Sports Pages

The America's Cup is in full swing. You can read some broader reflections on Cultural Connections. It is amazing how it captures the popular imagination here. Although I don't think the logo is entirely true though. I am pretty sure one of the two teams WILL be second.


Nigel has got more involved in Hockey Coaching this year. The Hutt P2 Team finished top of the first league round. We were under the impression that this would result in our promotion but an obscure bylaw was invoked that says that one club should not have more that one team in the first division. (despite the fact that last season a different club did). So the Welligton Youth Hockey slogan would be more "there IS a second - and they get promoted". Still we are fighting on and doing well and have been enjoying the involvement with the kids and their families. We see most of the parents twice a week at training and matches and have also been having coffee after the games together.



Part of Nigel's aspiration to be the best kids hockey coach in New Zealand took him to the SPARC conference with 400 coaches from all sports from around New Zealand. This was a great event and was very useful from a work perspective as well as sport. There was an excellent range of speakers and seminars from high performance to grass roots and was a good personal and prefessional development exercise.


The boys all did well at the school cross country. Luke won the year 9 race in windy conditions.


Jamie finished 6th in his race, as usual he gave his best and was exhausted at the end.


We visted Wrights Hill Reserve on the Queens Birthday weekend. This is a WW2 coastal gun emplacement which is being restored by a group of enthusiasts and is open to the public 4 days a year.


As well as exploring underground tunnels and enoying the views over Wellington the boys also did some shooting.



We also were able to go to the only match the All Blacks are playing in Wellington this year against a rather depleted French side. Not much doubt who we were supporting! It has become quite emotional singing the national anthem in Maori and english. We enjoyed the pre-match entertainment and NZ running in a record number of tries.


Not sure what sport this would qualify as. Probably more fashion that sport.


You will be relieved to know that we did not buy these rather fetching little numbers - just tried them on!
Our featured friends this time are the Nelsons. A sporting family...


And a fashionable one! Heading into a wedding!