety of weekend tournaments and short impact weekly competition.

Primarily delivered in the Bay of Plenty region in 2020 with great success, and is now focused on extending this experience in the Hawkes Bay.

Founded by the Mayo family who after spending 10 years in Australia experiencing all that Australian Hockey could offer and returned home in 2019 to New Zealand to find this fast, exciting, and highly engaging form of hockey had fallen off the radar in NZ sport.

While not well known in NZ, indoor hockey is a fast-paced, furious, and entertaining form of hockey played largely in Europe, America and Australia. It allows all age groups the ability to compete on a level playing field in a safe and stable environment, not to mention the best fun you can have indoors with your friends and family.

Indoor hockey was developed in Germany and is widely utilised to improve stick skills and decision-making in a fast and furious environment. The game itself is made up of a team of six players including the goalkeeper with up to seven substitutes.

The field is much smaller than outdoor, approximately 18m to 22m wide by 36m to 44m long (similar to a futsal pitch). It has a hard surface which incorporates boards along the side-lines that prevent the ball from going out of play, a major factor creating a fast action-packed game for both players and spectators.

Indoor Hockey has its own FIH World Cup held every four years for both Opens and Masters (35yrs+) teams, of which NZ had been invited to attend.

In recognition of this, as well as a priority to improve access to all formats of hockey, Hockey New Zealand (HNZ) has established an advisory group to lead the development of indoor hockey.

These SIC tournaments are the first of a targeted approach and endorsed by HNZ to provide an opportunity for all age groups to experience this exciting form of the game and grow the game to become a national recognised sport on the annual sporting calendar.

A significant challenge across the country is securing court time to develop and deliver our programmes due to the current demand for more established codes.

SIC has openly provided input into LTP planning for upgrading facilities to accommodate all indoor sports. We are very concerned that if we successfully deliver these programmes and see growth like Europe and Australia, we will not have the local facilities to accommodate this growth and it will be lost.