Hawthorn’s long-haired lothario Paul MacKinnon has been kind enough to write us a little piece on his time over in Spain, where he’s been playing for the last little bit.
We at THS thought it might open everyone’s eyes to the possibilities of playing overseas and how wicked it can be!! Over to you Paul…
Hey all you hockey buffs.
As most of you were aware, the Victorian league has been invaded by a number of Spanish Conquistadors last year and again this year. But I decided to get a little bit back and made the journey in the opposite direction to harass them, Australian style.
I’ve been playing with Club Egara in the city of Terrassa. Of any city in the world you could go to for hockey this maybe the best. Hockey here is seriously ‘The’ most important sport in the city. Sure football is loved but the status of hockey is amazing.
The Spanish league itself is country wide so from any given weekend we are travelling and playing anywhere from Barcelona to the west coast just above Portugal and to the beaches of San Sebastion. So through the hockey I have been able to see a lot of Spain.
The club houses at some of the clubs are amazing, and my club is one of the good ones. My club, where hockey was the original sole sport, has 2 full fields and a half field. 14 tennis courts, 6 padel courts (Spanish tennis), an indoor and outdoor pool, fitness rooms, a new gym, a café, a restaurant, a hair dresser (no funnily enough I know what you are thinking but I haven’t used it), a day spa (or this) and a kids day care. Yes it is a lot different to the shack at Greensborough or the two rooms at Hawthorn. And this is not the biggest club. Club de Campo has two golf courses and their own post code!!
The hockey is a very good level. The league itself is somewhere in between SL1 and AHL, but the top 4 teams would be competitive if not have a chance of winning AHL. With players such as Edi Tubau, Pol Amat and Sander van der Veida (all nominated for World Player of the Year at some stage) you can imagine the league is pretty good. My team finished as minor premiers in the league but unfortunately lost in the semi finals last week. Unlike in Melbourne, here we have a 3 match series and the winner goes into the final.
On top of the regular season there is the Copa Del Rei (King’s Cup) which we lost in the final of and also, which has been an unbelievable experience to play in, the Euro League. If you are unaware of the Euro League, it is like the Champions league of football. The best 24 teams from all of Europe come together for a competition. We have gone from 24 teams and now after our four games, one of them beating Bloemendaal and Teun de Nooijer (my old team), we are into the final 4 of this competition to be played this weekend in Rotterdam, Holland.
So without going into too much detail I hope this has given you all a little insight into my hockey experience in Spain. I look forward to getting back to Australia and getting stuck into the SL1 comp again soon.
Paul MacKinnon
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October 9th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
is that a real shirt?