Kiwi sports great Shea McAleese competed at four Olympic Games – and now he is helping coach the women’s Black Sticks who are trying to qualify for Paris 2024. Video / Neil Reid
The Olympics have been omnipresent in Shea McAleese’s life. The hockey star competed at four Games, met his wife – a fellow Olympian – while preparing for Rio 2016, retired post-Tokyo 2020, and received an International Olympic Committee sponsorship to expand his hockey business. As he prepares the women’s Black Sticks for their Olympic qualification tournament in January, he talks to Neil Reid about the impact the Games have had on him.
Post-retirement celebrations were limited for hockey legend Shea McAleese when he hung up his stick, while in a Covid-19 MIQ facility after returning from the Tokyo Olympics.
And the one thing he did do – accept a fist pump from team manager Kevin Marr – landed both in hot water for the contact they made.
McAleese had always planned to retire in 2020, after what would have been his fourth and final Olympic Games in a career spanning 316 internationals for New Zealand.
But the one-year delay of the Tokyo Games because of the pandemic, meant the now 39-year-old played on into 2021.
“MIQ’s a funny story ... it’s where I retired,” McAleese, now assistant coach for the Black Sticks women, told the Herald.
“Kevin and I were in the yard where you were allowed to walk around twice a day. We’re walking around, mask on, you’re meant to keep 1m or 2m distance between each person.
Hockey legend Shea McAleese retired from playing while in MIQ - and lost outdoor privileges for accepting a fist pump. Photo / NZDF
“He said, ‘Congratulations mate’, gave me a fist pump and then we got our outside privileges revoked for 24 hours. I understood – you all knew what the rules were.
Just four hockey players from around the world have appeared in more Games than him.
He is also one of New Zealand’s most prolific Olympians generally; the list is headed by Sir Mark Todd who appeared at seven different Games.
Former Black Sticks star Shea McAleese played in four Olympic Games, making him one of New Zealand's most experienced Olympians. Photo / Neil Reid
McAleese’s Olympic dream lives on as the women’s Black Sticks seek a spot at Paris 2024 through this month’s qualification tournament in India.
He is desperately keen to help the side reach the Paris Games – not only for what it would do for the team’s profile and ranking, but also to ensure his players can enjoy some of the Olympic magic he remembers.
Napier-based McAleese’s own Olympic dream started as a boy when three-time Olympic medal-winning boardsailer Barbara Kendall visited the pupils at Port Ahuriri School.
“She got us to do a task: To go home [and] write down what you want to be,” he said.
“Because I was influenced by her, I said I wanted to be an Olympian and then gave the piece of paper to my dad.”
Black Sticks veteran Shea McAleese shortly before competing at the Tokyo Olympics, his fourth and final Games. Photo / BW Media
For 17 years, McAleese’s father took care of that piece of paper, finally giving it back to him shortly before McAleese made his first Olympic appearance with the Black Sticks at the 2008 Beijing Games.
McAleese described his Olympic debut, where the Black Sticks finished seventh, as “unreal”.
Non-competition highlights included watching Kiwi 1500m runner Nick Willis winning a bronze medal – later upgraded to silver after the winner tested positive for a blood doping drug – meeting NBA stars LeBron James and Russell Westbrook, and getting his photo taken with his sporting hero Roger Federer.
Four years later, McAleese’s Black Sticks finished ninth at the 2012 London Olympics.
That event was “special” given the way it was organised, with so many events in one location, and the huge crowds that turned up.
“That includes the Olympic Village,” McAleese said.
“There’s 10,000 people in there and the food hall can have 6000 or 7000 in there at any one time. You could be in there for two and a half hours just people-watching.”
Losing the quarterfinal was a heartbreak McAleese and his teammates still feel strongly.
Shea McAleese met his future wife Jaimee Lovett, right, in the build-up to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Also pictured are other members of her K4 crew, from left, Caitlin Ryan, Kayla Imrie and Aimee Fisher. Photo / NZH
But a more positive memory is also attached to those Games.
In the build-up to Rio 2016, McAleese met kayaker Jaimee Lovett, a member of the K4 500m crew who also narrowly missed winning a medal.
The pair later married and now have three young children.
McAleese’s fourth and final Olympic appearance in Tokyo in mid-2021 was bittersweet.
While “awesome” to have made it there, the Black Sticks finished ninth in the Covid-19-ravaged Games played in front of empty stadiums.
“It was really sad, especially as we couldn’t have any family there watching,” he said.
“My dad and my brother had booked to come over to watch because it was the last time they’d get to see me play for New Zealand.”
Strict Covid-19 regulations meant competitors had to fly straight home after their competitions finished. For the Kiwis, that meant a two-week stay in an MIQ facility.
He felt for those making their debuts in Tokyo as the necessary Covid rules made for a very un-Olympic atmosphere.
Black Sticks assistant coach Shea McAleese is doing all he can to help the national women's team qualify for the Paris Olympics in 2024. Photo / Neil Reid
Visits to the Village’s food hall were restricted to just 15 minutes and meals had to be eaten in booths with Perspex barriers.
Masks had to be worn everywhere apart from in athletes’ bedrooms.
And empty stadiums awaited some of the globe’s greatest athletes.
“You walk up to a game and normally there’s 15,000 people there and it’s going off – the vibe is great. But in Tokyo, there was no one,” McAleese said.
“It was just really weird.”
Mixing business with sport
Despite the nature of his fourth and final Olympics, McAleese said having the chance to represent his country again was a “dream come true”.
But his career has encompassed much more than just competing.
McAleese, who in October last year was awarded Hawke’s Bay Sport’s coach of the year award, is also the founder of Inside Hockey; a platform that offers coaches resources to manage, plan, review and coach a team. That includes videos and more than 1000 coaching drills.
Shea McAleese's Inside Hockey online portal offers more than 1000 coaching drills. Photo / Neil Reid
It was founded in 2015 with fellow Kiwi hockey great Simon Child, who later stepped away, with Dutch Olympic silver medallist Ronnie Brouwer joining for a time.
The business started out small, with the players filming 30-second coaching videos and uploading them to Instagram.
But now it has gone global, thanks in part to what McAleese learned after being selected for the Athlete 365 Business Accelerator funded by the International Olympic Committee.
Olympian and entrepreneur Pamela Bell helped mentor Shea McAleese with his Inside Hockey company. Photo / Supplied
As part of that, he was linked up with a business mentor – former Kiwi Olympic snowboarder, and business adviser, Pamela Bell.
McAleese said the Athlete 365 programme and Bell’s mentoring had been “huge” for the growth of Inside Hockey.
“Instagram’s just ticked over 106,000 followers,” he said. “And Facebook there’s almost 60,000.
“The goal is to try and tag into the FIH [International Hockey Federation],” he said.
Shea McAleese is now assistant coach to the Black Sticks women - and hoping to get to the Olympics again. Photo / Neil Reid
“If they invest in what we’re doing, then that gives us the funding to make it bigger and better, and it also alleviates the cost on the end user which should be the goal.”
As well as offering coaching resources, Inside Hockey also has its own range of hockey sticks, designed by McAleese and Brouwer.
The Athlete 365 programme has a strong focus on sustainability – something McAleese is also very mindful of.
Shea McAleese in action against Malaysia in the 2009 BDO Men's World Cup qualifying tournament. Photo / NZPA
“Hockey sticks are probably not so friendly to the environment in terms of they are carbon and they last forever,” he said.
“And there’s only one nation in the world that actually manufactures them: Pakistan. So, then you’ve got freight of bringing them over, so their emissions are high. I’m pretty passionate about trying to alleviate those emission costs.”
As part of that, a native tree is planted for every Inside Hockey stick sold.
In another recent initiative, McAleese offered a 60 per cent discount on a new stick if the purchaser donated their old one.
Inside Hockey sells hockey sticks, and offers plenty of coaching resources. Photo / Neil Reid
McAleese wanted to reduce the amount of unwanted gear being sent to the tip, and provide free sticks to children who lost theirs in Cyclone Gabrielle or couldn’t afford one.
More than 50 were donated.
McAleese said the lessons he’d learned on the hockey pitch had helped in business too.
Shea McAleese was named Hawke's Bay Sport's coach of the year in October. Photo / Neil Reid
“With the [number] of times things might not have worked on the business side of things, most people would probably just give up,” he said.
“But because I’ve failed so many times playing and had injuries and setbacks and stuff, I just learn from it. You figure it out and start getting to a point of view where you’re like, ‘Yeah, this is actually gonna work pretty well’.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 30 years of newsroom experience. He travelled to Sydney and Athens to cover the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games.
