Emma Scriven was just added to the HNSW U21 State squad. She joins three other clubmates from SU: Sookie (Amanda Hese), Hollie Webster (a new recruit who played in the Australian Under 21 team last year) and Jamaya Ferguson (another new recruit). The squad has their first trials shortly.

Congratulations to Emma, Sookie, Hollie and Jamaya and good luck in the trials. Good luck to bambi too - now ex SUHC, but a great goalie. Liam, can't you keep them?

UPDATE: The fees for Juniors as set out here are for the Junior comp.

If you are Under 18 but playing in the Senior Comp (and not the Junior Comp) the fees will be $260 + $11 SUSF.

The differences are necessary because we are charged more for ground hire (and therefore team costs) for the senior competitions.

One of our long time juniors, Hayley de la Motte, has been selected in the Hockey Australia U18 indoor talent squad following a strong performance at the 2009 Under 18 Indoor National Championships.

Congratulations, Hayley!!!!

SUHC winning the 2010 Grand Final is the "After". Click here for the "Before"...courtesy of Liam and the pre-season fitness training

New SUHC member Hollie Webster has just been selected in the NSW Arrows.

If you want to see a great team in action, the Arrows are playing some "friendlies" this weekend against Canberra at Olympic Park. The games are at 3pm on Saturday the 6th and at 12pm on Sunday the 7th. Both games should be good - and will have the added bonus of seeing Emily Hurtz  - an (ex) SUHC player - there as well.

Congratulations Hollie.

STOP PRESS: Twelve current or former Sydney Uni players have been named in the HockeyNSW City teams for the 2010 City Country challenge.  Renee de la Motte has been named in the U13 girls' team, Nicolas Johnston and Chris Pinto in the U15 boys', Mathilda Carmichael, Fiona Tout and Cara Simpson in the U18 girls' and Emma Scriven, Amanda Hese and Parambir Sandhu in the U21 women's. In additioon, Hollie Webster, Emily Jones and Jamaya Ferguson have just joined us and are in the Under 21 team.

In addition, Rashiv Rathore has been confirmed as coach of the Under 13 Girls City coach and Liam Dixon is coach of the Under 18 Girls City.

Congratulations to all these players and good luck for March!

Three of our Sydney Uni women have been named in the NSWIS Emerging Talent Squad Program for 2010.  Mathilda Carmichael, Cara Simpson and Fiona Tout have all been named in the women's squad. 

Well done to all.

Recipe:

40+ Athletes*
10 Cars
1 Tour shirt
1 Dog On A Tucker Box
1 Unprepared Country Town
3 Themed Nights
3 Days of Hockey

Mix well (an SUHC specialty) and you have it: One Heck of a Road Trip!

Check and clear you diary now for the Easter Weekend. This is an SUHC trip that is not to be missed! Any questions to Eliza (our new Admin Assistant) on execassist@suhc.asn.au

* term used quite loosely.

Congratulations to Jenaed Brodell, Mathilda Carmichael and Cara Simpson, who all play for SUHC and who have all just been selected in the HNSW Under 18 Girls team. The team was announced after the end of the trials on 30 and 31 January.

Jenead is a new member of the club. Cara and Mathilda have played with us in juniors and seniors for a number of years.

Special mention must be made of Mathilda's selection in the State U18 hockey team... because she is also in the State U17 Girls cricket team. Amazing effort.

SUHC's new office bearers for 2010 were elected at the AGM held at the Arena Sports Centre on Dec 4th. Thanks to everyone who came along and played a part in this vital process. Congratulations to:

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Club Captain: Andy Andy Elton
Secretary: Katie Burgess
Treasurer: Bradley Cooke
Men's VP: Rob Verdon
Women's VP: Harriet Caterson
Junior's VP: Anne Simmons
Veteran's VP: Malcolm "Camel" Newman
President: vacant

GENERAL COMMITTEE

Communications Convener: Rowan Johnston
Equipment Convener: vacant
Fresher Convener: Elle Kershaw
Records Convener: Brett Radcliffe
Registrar Convener: Rishiv Rathore
Social Convener: Carly Church
Sponsorship/fundraising: vacant
Tours Convener: Rishiv Rathore

Many thanks to 2009 Committee who have all worked tirelessly and often beyond the call of duty to ensure the club progresses. In particular, thanks to Brownie, Bucko and Remo, who leave the Executive Committee this year and who have all poured a lot of sweat, time and effort into their various roles and the wider club. The entire Executive Committee took on a more responsibility than anticipated once Khev went back to the Windies, so they are to be congratulated for a very smooth transition.

Khev also should be thanked for his tireless efforts and service to the club as President in 2008 and the first half of 2009, along with his other many other committee and club roles during his time at SUHC. He was a key figure in guiding the new direction of the club. As we saw at Presentation Night, even from Barbados he follows the club quite closely.

The new executive committee has some new faces (Rob, Harriet, Camel) and some not so new (AAE) to work with the trusted and wise stewards of the SUHC ship (Brad, Katie, Anne). There are also some new members of the General committee, which is good to see. No doubt they will all rise to the challenges of 2010 with their usual mixture of tact, tenacity and flair.

Good luck to all involved.

Congratulations to Hayley de la Motte and Cara Simpson, who were selected over the weekend in the NSW U18 Girls Indoor team, and to Cameron Rowland, who was selected as a shadow for the NSW Boys U18 team.

Please send details if there are more SUHC players in these teams!.

SUHC entered eight senior teams in the SIHA summer competition in 2009 and seven made it through to the semi-finals. That is a great result.  We went on to win two Premierships (Women's A and Men's A) and finished 2nd in Women's Premier Div.

As always we had  a bit going against us - occasional inexperieinced umpires, raging opposition, limited or no training sessions and our own casual approach. This year we've overcome these concerns and done incredibly well thanks largely to our coaches (Liam and Doylo) and to all who participated. Hope you had fun!

Alan Wiggins, President of SIHA, noted the high standard and strong representation of the Sydney Uni teams this season and congratulates the club on our fine efforts.

Khev's Mixed Cats also finally won the Grand final. It has taken us 3 years to get there, even though we always had the potential. The MCs beat Bankstown 6-4 with Moylo scoring freely and Dags getting sent off. Being a player down is not a new task for the MCs: they won their semi with only five players for most of the first half.

At the Men's Indoor Preso Night, held recently at DDHP (Doylo's Dover Heights Pad), some very prestigious awards were presented. The SUHCMPPPA (Sydney Uni Hockey Club Men's Premier Player's Player Award) went to Dougal Alexander. Other prizes included Henrik "Heni Peni" Paar (a future German international) - Goal of the Year, Phil Gray - German Efficiency Award and Mick Duck and Dougal Alexander as joint winners of the Tom Lobsey Whack Award.

The Juniors have the potential to do even better than the seniors in their finals in mid December. Nine of our 11 junior teams have made it through to the semis.

Five of our six teams made the finals at Ryde: congratulations to the U9s, both U11 teams, U13/2 and the U15 team and commiserations to the U13/1 team who just missed out on a spot in the U13A final series. Four of our five teams are also into the finals at Balgowlah:  congratulations to SU1, 2, 3 and 4 and commiserations to SU5 who just missed out on a spot in the U18 final series.  In the finals the Under 15s our young girls were runners up to a very developed UTS team, whilst the U18s (Cameron Studs, Hayley and Renee de la Motte,  Paula Duncan, Ellie Eagle, Nic Johnston, Andy Skidmore) thumped Redlands 11-2 to win their Grand Final.

Seniors 2009 Season Results

Men's Prem SU Lions - Semi Finalists
Women's Prem SU Lionesses - Runner's Up
Men's A SU Tigers - Champions
Women's A SU Leopardesses - Champions
Men's A SU Leopards - Semi Finalists
Women's B SU Snow Cats - 6th
Mixed B1 SU Mixed Cats - Champions
Mixed B2 SU Stray Cats - Semi Finalists

Anyone interested in playing Men's B in 2010 should contact Andy Elton (indoor.suhc@gmail.com) very soon to secure a place in the team. The Comp starts end of Jan and runs til early March (dates tbc). The standard is roughly about 4th grade and below.

For many years Brett Radcliffe has done a fantastic job as SUHC's unofficial statistician and archivist. He has just prepared a list of the men's SHA premiership winning teams list, but is still short a couple of team photos.

We are hoping that someone in the club past or present can help fill in the blanks.

The big gaps are the 1930 1^st grade team (may be in the SUSF archive), photos of the 1979 (4^th division) & the 1994 (7^th grade team, commonly referred to as the "vets") teams.

In addition, some of the photos (appendixes 6,7,8,9 & 10) are team photos taken sometime during the season and were not taken on grand final day. If anyone has any grand final or better quality team photos of the teams listed Brett would really appreciate a copy. He can be contatcted at brett.radcliffe@boc.com.

"New Uni", New Venue, New Celebrations, New Heights to reach....standard SUHC comes out to party!

Last Saturday some 150 members celebrated "New Uni's" achievements throughout the '09 Season. Preso Night 2009 was a great success and everyone who attended was impressed by the venue, food, beverages and of course, the great company present to celebrate a long and successful season.

Highlights of the evening included a message sent from Khev "Black-berry" Williams all the way from Barbados (you can see Khevyn's speech here) and Remo's talk on the success of our year, the exciting progress we've made and will continue to make with lots of involvement and passion. There is a monster file (13MB) of photos you can acccess here.

The night zoomed by with numerous awards, but we managed to get through the official part of the evening fairly smoothly. Then - with just a minor hitch with the buses, most made it to Zanzi and carried on partying through to Sunday morning. 

Big thanks to AAE, Chloe HJ and their team of helpers - Masto, Katie, Aaron, Lize, Remo and Bucko, for organising a fantastic evening. It was a superb night and a great way to end a great season. Congratulations to all prize-winners, most notably, Ben "Remo" Chiarella, who won both Len Smith Club Person of the Year and the Cameron Whittaker Coach of Year Award.

Special thanks also to our guests from Sydney Uni Sport & Fitness, Madelene Riviers, Elite Athlete Program Co-ordinator, and Shari Wakefield, Publications and Communications Co-ordinator. It was a pleasure having you both.

Another great presentation night, so many thanks to Andy Andy, Chloe and all the others who created and ran it.

2009 Prize Winners

Len Smith Club Person of the Year - Ben Chiarella
Camel Cup - Men's 5th Grade
Cameron Whittaker Coach of the Year - Ben Chiarella
Men's Most Valuable Player - Tom Lobsey
Women's Most Valuable Player - Soph Boyle
Male Best Defender  - Dougal Alexander
Female Best Defender - Prue Rutherford
Male Top Goal Scorer - Scott Laird
Female Top Goal Scorer - Trish Ramrakha
Social Person of the Year (Male) - Rob Verdon
Social Person of the Year (Female) - Georgia Wettenhall
John Dwyer Tenacity Award - Rowan McDonald
Chiarella-Gow Award for Young Player of the Year - Cam Rowland
Liam Dixon Rising Start Award - Mathilda Carmichael