This year Wellington Hockey will have six extraordinary umpires travelling to Nelson and Palmerston North to officiate the 2022 National U18 tournaments.
Ashley Hanaray, Malikah Davy and Lexie Etherington will be travelling to the Women’s tournament in Nelson while Chris Hill, Josh McDougall and Liam Hawke will be heading to Palmerston North for the U18 Men’s tournament starting July 10th.
The inclusion of additional Wellington-based umpires comes as other associations are unable to provide quality umpires of a high enough standard to send away for the tournaments. Over the week the umpires will officiate for the top young players of New Zealand as they compete to find which association will reign supreme in this year’s U18 National Tournaments.
WHA umpire Malikah Davy will be travelling to the Women’s tournament in Nelson this weekend and says the support offered to umpires in tournaments like these are an invaluable opportunity to develop their skills, “Being able to reflect on our umpiring performance with the umpire coaches every evening is great. We also do a lot of self-reflection which we can then bring back to our home associations and use to better our umpiring here in Wellington”.
Malikah says her goal for the tournament is to “have fun and enjoy the umpiring team environment. I’ve met some of my closest friends through umpiring at tournaments and even though we are in different cities, being able to meet up again we really just pick up where we left off”, says Davy.
Davy has a wealth of experience umpiring at national tournaments having umpired at over 10 representative tournaments in the last 8 years. Her experience includes U15 Boys & Girls, Federation Cups and U18 regional tournaments.
Josh McDougall will be one of the three male Wellington umpires travelling to Palmerston North for the U18 Men’s Tournament. This will be his third U18 Tournament and 6th National Tournament. Josh too is excited to meet up with old friends and build upon his skills as an umpire on the national stage. “The great thing about these tournaments is you get to see your mates from different parts of the country you only see once a year. There is a fantastic social aspect to these tournaments that make me want to go back every year” says McDougall.
All six travelling Wellington-based umpires have experience umpiring national tournaments and are regular fixtures in our Open Grade Cello Premier and Sporting Edge Premier Secondary competitions.
Join us in wishing the best of luck to our umpires at the upcoming Vantage National U18 Tournaments.
