Hockey: NZ wins hosting rights for Champions Trophy

Hilary Poole, chief executive of New Zealand Hockey. Photo / Dean Purcell

Hockey New Zealand has been handed hosting rights to the year's biggest tournament with yesterday's confirmation that the men's Champions Trophy will be played here from December 3-11.

The eight best teams in the world will be at the North Harbour Hockey Stadium for the 24-match tournament which will give the teams their last international hit-out before next year's London Olympics.

Once India's hosting rights came under scrutiny after they failed to bring the game there under one umbrella, New Zealand were at the forefront of FIH discussions.

As the world's seventh-ranked country, New Zealand were the only team in the world's top eight not to be involved in this year's tournament.

The Black Sticks were, instead, scheduled to play at the Champions Challenge in South Africa in their bid to bag a place in the next Champions Trophy.

India will now take New Zealand's place at that tournament as the top-ranked nation.

Hockey New Zealand chief executive Hilary Poole has welcomed the faith shown in her association by the international federation.

"We had to be happy with our ability to handle the financial risk. We did a scoping exercise, had [former Hockey NZ chief executive] Ramesh Patel in to look into it and went from there," said Poole.

"We spoke to our funding partners and their reaction was to go for it.

"We put a proposal to FIH on August 29 with the proviso any acceptance would still be conditional on funding.

"We were able to make the bid unconditional on September 9."

There has been solid support from Auckland City, the Ministry of Economic Development (through New Zealand Major Events), Sparc, High Performance Sport NZ and New Zealand Entertainment and Events Corporation.

There has also been vital support from Hockey NZ benefactor Owen Glenn through the Glenn Family Foundation, which helped HNZ secure the tournament and will lead to its becoming the naming rights sponsor.

North Harbour was the favoured venue after its success in hosting the 2008 Olympic qualifying tournament in which New Zealand claimed the last place at the Beijing Olympics with a dramatic extra-time win over Argentina.

The ground, with the addition of temporary seating, can accommodate 5000 spectators and is seen as an ideal venue from which to beam television coverage to an estimated multimillion viewership worldwide.

The New Zealand team are expected to play warm-up matches against teams as they arrive to prepare for the tournament.