Hockey: Masters team stripped of points in age row

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Former hockey international Mark Kake exaggerated his age to play in a national masters tournament in Auckland.

His "over-40s" men's Auckland team was on a winning streak at this week's tournament, the country's largest hockey event, before Kake was dobbed in for being 39.

A protest by five rival teams was upheld, resulting in Auckland losing all its points and being relegated to the bottom of a nine-team table.

New Zealand Hockey chief executive and former Olympic gold medal winner Ramesh Patel said it was the first age case he knew of in a masters tournament.

Auckland had a good chance of topping the table when it won all three games in which Kake played, and even after he stood down on Thursday it beat Canterbury by eight goals to one.

But it was a sorry team of only about five or six players that limped on to the field at Rosedale Park yesterday morning after being stripped of its points the day before, having to be joined by volunteers from other sides for a game which it lost to North Shore by 1-0.

Kake could not be reached last night and his wife, former women's hockey international Tina Bell-Kake, would not disclose his age.

Kake is understood to be only a few months shy of his 40th birthday.