Celebrating our Olympic champions

The 2008 Olympic Games marked 100 years of New Zealand Olympic history. To commemorate the fact, the NZ Olympic Committee and Sport Northland held a gathering - one of a number of meetings  around the nation this week - at the ASB Leisure Centre on Thursday evening. Seventeen of Northland's Olympians were awarded special pins with their own unique number that has been attributed to them.
WHANGAREI'S Neil McLeod didn't really know what to expect as he entered the Montreal Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony of the 1976 Olympics.
The New Zealand team had attracted negative publicity because the All Blacks had toured South Africa, with 26 African states boycotting the event when the IOC refused to ban New Zealand.
Despite the controversy - or perhaps because of it - the Kiwi team received one of the biggest standing ovations of the 92 countries participating from 76,000 fans at the opening ceremony and that set the tone for McLeod's Olympics.
"You dream as a kid you want to go to the Olympics then you get there ..." his voice trailed off as he remembered the moment  that kick-started New Zealand Hockey's greatest ever Olympic moment.
It was the only gold medal a New Zealand hockey team has ever won at an Olympic Games - earned with a 1-0 victory over old rivals Australia - but it was a bittersweet victory for McLeod and his Wanganui teammate Les Wilson.
"We had played in the warm-up games in Toronto and Montreal against Pakistan and Australia, but we spent the whole tournament on the bench," he said.
In those days, only the players who set foot on the turf during the tournament were  awarded Olympic medals, so both McLeod and Wilson missed out on receiving gold at Montreal.
"It was pretty hard to take at the time but it didn't really matter, the biggest thing was we were part of the team that won a gold medal," McLeod said.
When the Kiwis returned to New Zealand, Wilson and McLeod were presented with gold medals from NZ Hockey - but it was not the same as an Olympic medal, McLeod said.
The system changed when revolving subs were permitted during the 80s, so  more players  got game time and therefore received medals, he said. When asked if he thought New Zealand would ever win another gold, McLeod was optimistic.
"The men had a pretty good chance in Beijing - we had a good team there. It could happen again," he said.
"As with any sport, it takes a little bit of luck and a lot of skill. I think part of the reason we won was because our team adapted so quickly to playing on the artificial surface at Montreal.
"It was the first time hockey had been played on artificial surfaces at the Olympics and we had played our warm-up games on a gridiron surface and that helped us get used to it."
On Thursday night, McLeod was one of Northland's Olympians honoured with a special pin celebrating this nation's wealth of sporting talent who had represented the country at the Olympics since they began 115 years ago - a token  that touched McLeod.
"It's great some of the lesser-known sports and sports people are being recognised," he said.
"The fact that everybody was recognised is pretty special."
McLeod, 52, owns an upholstery business in Whangarei. He represented New Zealand in 1974 at an international tournament in Christchurch, again at the third World Cup in 1975, and finally at Montreal. He played over 200 games for Northland before retiring from the game, aged 34.