Tara Murray
Sunshine Hockey Club isn’t the biggest club. In fact it’s not like most other hockey clubs competing in the Hockey Victoria winter season.
The club of more than 40 years has just one team coming in the metro 1 north-west women’s competition.
The club made this year’s grand final, losing to Altona. Altona on the other hand has more than 30 sides.
Sunshine captain Cassie Huett said the club was about a group of women who just want to just play hockey each week.
“We’re a low key hockey club,” she said. “It’s only our team and we don’t have other teams.
“We have all played at various levels before. We don’t even train, we turn up every week and have fun with it.
“Some are a little fitter than others, with some playing football outside of hockey which helps.”
Huett said knowing the preparation they put in each season, they were thrilled to make a grand final.
She said Altona was just too good in the end, with the result a 3-1 loss for Sunshine.
“It was a good season. We seem to make the grand final every seven years and always against Altona,” she said.
“The night before we found out that we were playing Altona. We were meant to play another team, so it caught us on the back foot.
“We had a good record against the other team we were meant to play. Altona beat us last time we played them. They’re a really good team with set players and they had five subs, we didn’t have one.”
Huett said they get along really well with the Altona side and while they enjoy playing them, know that they’re hard to beat.
While there could be the temptation to grow the club, Sunshine is happy with the one side and what they’ve been doing.
She said they don’t have the time nor the backing of a big club to grow even more.
“We’ve been going in excess of 40 years, started by our matriarch Rhonda,” she said. “I’ve been playing for 17 years and we’ve had a core group of players most years.
“Some years we’ve only seven players and need 11 players to play. We might find a new player every few years, but generally it’s just us.”
Huett said for them it wasn’t about rising up the ranks to play at a higher level, they were happy with where they were at.
“We don’t take it too seriously, that is the key,” she said. “No point for us to be more serious, we stay in the same leagues.
“We’re always competitive each week.”
Tara Murray
