South West Hockey Carnival a success despite stormy weather

Stormy weather did not put a dampener on the South West Hockey Carnival over the weekend, with nearly all of the tournament’s 544 games successfully completed. More than 140 teams comprised of 1700 players from around the State descended on Bunbury for the annual carnival, which saw only Saturday’s final fixture called off due to lightning in the vicinity. The result of the abridged fixture was still able to be recorded with the game more than halfway completed. Organiser Karen Hogan said the Bunbury and Districts Hockey Association was “very happy” with the outcome. “On the Saturday, it was pretty much sunshine all day. Sunday, drizzly, we had a couple of fairly heavy downpours, but not enough to cancel games ... Monday, we had sunshine again,” she said. “In the lead-up, we had everyone looking at the weather, not just from Bunbury but the travelling teams, constant questions, ‘are we going to cancel it?’, and just that constant pressure because teams are travelling from a long distance. “We kept looking at the weather, we figured we would get most of the games in knowing a lot of the heavy rain would come in overnight, but we were very pleasantly surprised because I actually thought we’d be cancelling quite a few games.” The Bunbury Hockey Stadium precinct suffered damage in last month’s freak tornado, but the hard work of organisers ensured the carnival was able to go ahead. Ms Hogan said the local group was grateful to a number of associations from around the region which had offered help, including Busselton who loaned grass goals for the weekend. Perth teams dominated much of the results but Bunbury sides did enjoy some success on the local stage, with the Year 5/6 girls side winning their division and the Year 9/10 boys team finishing as runners-up.