Bristol Octopush (Underwater Hockey) Club Home Page

Octopush picture
Keith & Charlotte snapped by the Western Daily Press at our old Speedwell pool ( now demolished! )

Created and maintained by: colin.waterhouse@duffserve!.talktalk.net  (get rid off the "duffserve!" bit to get the real one)

Last revised 11th March 2010 (Latest updates: Port Open Tournament, WikipediA entry link, Link to the Fins 4 U website, Facebook name, Wocester details in teams listing, York Uni contact details)

Octopush is played in a swimming pool by two teams of six players, equipped with mask, fins, snorkel and a small wooden pusher. A solid lead puck is used that can be pushed or flicked up to 3m along the pool bottom. The game has now spread to many countries including Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Phillipines, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, USA, Moldavia, Yugoslavia and most recently Cuba, Singapore, Turkey and Hong Kong (NEW in 2002). Regardless of the country the game is universally followed by a beer / tinny / biere / pivo down the local!! See the Underwater Hockey Tourist for details of non UK teams

Index

For anyone interested in finding out more

(particularly in the Bristol, Tewkesbury and Gloucester area!)

WHAT'S THIS OCTOPUSH ABOUT THEN? .........GETTING STARTED

-Wikipedia entry...... ACTION IN AND AROUND BRISTOL

MAP OF UK & Irish teams with links to contact details

CONTACTS FOR UK & IRISH TEAMS (358k))  ..........FINDING OUT MORE

INTERNATIONAL LINKS

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For current players or to locate a team near you

CONTACTS FOR UK & IRISH TEAMS (358k))

MAP OF UK & Irish teams with links to contact details

HINTS AND TIPS .........-CONTACTS FOR TEAMS WORLDWIDE .........GETTING SQUIDS (Pucks), GLOVES, GULLYS etc

RULES .........INTERNATIONAL LINKS .........WORLDWIDE & UK MAILING LISTS (THE "HOCKEYNET")

WHAT'S THIS OCTOPUSH ABOUT THEN?

Can you imagine combining snorkelling with a game similar to hockey, but underwater? That put very simply is OCTOPUSH (By Clare Straiton, British Octopush Association Development Officer)

Here are some articles on us that have appeared in Bristols regular magazine on local news and whats on.

Deep Down And Dirty         For puck's sake

              

A Fine Pair Of Bristols! ,"Underwater Ice Hockey" article from Western Daily Press, 5th July 96 (6k)

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GETTING STARTED

Clare Straiton & Marion Wheeler's sheet 1 on basics, equipment and techniques and sheet 2 on additional skills & exercises

How to get Equipment including squids (pucks)

Ask people from around the World anything you want to know by registering on Sean's "hockeynet". Register at http://lists.topica.com/lists/underwater-hockey

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ACTION IN AND AROUND BRISTOL

 

 

 

Here's a link to a multimap showing the location (The pool is reached by the road to the west of the red circle which runs into a carpark)

 

Trips

Trip to Porto in Portugal

 

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HINTS AND TIPS

Do you fins buckle up under your instep?

Download a tournament draw sheet for 5, 6, or 7 teams (MS Word6)

Getting rid of marks on the pool bottom

Exercises

Register on Sean's world wide "hockeynet" mailing list to get the latest hockey chat and ask questions at http://lists.topica.com/lists/underwater-hockey 

Register on a UK only “hockeynet“ by sending an email to britishoctopush-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 

Advice on the best tiles for new pools

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RULES

The latest rules should be on the The British Octopush Association (revised 5th August 2003 location) site under the rules menu.  A link to a revised copy of the June 2001 U.K. rules is included here . Please note that the diagrams for the text are not included at the moment.

The rest of the world has come up with its own CMAS rules. Here are the New international rules (7th November 2005 by CMAS) volume 1, volume 2. CMAS rules are normally published on the Referees Guild rules page or Harry Siung's US page .  Referee's Manuals are also available.

Both sets of rules are very similar.

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FINDING OUT MORE

 

........TAKE A LOOK AT THIS MAP OF UK & Irish teams with links to contact details then give them a ring from this list of contacts (445k) or try

........YOUR nearest UK area representative from the Bristish Octopush Association

 

UK

Octopush Central : General information and links to other UK and European teams by Martin Reed

"Grab a Game" at Octopush Central: Zoned list of some UK teams and when they play.

The British Octopush Association (revised 5th August 2003 location)

Octobabes:  Sara's profiles of the UK ladies who play as reviewed in DIVER magazine

Brighton Octopush Club (2006 site): A brief intro to the club & a map of where they play

 

WORLD

A great new site (Oct 2006) with fabulous pictures is Victoria, BC in Canada their site is http://www.underwaterhockeyvictoria.com/

Underwater Hockey Tourist : Now maintained by The Houston Underwater Hockey Trust (Was formerly Lisa's) The listing of team contacts in; Australia, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, South Africa , New Zealand, Slovenia, and the USA.

Newzealand: Follow the links to underwater hockey from the NEW 2002 NZ Underwater page www.underwaterhockey.org.nz

Spain:  Information for both local and visiting hockey players of the various locations throughout Spain. On 20/11/02 the content is still limited to Barcelona, but we are in the process of filling the content for other clubs and locations. We [Jamie Phillips & Co] are also developing various pages dedicated to team tactics, training and formations http://www.hockeysub.net/

The Canadian Underwater Games Association invites you to visit our newly designed site at www.cuga.org

Searching on octopush I got the following search results;

Lycos

851

Hotbot

700

Google

484

Alta Vista

460

Yahoo!

310

Looksmart

110

Goto

58
Metacrawler 39
Kartoo not searched

Mirago

not searched

Note some of the hits are multiple hits of the same site giving a false indication of which is best, so try several different search engines.  The  NEW  BBCi search engine also seems to be quite good.

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