KEY POINTS:
Last year's beaten National Hockey League finalists, North Harbour, wasted no time in showing they plan to go one better by the end of this season.
After a tentative start - a 3-0 win over Central on Saturday as they welcomed back their six internationals - Harbour hit the turf running in Hamilton yesterday.
They raced to 3-0 inside 15 minutes and went on to wallop Canterbury 7-3. It was reminiscent of the 2004 final when Harbour thrashed the southerners 7-2.
Canterbury went into the game with some hope after handing out a 9-2 hiding to Northland first-up, but yesterday had no answer to the slick Harbour side who mesmerised their opposition with impressive work from Black Sticks Ben Collier, Bryce Collins, Dave Kosoof, Blair Hopping and Steve Edwards.
Captain and former international Shaun Barnett was also in sparkling form.
Determined to nullify any threat drag-flick expert Hayden Shaw might pose, the Harbour defence did not concede any penalty corners. Against Northland, Shaw converted three such attempts.
After two Jonathan Pooch field goals, Canterbury scored their third when Hugh Copland converted a controversially awarded penalty-stroke.
Defending champions Wellington needed a late equaliser from Matt L'Hullier to scramble to a first-up 2-2 draw with Midlands, and yesterday, in a game noteworthy for the efforts of the two New Zealand goalkeepers, Paul Woolford (Auckland) and Kyle Pontifex (Wellington), sneaked home 2-1 over Auckland.
Midlands ended the double-round in a well-deserved second place as they followed their spirited draw with Wellington with a 4-1 win over Central - although they needed two drag flicks from guest player Richard Petherick to ensure an unbeaten start to their season.
Like Canterbury, Auckland have a win and a loss but have shown little thus far. They got home 3-2 over lowly Southern on Saturday after leading 3-0 at halftime.
Against Wellington, Auckland fell behind in the second minute when man-of-the-match Mark Peterson scored, got back to 1-1 fifty minutes later when Simon Child scored from a fiercely-contested penalty corner and lost out when Stephen Jenness goaled two minutes later.
The women's battle is much closer with Wellington, Northland and North Harbour all taking maximum points from the opening weekend.
Surprisingly, favoured Canterbury, 2002 champions and runners-up five times in the past seven years; and Central, third last year and winners in 2004, are, along with Southern, at the bottom of the table with no points.
Wellington scored the biggest win of the weekend when they thumped Auckland 5-1 but needed 19 minutes to get started when former Black Sticks captain Suzie Muirhead scored from the field.
While Shaw was the only player in the men's league to score a hat-trick, Stacey Michelsen scored all three for North Harbour in their win over Canterbury.
Krystal Forgesson grabbed a hat-trick for Auckland in their first-up 4-0 win over Southern, and her New Zealand team-mate Niniwa Roberts scored three of Wellington's four goals in their 4-2 win over Midlands.
