Thursday, January 26, 2012

Field Hockey: Made In The USA

Ask any other major team sport if their gear is being made in the USA .
Perhaps at one time it was.  Now everything is out sourced, even that all-American sport: baseball.
Show me a baseball made in the USA and it is an antique.

The big names in sports do not manufacture anything in the USA. Those companies that are really huge names and associated with the USA; can you guess where they make their shoes?
Look at those corporations that sponsor our beloved colleges and university teams.  Do you suppose they at least make the socks they require their contracted athletes wear someplace in North or South America? Good luck.

At least Major League baseball and the NFL have their socks made in North Carolina.
But, college players are required to wear socks and apparel made outside the USA.


One thing can be said about American Jobs and the sport of field hockey.  Because field hockey has never been large enough to develop production of stick, ball, or goalie gear inside the USA,  no previously existing American jobs have ever been out sourced.

Currently, only one field hockey company is known to produce some USA made gear. Dita has its socks knitted in North Carolina, by the same knitting mill that makes  MLB and NFL, and NBA socks.
Dita also has its quality bags handcrafted in Boulder, Colorado.

Is it time to produce other field hockey gear domestically? Is it possible we could make world class composites and field hockey balls that are marked: MADE IN THE USA ?








 Check out the latest at Dita Field Hockey North America, where true passion and GENIUS abound!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Men Who Play Hockey

It is not easy playing hockey for a male, in the USA.
Growing up, for me, the option was ice hockey or nothing.
I only discovered field hockey while at Oberlin College.

I shouldn't have paid any attention when they called it "girl's hockey".

I should have kept on playing.  But, there were only girls playing and they
said I wasn't allowed to actually play.

A significant chunk of time passed before I picked up a field hockey stick
again. By then I was a father and my daughter needed a sport. There was no so-called
"girl's hockey", so I started it.  While I taught my own daughter to play, I was being taught
by an amazing Australian player, Del Hokanson.  We taught both boys and girls to play,
not "girl's hockey", but field hockey.

Teach guys to play and they will teach their children, too.

Let anyone who wants to play, play.
It  is an amazing sport I wish I had discovered it as a child.