The Unknown Field Hockey Observer 9

The Unknown Field Hockey Observer
9-9-05
Opening Day

The Unknown

It’s about time!

Some familiar Opening Day games:

Wilmington Christian at Concord – Fourth year as a season opener. WCS 1-0 in 2002, Concord 2-1 in 2003, Concord 1-0 in 2004.

William Penn at Friends – Fourth year. Friends 1-0 in 2002, Wm Penn 4-0 in 2003, Wm Penn 6-0 in 2004

Archmere at Mount Pleasant – These two have been opening forever, although they didn’t last year. Mount hasn’t won in the series since 1999.

St Mark’s at Caesar Rodney – This one goes way back too. St Mark’s last win 2-0 in 2001. CR 1-0 in 2002, CR 3-0 2002 tournament, CR 2-1 in 2003, CR 3-2 in 2004.

The US U21 team is scheduled to compete in the Junior World Cup in Santiago, Chile from September 14 – 25. Depending upon the team travel arrangements, Katelyn could miss up to four games, including three of St Mark’s most difficult, Caesar Rodney, Friends and Tower Hill.

Discussion of Archmere’s new turf field on the DelawareSports messageboard has generated some heat and absolutely no light. The field is made of sprinturf. Sprinturf has a rubberized backing with 2" long strands of synthetic grass. This turf is laid down upon a leveled, crushed stone base. Once the turf is installed, a 1½ inch layer of minute rubber granules are spread over the field. These minute granules supply the padding for the field and keep the grass strands vertical with approximately a ½ inch grass length above the granule fill. This is a "filled" turf field, not suited for hockey. According to the NFHCA website:

"The required playing surface for NCAA Championship play is a 'non-filled', watered artificial surface….

It’s easy to see why. Each hit would send a shower of these granules into the air. Into faces, mouths, eyes, hair, etc. There will be no hockey on Archmere’s turf!