For this Writer's Mom, Love of Field Hockey Lives On
May 12, 2009 by Naomi Demain
Marlene Demain--my mom--has always loved sports. In fact she and her husband have owned a sporting goods store for 19 years. One of her favorite sports has always been field hockey.
Demain had not even heard of field hockey until she was in college in 1977 and her roommates convinced her to play intramurally. After college she stopped playing field hockey. When her daughter started to play field hockey when she was in sixth grade she played a parent-daughter game. “It reminded me of how much fun it was,” Demain said,“ and I wanted to play again.”
Field hockey is not a very well know sport and on top of that its not an easy sport to play your whole life. Because of this and other reasons, there is nowhere to play after the college level. This is why Demain and Yvette Pederson had to start their own women’s field hockey club.
“When we started the club we were so excited,” Demain said. “But then we only had about five women show up.” Field hockey is usually played with 11 players on each team including the goalie.
With only five people and a full field there was not a lot of field hockey going on, according to Demain. “Even though this was discouraging we still had fun and we always had a beer at the pub afterwords,” she said.
There is a pub located in All-star Sports so the women have a beer after most sessions. The club is a great way for these women to find other women with their same interests. It is also a very good workout, including both a cardiovascular workout and straight building workout.
Since the club started they have grown to 16 women and there are people who drop in every game. They have also moved to a half field temporally until there are full teams.
There have already been three sessions and there is one going on now. This session they are playing on Wednesday nights from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. at All-star Sports off Dublin Granville Road. Each day they make different teams and they play the whole hour. The score is not kept because all the women are there to have fun.
There are very few limits on who can play. Participants must be at-least a senior in high school who has finished high school level field hockey. There is a very large range of skill levels. There are women who played in college and high school. There are also many women that are coaches of local field hockey teams.There are even people who never played before. “We are very tolerant of beginners,” Demain said.
The club is always looking for new members. The cost to join a session is $100 for 10 nights of play. If you are just looking to try it out it is $15 for one session. To find out how to register visit heartlandfieldhockey.org.