Underwater Hockey Australia is very excited to announce that the 2025 Australian Underwater Hockey National Championships will be held in Ballarat, Victoria, in January next year.
The super organised LOC from VIC are doing a fantastic job of locking in everything on the ground in Victoria, and an initial info pack will be out soon with more information but we can share with you the following information for now.
Venue: Ballarat Aquatic & Lifestyle Centre, Gillies St N, Lake Gardens VIC 3350
Dates: 12-19th January, 2025
Format: (see below for updates about the format of nationals going forward)
| 2025 UWH Nationals | Day 0 | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 |
| 12-19th January | Sun 12th | Mon 13th | Tues 14th | Weds 15th | Thurs 16th | Fri 17th | Sat 18th | Sun 19th |
| Divisions | U15 open | |||||||
| U19 open | ||||||||
| U19 women | ||||||||
| Elite women | ||||||||
| Elite open | ||||||||
| Masters | ||||||||
| Format | Set up/ optional team training/ JNR opening ceremony | JNR Round robin | JNR Round robin | Junior round robin + semi’s | Crossover day- JNR Finals, SNR round robin, JNR Prizegiving / junior preso | SNR round robin | SNR round robin | SNR semis + finals / SNR preso |
| ~games per day | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | JNRS 1 / SNRS 2 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2 | |
Divisions:
- To clarify, junior divisions have always been based on the age of the athlete at 12:01am on 1st January each year (not the age at the competition).
- So for 2025, players born 2010 onwards can play U15s, players born 2006 onwards can play U19s.
- U19s will be staying as U19s for the foreseeable future (not moving to U18s as previously suggested)
- Be prepared that UHA is likely to ratify that the minimum age to compete at nationals is 11 (at the date of the comp), with 10 year olds possibly to be granted exemptions to compete
- Players competing in the U19W divisions are welcome to compete in the U19 open or U15 open divisions as well –> and flexibility will be given to composite state teams to allow this division to resume at nationals (previously contested in 2017 and 2019)
- Masters players have to be 35 by the date of the competition
Team registration deadlines:
Gone are the days of teams getting organised last minute for nationals and paying fees late. UHA and the VIC LOC are doing our best to get nationals organised earlier going forward, which gives more time for states to get organised earlier too.
This will be confirmed in the initial info pack but states should be prepared to have to submit team entries (# of teams) by end of September, with team lists and player fees due by mid Nov (2 months prior).
Changes to nationals going forward:
At the risk of this announcement sounding like I’m putting the cart before the horse, I can assure you there has been a lot of work being put behind the scenes by the UHA Tournament Working Group (TWG) to review the survey results and discuss changes to nationals going forward. The summary of survey results, minutes of our two recent TWG meetings and the UHA Tournament Strategic Plan will be released soon, which will explain the rationale behind continuing down this track.
After reviewing the preliminary findings of the TWG, the UHA State representatives recently voted by majority for UHA to trial to the above longer split format (3.5 days per division) for the next 2-3 years.
I am aware there has been a lot of support for a veterans division to be added into nationals. We have chosen to include the U19W division as a priority in the short term, and the Tournament Strategic Plan will outline the plan of how extra divisions will be catered for/added to tournaments in future.
However, UHA is pleased to announce that uwh has been added to the Great Barrier Reef Masters Games for 2025 (30-31 May 2025, Cairns), hosted by Cairns UWH. More details are still to be finalised but this has the potential to be an alternative for veterans aged players in the short term 🙂
https://gbrmg.com.au/sports/underwater-hockey
Cheers, Ben
