Sometime around in the late 1980s, UC Santa Barbara students discovered underwater hockey thanks to the arrival of Don Canestro on campus. Don was working at the Marine Science Institute as a diver and research associate in subtidal marine ecology. Don played competitive underwater hockey and was eager to organize the sport at UCSB. Don was a talented waterman.
Underwater hockey is played using masks, fins, and
snorkels. A protective glove for the puck hand and waterpolo caps for ear protection is recommended but we never used them.There are usually six players
on a side. Each player carries a notched
stick, about 11 inches long which is used to push a brass or lead plastic
coated disk (the puck) weighing about 3 pounds along the bottom of the pool
into the opposing team’s goal. The rules
do not allow contact between players. The
game is very fast paced, as shown in this Youtube Video. keep in mind, this video is shot some years after we tried the activity at UCSB!
Once a week in the evening the players would meet
Don at the WWII-era campus Olympic size pool. He
would review basic strategy and tactics, emphasizing that underwater hockey is
a three dimensional game. He related
that team members were constantly descending and surfacing for air while trying
to advance the puck or defend against the advance. Advancing the puck involved handing off
possession or passing the puck with a flick of the stick to a team mate. An attack by the defenders for possession of
the puck was as likely to come from above as it was from head on or the sides.
After practicing our disk passing skills for 15 or
20 minutes, we would split into teams for scrimmage. Play occurred in about 6 to 8 feet of water
with the goal on either side of the 25 yard width pool. The puck was placed in the center and the
teams lined up on either side of the pool.
In his baritone voice Don would call “Black sticks ready? White sticks
ready? At “go” the fastest swimmers
would descend rapidly sprinting toward the puck.
Once engaged, the other players would take up positions. The game metabolically intense pace saw
players on both sides breaking away, surfacing, taking a quick breath, and
descending to get back into the game.
I recall one play where I descended rapidly, feeling
the pressure build in my ears to take the puck from a team mate. I was kicking furiously moving the puck
toward the goal twisting to shield the puck from the opposing attackers. I could feel my lungs ache while my brain was
screaming for air. Just as I was about
to break off one of my fellow players, John, came out of nowhere and took the
puck. He accelerated like a torpedo,
broke through the defenders and scored.
It was something he did consistently at every scrimmage. It seemed like that man was everywhere!
John's aggressiveness came as a surprise because on the
surface John was so mellow and laid back almost to the point of being
catatonic. In conversation, he spoke
quietly with a slight drawl and called everyone “dude” regardless of
gender. John lost a fin on a
night dive at Anacapa Island while buddied up with his girlfriend and getting back
on the board as though nothing happened.
But he seemed genuinely surprised that no one had a spare fin to loan
him. Whenever I saw him on campus, he
was wearing the same Baja blanket hoodie over faded Levi jeans.
Don was a patient teacher who I think really wanted
to build a competitive team. Everyone
seemed to have fun playing, but we tended to regularly violate the no contact
rule. Some of the plays looked more like a rugby
scrum. While the game was a natural for
spearfishers who had the breath hold capacity to really play, most participants
were snorkelers rather than freedivers. After
a few months the number of participants dwindled to the point that it was tough
to form teams and the practices stopped.
It would be another decade or so before underwater
hockey teams really began to flourish in California and nationwide. I recall a team called the Beltway Bottom
Feeders formed in Washington, D.C. in the late 1990s. I thought about practicing with them when I
was on assignment in Washington D.C. for six months in 2000, but since I did
not have a car it was nearly impossible to get to their practices at George
Mason University from my apartment in Falls Church. Similarly, just before I moved to Alaska in
early 2002 more teams seemed to be forming in Southern California. Within a few years, regional and national
tournaments became regularly scheduled events. Still, even today, whenever I mention underwater hockey to people II get the strangest side glances.
As I look over a listing of the dozens of teams in the United States, it appears that many are inactive. The sport never really established itself at UCSB after Don's attempt. I find this surprising given the rise of the popularity of freediving over the last decade and the area's reputation as an underwater sports center.
When I first moved to Alaska, I was a member of a dive
club and inherited their underwater hockey gear when the club disbanded. It seems that a few years before they had
played on scuba. I can’t imagine what
that looked like. The wood sticks are
old and deteriorating with peeling black and white paint. The puck is uncoated brass. The set still hangs from a pegboard in my garage,
kept more for nostalgia than for any practical purpose.
In February 2014, I travelled to the remote Alaska
Bush community of Galena on the Yukon River to teach a lifeguard course to
local residents. The community has a
very nice 25-yard pool that is six feet at its deepest point. I discovered a complete and nearly new set of
UWH gear along with masks, fins, and snorkels in the pool equipment bins. I was told by Sandy Scotten, the community’s
aquatic director that the school district had purchased the equipment at the
request of a physical education instructor.
He planned to organize UWH games as an aquatic activity for the high
school students. The activity never really got up and running as the instructor
left shortly after the equipment arrived.
Teacher turnover is very high in Bush communities. Along those lines, the Alaska Boxing Academy
in 2022 came into possession of a ring, practice gloves and other equipment when
a boxing fitness scheme in Haines evaporated under similar circumstances.
I learned quite recently that Don Canestro passed
away on November 9, 2018. An obituary published
on the American Academy of Underwater Sciences website[1] notes
that
Don was diving with his friend Dan Richards, in
Cambria California. When he surfaced near their kayak, he said he did not feel
well, then passed out. Dan got him to shore, performed CPR, and arranged for a
helicopter to take Don to the hospital, but Don, who had survived so much
before, died from cardiac complications.
It is ironic that Don, a former Dive Safety Officer,
died while diving. For so many years, he was the person others relied on
because of his knowledge, expertise and prowess underwater. But it is fitting
that Don’s last day was spent in the ocean. Don was a dedicated waterman: he ocean
swam, surfed, free-dove, scuba dived, and played underwater hockey. He could
recite Navy dive tables, rebuild a regulator, and captain a research vessel.
And Don knew more about the ocean and its inhabitants than most marine
biologists.”
If find that to be a fitting testament to the man
who taught us underwater hockey.
[1]
Don Canestro. No date. No attribution. American Academy of Underwater Sciences. https://www.aaus.org/Shared_Content/News_and_Announcemnts/Don_Canestro.aspx
accessed on January 2, 2023.
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