IPL-style league 'could revitalise hockey'

A hockey version of the Indian Premier Cricket League could revolutionise the sport worldwide former Mangapai junior Casey Henwood told a packed Mangapai Hockey Club Centenary dinner at ASB Leisure Centre at Kensington Park.
160 hockey fans - some of whom had travelled from as far away as Australia attended the centenary celebrations on Saturday evening. The new tournament is soon to be launched in India, Henwood said.
Driven by television revenue, it could draw top players from all over the world and Henwood said it may help to prolong the careers of talented hockey players.
He said many top players realise in their mid-to-late 20s, that they can't afford to continue playing at the top level and leave the game when they still have plenty to offer.
Only a few players manage to play hockey professionally in Europe but with more international competitions, like the proposed Indian World Series of Hockey, that might change.
Henwood retired from test hockey at the end of 2009 but still remains very much involved with the sport at the national level.
He was involved with the change in the National Hockey League competition this year.
Black Sticks players will return to play for the provinces that produced them, rather than representing the main centre provinces they have migrated to, producing an uneven national competition over recent seasons.
Mangapai Hockey Club's Murray Byles said Henwood, who had played for the club during his school years before leaving to attend university, was a great speaker who had helped produce a memorable night for the club.
Byles said that they were all looking forward to the event after Saturday's bad weather had made the centenary games against Springfield teams hard going - for the players and spectators alike.
There were four games played on Saturday against Mangapai's traditional rivals Springfield - the club formerly known as Mangapai South - with three games on Sunday, including a presidents' XI match against current players.
The club has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1911 when a meeting was called to try and form a Mangapai Rugby Club.
"Only 11 men showed up to the meeting so they decided to form a hockey team instead and the rest is history, who knows what would have happened if more people had showed up?
"Maybe Mangapai would have had a rugby club for a while anyway," Myles said.