the hockey

Fancy a pint? Join the crai­c and non-rugby topics here.

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Dave
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 24498
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:27 pm

Re: the hockey

Post by Dave »

Dublin4 wrote:Never did women's hockey deserve a good run as much as this team did.
The IRFU has invested years now in trying to manufacture a new sport,namely women's rugby.
They have quietly attempted to cannibalise women's hockey in this cause, stealing players and upsetting the sources that nurture that sport. That's a sport that has a century or more of catering for the sporting needs of many young women who share the demographic that the IRFU aims at north and south.

So I am delighted that women's hockey has got a shot in the arm. Now clear off with your fake sport.
Stealing players? I wonder how many of the irish pack were "stolen" from hockey? I suppose the fairer sex can't be allowed to make up their own minds.

It's ironic considering a D4-Donnybrook crowd hurled bodyshaming abuse at some of our women. It must be the culture down there. Sexism seems rife. Rugby is for a variety of shapes and sizes. Never forget that. Time to move on, dinosaur.
I have my own tv channel, what have you got?
User avatar
Rooster
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 40137
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2005 12:39 am
Location: Chicken coop 17

Re: the hockey

Post by Rooster »

There was an over 50 tournament that ran alongside the hockey world cup and the Irish side won it.
“That made me feel very special and underlined to me that Ulster is more than a team, it is a community and a rugby family"
Rory Best
User avatar
big mervyn
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 14358
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 2:22 pm
Location: Overlooking the pitch (til they built the old new stand)

Re: the hockey

Post by big mervyn »

solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off of Sky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.
Volunteer at an animal sanctuary; it will fill you with joy , despair, but most of all love, unconditional love of the animals.
Big Neville Southall
armalig
Novice
Posts: 177
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:00 pm

Re: the hockey

Post by armalig »

BaggyTrousers wrote:
big mervyn wrote:
BaggyTrousers wrote:Gallant British Lads as expected, well-done Ladies I suppose. I see none of you experts mentioned that they were annihilated Love - six, so as I had suggested their presence in the final ruined it as a contest, oh well, sure the boggers are happy, that's all that counts.

I assume that hockey will now vanish back to whence it came, the administrators likely to be as effective in capitalising on this rare period in the sun as Mike Reid was when Ulster won the ERC.
Seems that Engerland had engineered an easy wee route to the final and then Ireland hijacked it.
Oh well, that's different, well done girls. :lol:
:D great to have you on board El Baggio :lol:
User avatar
WeeWorld
Initiate
Posts: 549
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 11:42 am

Re: the hockey

Post by WeeWorld »

big mervyn wrote:
solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off of Sky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.
One of whom was was a big lad named Mervyn by any chance? :lol:
Yes, that's me in the avatar!
User avatar
big mervyn
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 14358
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 2:22 pm
Location: Overlooking the pitch (til they built the old new stand)

Re: the hockey

Post by big mervyn »

WeeWorld wrote:
big mervyn wrote:
solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off of Sky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.
One of whom was was a big lad named Mervyn by any chance? :lol:
Not me WW!

So the hockey girls are the first Ireland team to reach a world final apart from Snooker (4 times) Golf (3 times), Elephant Polo and rowing. The Beeb were still trotting this out yesterday.
Volunteer at an animal sanctuary; it will fill you with joy , despair, but most of all love, unconditional love of the animals.
Big Neville Southall
User avatar
BaggyTrousers
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 30337
Joined: Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:29 pm
Location: España

Re: the hockey

Post by BaggyTrousers »

big mervyn wrote:
solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off ofSky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.
Really Merv? "Off of", FFFS pal I'd never have expected you to come out with that. "Off" or "From" would suffice.
NEVER MOVE ON. Years on, I cannot ever watch Ireland with anything but indifference, I continue to wish for the imminent death of Donal Spring, the FIRFUC's executioner of Wee Paddy & Wee Stu, and I hate the FIRFUCs with undiminished passion.
armalig
Novice
Posts: 177
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:00 pm

Re: the hockey

Post by armalig »

big mervyn wrote:
WeeWorld wrote:
big mervyn wrote:
solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off of Sky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.
One of whom was was a big lad named Mervyn by any chance? :lol:
Not me WW!

So the hockey girls are the first Ireland team to reach a world final apart from Snooker (4 times) Golf (3 times), Elephant Polo and rowing. The Beeb were still trotting this out yesterday.
not sure of beeb ....... but RTE clarified it several times ie first Ireland "field sports " team to make world finals .

(Golf has a `manicured course` some might argue its a field but not many cow herds dandering about I suppose ? ..not sure what Elephant polo has mindu ..wud have thought it was field and a damn large one at that with tele-handler +scoop parked up on touchline :lol: )
Liz Fraser
Squire
Posts: 637
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: the hockey

Post by Liz Fraser »

First hockey game I have ever watched.
6 fecken nil.
That'll learn me.
User avatar
big mervyn
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 14358
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 2:22 pm
Location: Overlooking the pitch (til they built the old new stand)

Re: the hockey

Post by big mervyn »

BaggyTrousers wrote:
big mervyn wrote:
solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off ofSky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.
Really Merv? "Off of", FFFS pal I'd never have expected you to come out with that. "Off" or "From" would suffice.
I attempting to use the vernacular in an ironic sense Baggy. :D

Now that hockey is done and dusted for the foreseeable, what little watched sport are we going to latch onto next?
Volunteer at an animal sanctuary; it will fill you with joy , despair, but most of all love, unconditional love of the animals.
Big Neville Southall
User avatar
Jackie Brown
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 11723
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2005 1:15 pm
Location: Carrickfergus

Re: the hockey

Post by Jackie Brown »

big mervyn wrote:
BaggyTrousers wrote:
big mervyn wrote:
solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off ofSky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.
Really Merv? "Off of", FFFS pal I'd never have expected you to come out with that. "Off" or "From" would suffice.
I attempting to use the vernacular in an ironic sense Baggy. :D

Now that hockey is done and dusted for the foreseeable, what little watched sport are we going to latch onto next?
Rugby Football at Ravenhill

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
Gonna Party Like It's 1999
armalig
Novice
Posts: 177
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:00 pm

Re: the hockey

Post by armalig »

big mervyn wrote:
solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off of Sky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.

Only in Ireland !! U gotta love these lads ambition …

The Ireland World Elephant Polo team was captained by Graham Little from Enniskillen. (AND Sky Sports)
Riding alongside Little were his brother, Warren, Justin ‘The Scoop’ Woods, Michael Loughman, Colin Carroll and Graham ‘Slippy’ Smith.

Little met Carroll - an adventurer who once broke his back in a surfing accident and made a full recovery - in Zagreb in 2004. Carroll's website states that the pair shared a unique desire to be Irish champions in just about anything, and they adopted the motto “No Prior Experience”. Their mission statement was simple – think of something they hadn’t done before, pronounce themselves experts, and go somewhere they hadn't previously been to become the champion of it. :D

The lads have since recorded a single in Poland under the guise of an Irish boy band, raced bobsleighs alongside the Russian and Latvian Olympic teams, taken on a select Riga team in full-contact ice hockey and, most notably, competed in the 24th world Elephant Polo Championships.

Under the auspices of the World Elephant Polo Association (WEPA), the Irish side were granted a four-goal advantage due to the handicap system - similar to the one which exists in normal polo - and they therefore set out to defend the lead at all costs. You simply cannot give 'Slippy' Smith and the boys a four-goal advantage and expect to win a game.

However, no elephant is permitted to lay down in the goalmouth, so parking the bus was not an option for the lads. :thumleft:
Indeed, according to Colm O'Connor, they did the opposite; striker Warren Little was unleashed on the Tigresses' defence, with his tidy finish against the run of play putting Ireland into a 5-0 lead after just four minutes of play. :fleg:

A goal from Sweden’s Lars Lofgren and a spectacular volley from Celia Temple brought the international outfit back into the tie, but a dogged Ireland held out for a historic 6-2 victory, landing the world title in their first ever tournament
The format to elephant polo is similar to horse polo, but players just use longer sticks. Yeah, no sh1t.

Four-elephant teams compete over two 10-minute chukkas on a pitch one-third the size of a horse polo pitch (roughly the size of a football pitch).

Elephants are even swapped at half time to even out any perceived advantage, and no elephant may pick up the ball with its trunk. (WEPA are obviously well aware of what happened during the All-Priests Over-75s Five-A-Side Football Challenge :roll: .)

It's widely accepted that Ireland's Colin Carroll is the first left-handed player in the sport's history. Like horse polo, all players in the elephant code are supposed be right-handed, but Carroll supposedly spotted an oversight in the rulebook and confronted Jim Edwards, the founder of elephant polo, and asserted his right to play.

According to one former player, the all-conquering Ireland side of 2005 used to train atop Land Rovers to simulate the match day experience, with one man driving the vehicle and the other swinging wildly from the roof. :lol: :lol:

The tournament saw eight teams - and players from 11 countries - taking part beneath the Himalayas. But the stunning backdrop wasn't the only cause for distraction; the competition was played in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal - one of the world's most densely populated areas for Bengal tigers.

...Think Ireland Hockey wud have welcomed a similar handicap system... 4 goal start :cheers:
User avatar
BaggyTrousers
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 30337
Joined: Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:29 pm
Location: España

Re: the hockey

Post by BaggyTrousers »

Outstanding post Lig, as amusing as it is informative, I guldered thrice. :thumleft:

By the way, never underestimate, or as George Dubya Bush would have said, "Misunderestimate" Ireland. It is a little-known fact but a fact it is, that Ireland is the largest exporter of bananas in Europe. I garnered this fact whilst at the Fyffes distribution plant outside Alicante several years back.

What took you there? I hear someone ask, and the simple answer is that the Irish consulate is hosted by Fyffes outside Alicante and I had cause to visit.
NEVER MOVE ON. Years on, I cannot ever watch Ireland with anything but indifference, I continue to wish for the imminent death of Donal Spring, the FIRFUC's executioner of Wee Paddy & Wee Stu, and I hate the FIRFUCs with undiminished passion.
User avatar
Cap'n Grumpy
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 15642
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 4:21 pm
Location: second barrier up, at the half-way line ... or is the third?

Re: the hockey

Post by Cap'n Grumpy »

armalig wrote:
big mervyn wrote:
WeeWorld wrote:
big mervyn wrote:
solidarity wrote:
Bythe way, anybody remember a couple of lads from Enniskillen (I think) winning the world championship in elephant polo about ten or a dozen years ago?
It was Graham Little (off of Sky Sports) his brother and 4 other Irish lads.
One of whom was was a big lad named Mervyn by any chance? :lol:
Not me WW!

So the hockey girls are the first Ireland team to reach a world final apart from Snooker (4 times) Golf (3 times), Elephant Polo and rowing. The Beeb were still trotting this out yesterday.
not sure of beeb ....... but RTE clarified it several times ie first Ireland "field sports " team to make world finals.
Golf 4 times actually IIRC.

Anyway, I heard another broadcaster (may have been RTE or possibly BT Sport - I don't recall) who qualified it as being the first WEEMEN'S* team to reach a world final, so maybe one broadcaster got it right in the end .... unless you know differently? :D


* They may not have pronounced it like that. >EW
I'm not arguing -
I'm just explaining why I'm right
User avatar
Russ
Rí­ na Cúige Uladh
Posts: 28295
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:27 pm
Location: Looking for George North's defence

Re: the hockey

Post by Russ »

Not allowed to call it weemins now

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Post Reply