The History of Underwater Hockey
Underwater Hockey was invented in 1954 by Alan Blake of the newly formed Southsea Sub-Aqua Club and first played at the club by him and other divers including John Ventham, Jack Willis, and Frank Lilleker in Eastney Swimming Pool, Portsmouth, England. Originally called "Octopush" (and still known primarily by that name in the United Kingdom today) the original rules called for teams of eight players (hence "octo-"), a bat reminiscent of a tiny shuffleboard stick, called a "pusher" (hence the "-push"), an uncoated lead puck called a "squid", and a goal known at first as a "cuttle" but soon thereafter a "gully". The first rules were tested in a 1954 two-on-two game, and an announcement was made in the November 1954 issue of Neptune, the official newsheet of the British Sub-Aqua Club. The object of the game was to keep members of Southsea Sub-Aqua Club #9 from abandoning the new club during the winter months in which it was too cold to dive in the sea.
The first Octopush competition between clubs was a three-way tournament between teams from Southsea, Bournemouth and Brighton in early 1955. Southsea won then, and they are still highly ranked at a national level today.
The substantial changes in equipment, team size, and other factors have helped make Underwater Hockey the international sport it is today, with 34 teams from 13 countries competing at the most recent World Championships in 2008 at Durban, RSA where, even then, there were some countries that were not represented.
Underwater Hockey first came to Canada (and probably to North America) in 1962 via Norm Liebeck, a decidedly unconventional Australian scuba diving instructor and dive shop owner, who introduced the sport to the Vanquatics, a Vancouver dive club previously named the Wobbygongs. Ten years later, the Underwater Hockey Association of British Columbia (UHABC) was formed and received support from the BC government.