Hockey as an adult?

[hockeyfan7]

Does anyone play hockey as an adult?
If so, can you tell me all about it?
How much time do you spend playing a week? Do you have to be really fit? Are newbies eased in gently? Also how dangerous is it? I know it's not risk free and there will be injuries but how common are more serious injuries? (I'm a big wimp and saw some fast flying balls in the air when watching a match recently).

I'm thinking of joining my local club and I am waiting for someone to get back to me, I love hockey and ice hockey. I played in school and I used to be quite good but I'm not sure if I'm being unrealistic in wanting to play now. At the minute I'm overweight and extremely unfit (which I am trying to change) so not sure if I should go for it.

England hockey have a back to hockey scheme if that helps? www.englandhockey.co.uk/page.asp?section=803&sectionTitle=Back+To+Hockey

Hello. I don't play adult hockey buy I've been tempted because last season Ds joined a hockey club and he loved it. We got to see some of the adults training and matches and it looked great!

In this club there are various teams in various leagues. There's even a mixed junior/adult team which would be a good place to start. In fact one of the other kids dads got a hockey stick for Christmas and he started to play half matches with the mixed team to ease him in.

It seems to be that training is once a week and matches are once a week. But I think the first teams also train an extra midweek evening.

Hopefully somebody who does play will be along shortly to answer.

I play hockey- training is one evening a week and then matches are on a weekend.

Most serious injuries in our team have been a broken finger. Most players now wear hand protectors and mouth guards. So I would say no more dangerous than any other sport.

We have a lot of ladies especially in their 30s and 40s that loved hockey at school and wanted to play again. Our new players are eased in gently, some take to it very quickly, others play in the other ladies teams (we have 4) and then work their way up through the squads.

Fitness wise hockey is a great workout- you need to be reasonably fit to enjoy it but it’s nothing you can’t do over time. Our oldest player is 67!

Thanks NerrSnerr, I have had a look at the link and the club I'm looking at is on there so that looks like a good start :) They had been advertising for new players of all abilities but I wasn't sure if that included massively unfit.

TwoGin, thanks. How old is your DS if you don't mind me asking? I'm trying to encourage my DS (11) to have a go as well as I'm sure he would love it if he gives it a go but he's not sure if it's his thing as it's not football.

Thanks Greendale that's really helpful. I'm in my 30's so sounds like I won't be on my own. I was hoping it would be a good way to get fit, I had heard that training was 2 hours so I was worried I would be rubbish at it. I'm happy to just train at first them work my way up through the teams when I'm back to being fit.

Ds is 13 now, he was 12 when he started. He's never found his sport and he hated football, but he got a taste of hockey at school and liked it, but didn't make the team or anything, so we found the club. They've been brilliant with him, a total novice really, and he even won a medal at the prive giving ceremony- his first ever

TwoGinScentedTears That's really a nice story! Thanks for sharing and I'm glad for both of you.

If you really want to play hockey, then definetely at least try to learn how to play, the fact that you're an adult is a problem at all. I know many people who became interested in hockey in their adult years (some of them in their 30-40s for example) and they had much fun in it, and some of these people became really good players.
My experience was the same in fact and yes, it can be difficult in the beginning but just be patient and don't be too afraid of possible injuries, they aren't so bad as it can seem Remember that you won't need the full equipment in the beginning and your main goal will practising skating firstly newtohockey.com/how-to-start-playing-hockey-guide-for-parents-and-kids/ .
In my case it took several months of learning the basic (I was really bad in skating mostly in the start) but later I finally felt fun in this game and joined my sport club's hockey team. I got much interest for the professional hockey because of this too, now I watch its matches translations with my husband, cheer for some teams from Canada and England, and even make bets 777score.co.uk/ on them sometimes.