Sport is fundamental in the daily lives of the youngest people in Lanzarote, and each municipality has many modalities that children, and not so young, can sign up for to improve their performance. In addition to the usual offer of sports such as football, basketball or handball, another has recently joined that only fit in the minds of a few: line hockey training.
“It all started as a game, and when we realized it we were already competing.” This is how the president of CD Adassa de Costa Teguise, Berta Santana, explains what has happened in recent months. The club started only as a futsal team, and although it created the skating section two years ago, it was not until just seven months ago that they started practicing hockey.
“We needed three crazy people to get together to set up a hockey team, and we did it,” says Enrique Viguera, one of the club's ten instructors. Endika, as he is known, is in charge of ensuring that, every Monday and Friday, the almost 20 players improve in the practice of hockey, although he recognizes that the training “falls short.”
The president of Adassa explains the “madness” that it was when they decided to start the hockey modality: “That day we went to the stores in Lanzarote and bought all the hockey material there was. We got protections and some initiation sticks, and with that we started.”
“Hockey is a very demanding sport, but there is a lot of camaraderie. The girls and boys have had quite a bit of acceptance, they like it a lot,” says Endika, who highly values the involvement of girls and boys in this new sport on the island.
In addition, once the hockey section is established, the club will recruit players from schools and municipalities, in order to increase the categories to compete, since they currently only do so in Benjamin and Alevín categories. “We already have the pre-Benjamin team, ages 4 and 5, ready for next year. A game like that is going to be very beautiful,” says the president of Adassa.
The lack of facilities, the main problem for the club
At 5:00 p.m., every Monday and Friday, their hockey training begins. The girls and boys of the club put on their skates and protections, and start with enthusiasm the most anticipated moment of the day. However, they do so in a facility that does not meet, by far, the optimal conditions for practicing the sport.
“We hope that next year we can train in the Teguise pavilion, as we already do some weekends”, says the president. In this way, the girls and boys of the club will be able to train on a terrain similar to that of the competition, and not on the IES Costa Teguise court as they do now.
However, the most they will be able to do is train in the Teguise pavilion, since for now it does not meet the homologation conditions to host hockey matches. The main impediment is that there must be fences surrounding the pavilion's parquet floor, to prevent the “puck”, as the disc with which it is played is called, from reaching the stands.
“That would be sitting down with the City Council and talking about it, because it costs a lot of money. Maybe not for next season, but we hope it can be there for the following one, we are going to try,” says Berta Santana.
The support of parents, fundamental to move forward
It is common to see the involvement of parents in the sport their children practice, but in Adassa it goes a step further. And without that push and help from the parents, it might not be possible to move forward.
“The parents are very involved, they come to all the training sessions and are there for whatever is needed. One of the mothers is in charge of washing the clothes, and another father fixes the broken sticks with fiber, just with that we already save a lot of money,” explains Berta. And the high price of sports equipment further complicates the situation, although the president is confident that they will be able to continue taking care of it.
“On trips there is a mother who is in charge of buying food for the children who play, we are like a big family,” she adds. In addition, many of the girls who are on the hockey team learned to skate with Berta Santana some years ago, so that personal union has been extended over time.
Four clubs twinned by line hockey
The creation of the Adassa hockey section aroused the interest of the Guanches de Arona, Tenerife Dolphins and Club Molina Sport de Gran Canaria teams, who saw the possibility of creating a league. “I get along very well with the clubs, we call each other constantly and they are there for whatever is needed,” says the president.
In addition, the clubs have collaborated in the start-up of the Adassa hockey section: “One of them sent us several packages with all kinds of equipment, and another sent us several boxes of specific hockey skates without releasing them. We are hand in hand, we go together for hockey,” explains the president.
“They are happy that there is one more team, because that way we can always have a league and compete. Competition is essential for them to remain hooked on the sport, together with the values that sport provides and the need to do physical activity,” she adds.
Another of the characteristics of this hockey team is that it is made up of 90% girls, completely the opposite of what happens in the rest of the teams in the Canary Islands. "It's nice that it is so, that we are different from the rest", says Berta.
End of the first adventure in the Canary Hockey League
The weekend of May 6, 7 and 8 marked the end of the first adventure of the Adassa hockey section, with the third venue of the Canary Line Hockey League in Tenerife.
“It has been a fantastic experience, the girls enjoyed the competition and we learned. Right now we are at that point, of learning to compete. We are sure that next year will be better, it is only a matter of experience,” says the president, and in this case, the results were secondary.
“The competition served as learning. There are many who are still learning to skate and are already playing hockey. In the end, sport is that, taking values and that children do sport, which is increasingly difficult,” says coach Enrique Viguera for his part.
Logistics is another of the important factors to undertake the trip, since the packages multiply by all the equipment that hockey carries. “The plane was full,” says the president with a laugh, and each one carried their luggage, on a round trip in a single day.
“It is a unique experience. I encourage everyone to skate, do not hesitate to do so,” says Berta Santana, the architect of this beautiful madness of line hockey, which has come to Lanzarote to stay.
Project of inclusion through hockey
Adassa works to make hockey serve as a means of inclusion for people with functional diversity, with two social projects for all of them. On the one hand, the club is working on organizing a wheelchair hockey game, in order to give these people the opportunity to also enjoy the sport.
"We are working on it, it would be a mixed wheelchair game with sticks and special balls for them", explains the president of the club, who also points out that it would be held in a single day.
On the other hand, and perhaps the most important project, comes from a personal idea of the president, and is based on forming a federated team with people with functional diversity. "We have to talk to the Spanish Federation of Sports with Intellectual Disabilities, but my idea is to form a team that trains once a week", adds Berta Santana.
