The Netherlands Antilles is making great progress on the international stage. Photo courtesy Yan Huckendubler

Hockey under the Caribbean Sun    

Rob Wellens is a production engineer on the island of Curacao and has become a keen hockey enthusiast since his two daughters took up the sport. His account of the history of the game in this former Dutch colony helps put them on the map. Lothar Duelberg, the national women’s coach, helped write this article.

No matter how small Caribbean islands might be, as long as there are hockey loving people it doesn’t take much effort to get the ball rolling. This applies also for a small island nation called The Netherlands Antilles. It’s an independent country with its own constitution but forms part of the overall Dutch Kingdom. 

The Netherlands Antilles consists of five islands spread over the Caribbean Sea. Geographically, the islands of Curacao and Bonaire are located off the coast of Venezuela while the islands of St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius can be found on the eastern Caribbean belt. 

Combined, about 215,000 people live on these islands, with Curacao, as the largest of the five islands, accommodating about 50% of the country’s total population. Willemstad on Curacao is the capital of the Netherlands Antilles. 

Hockey in the Netherlands Antilles has come a long way since the early 20th century when oil refinery workers from the Netherlands started to swing hockey sticks on some self-made dirt pitch. Due to its close ties with the Netherlands, it didn’t take too long to further develop the sport on the island. 

The regular arrival of expatriates working on Curacao pushed the balls forward and in 1997, a committed Dutch businessman donated the first artificial dry hockey pitch to Curacao. This hockey field located at Blue Bay is still in use today. It is the only regular hockey field within the entire Netherlands Antilles. 

At the moment, six hockey clubs form a league for both men’s and women’s competitions. Due to the limited number of hockey players on Curacao (approx. 200, plus 120 youth), a mixed competition has also been introduced to allow for more regular matches. Since there are no hockey facilities on the other four islands, eligible players from there have to be airlifted in for hockey tournaments such as on Eastern. 

After a long absence of more than 20 years, the Netherlands Antilles appeared again on the international hockey map during last year’s Pan American Cup. The national men’s team went to compete in Canada and claimed an astonishing fifth place, leaving teams like USA, Uruguay, Mexico and Brazil comfortably behind them. 

The national women’s team travelled to the Pan Am Cup in Barbados and finished seventh, beating the Caribbean champion Trinidad & Tobago in their final match.

The participation of both national teams in high-level international hockey tournaments has given hockey in the Netherlands Antilles a fresh new dynamic, driven by a highly committed Netherlands Antilles Hockey Association (NAHA) and its officials. 

Currently, NAHA is working on all cylinders to install a water-based pitch in Curacao. Should they succeed this would considerably lift hockey standards and help facilitate organising regional hockey events. 

“Without the existence of a first class water pitch, we can not realistically promote and develop hockey further on a higher competitive level,“ Ruud Hartmans van de Rijdt, President of NAHA, said. 

“It’s just the basic standard these days. Unfortunately our rescources are very limited and we can’t do it without help from outside. Yet, we are absolutely committed with our hockey development plan and we will succeed.“ 

Further proof of the remarkable hockey devotion of these islands is the recent Inter-Nation Match Series of the national women team which travelled to Havana,Cuba, to take on the Cuban squad, one of the best women hockey teams in the Pan Am region. 

Although all four matches were lost (0-4, 0-3, 0-2, 0-1), other regional hockey associations did hear ‘the bells ringing’, caused by the superb hockey performance of the Antillean women. 

At no stage was it a Cuban walk-over, with the series demonstrating that Antillean hockey is definitely a force in the region to be reckoned with in future. 

The medium term goals defined by NAHA are the Caribbean Championship in the Dominican Republic next year, this being the qualifier for the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2007. Look out for these tremendously committed and devoted hockey communities living on these beautiful islands in the Caribbean Sea. 

They are out to make it work and judging from their constant progress; the best is still to come. 

To find out more about hockey in the Netherlands Antilles go to www.nahahockey.com