New Zealand Hockey AGM Statement

Hockey New Zealand Chair Graham Child announced a small deficit for the 12 months to end June 2009 of $17,000 on total revenues of $3.4 million, at Hockey's national AGM in Wellington last weekend.

Mr Child says "With 53,000 players, hockey is one of New Zealand's larger participation sports but it is an incredibly lean sport financially. With what resources we have, including the much appreciated ongoing support from partners such as SPARC, Pelorus Trust and NZ Community Trust, Hockey New Zealand has been able to continue with both the support of the development of the sport in the regions and the Black Sticks' programmes over the past year".

A key focus for the past year had been a strengthening of Hockey New Zealand's high performance programme. "Success in high performance is critical to the ongoing advancement of our sport. This year we've worked very hard to gather the best in terms of technical, sports science, coaching and leadership in our high performance team. Our national coaches, including women's coach Mark Hager (previously assistant Coach of the Australian Women's team, and past captain of Australia) and Shane McLeod for the Men, under the direction of our Hockey Director Ramesh Patel, are amongst the best in the world," says Child.

The Black Sticks Women's team is making steady progress with their new coach, having achieved a significant milestone by winning the Oceania Cup last weekend and qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in Argentina. While the Black Sticks Men are yet to qualify, they still have a strong chance to do so by winning the BDO World Cup Qualifying Tournament to be hosted by Invercargill, in early November.

Hockey New Zealand is changing its financial year to a calendar year to better align with the hockey year, and funders, and after a thorough financial review, is forecasting a deficit of $243K for the six months to December 2009. The main drivers of this deficit will be:

The timing of cashflow - which generally peaks during the early winter months.

The relatively high number of international competitions the Blacks Stick Men and Black Sticks Women will compete in between now and the end of the year.

The reduction of SPARC funding for the Women's programme, which has required Hockey New Zealand to fund the international programme from other revenue and reserves.

However, this deficit is expected to "normalise" during the 2010 year.

New chief executive Hilary Poole is currently leading a national review of Hockey's strategy, with the aim of confirming a national plan for the whole of the sport. She expects this process to:

Take a good hard look at the opportunity to establish national participation programmes to attract and retain players in the sport at all levels.

Confirm the drivers for the commercial model to strengthen the foundations and build profile of the sport.

Review the national and international competition structure, to ensure New Zealand's best players have the access to frequency and intensity of top level match play, and to attract spectators and revenue to the sport.

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