The Commonwealth Games is 30 days away, you guys. How exciting is that?!

Being held on the Gold Coast, Australia from 4-15 April, 18 sports and 7 para-sports will be contested by over 6,600 athletes from 70 Commonwealth nations. Of course, hockey will be one of those, with the following teams competing for Commonwealth Gold and glory:

Men	Women
India	England
England	India
Australia	South Africa
New Zealand	Malaysia
Canada	Wales
Scotland	Australia
South Africa	New Zealand
Malaysia	Scotland
Pakistan	Canada
Wales	Ghana

It’s sure to be a spectacular show of hockey, but of course it can’t happen without the umpires! There’s a superstar team from around the world heading to the Gold Coast, and I had the pleasure of catching up with two of them, Tim Bond from NZ and Cookie Tan from Singapore, to see how their preparation and anticipation for the Games is going!

Tim Bond (New Zealand)

Tim began his umpiring pathway back in 1999 when he umpired his first tournament of the U13 Nationals in NZ. He debuted in the NZ National League in 2004 and umpired his first international match in 2009. He went on to be appointed to his first international tournament in 2011, a 4 Nations in London, where he was awarded his FIH international badge.

Tim moved to Germany in 2015, where he has been umpiring the Bundesliga (which is where Tim and I first met in real life!) If you’d like to know more about the Bundesliga, click here. He’s also managed to score cameo appearances in both the Belgian and English leagues. In 2017, he was promoted to the FIH Promising list. (If you want to know more about the FIH gradings, check out my post here to learn more!)

His international tournaments to date include:
Junior World Cup 2016
Sultan Azlan Shah Cup (2013, 2015)
World League R1 (Suva 2014, Prague 2016)
Sultan of Johor Cup (2017)
Invitationals (Valencia 6 Nations 2016, Tauranga 4 Nations 2018)

Cookie Tan (Singapore)

Tan Koon Kim Cookie was the GK of the Singapore National Women’s team until she retired in 2012. Wanting to stay close to the game she loves, she decided to pick up a whistle instead, and hasn’t looked back since! She says “Going into my 6^th year of umpiring after leaving behind my goalkeeper kit – it’s such a breeze now, with a whistle, 3 cards, pairs of shoes, skirt and shirt. Ha! No regrets!”

She umpired her first international games in 2014 at the World League Round 1 series in Singapore. Gaining her FIH international badge, she has gone on to umpire at the following tournaments:
World League Round 2, New Delhi (India), 2015
4^th Women’s AHF Cup, Bangkok (Thailand), 2016
U18 Asia Cup, Bangkok (Thailand), 2016
World League Round 2, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), 2017
South-East Asian Games, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), 2017
Women’s Asia Cup, Gifu (Japan), 2017

Cookie also has a Facebook and Instagram page, called Cooksfitup, detailing fitness stuff and some of her umpiring journeys – you should check it out!

Preparing for the Commonwealth Games with Tim and Cookie

How did it feel when you saw your name on the appointments list?

Cookie: I was overjoyed although I must admit that it took my brain a few seconds for this piece of news to sink in. Then my heart suddenly jumped and of course I dropped everything I was doing to check my name on the list again to make sure I was not dreaming!

Tim: We’d been told a couple of months earlier that FIH had nominated a panel to the Commonwealth Games Federation, but that it wouldn’t be official until the CGF approved the appointments. So the first reaction when the panel was announced was actually relief that it was finally confirmed! And then obviously excitement.

How do you think the experience of being part of a multi-sport event will be different from normal ‘hockey-only’ tournaments? Have you had any advice on how to handle the experience?

Tim: There will obviously be a lot of distractions, compared to a normal tournament – not just the different sports, but also the higher level of publicity, as well as little things that are particular to Comm Games – uniforms and different social media polices and transport and whatever. The main advice I’ve been given is just to remember why I’m there – obviously it’s important to make the most of the experience, but always remember that hockey is the main priority.

Cookie: The Commonwealth Games have always been outstanding. I am really blessed to receive this opportunity to be part of this multi-sport event as the atmosphere would not just be limited to the top class competition across all sports venues. I do hope to catch some action of at the other sports venues if our games schedule permits.

The difference from normal ‘hockey-only’ tournaments would be the possible days off throughout the tournament, due to the mix of mens & womens games. As such, I’ve got to be even more focused and ensure that I am mentally and physically ready for my appointments. Keeping front of mind that my primary purpose for being at the Games is to umpire hockey will keep me focused and in-sync.

What are you doing to prepare? Is this any different from how you normally prepare for a tournament?

Cookie: The game plan towards the games is more than the usual culprits of physical fitness to stay in shape – I do aerobic runs, speed and endurance training and strength and conditioning training too. Of course, I also umpire matches for ‘game fitness’. Mentally, I have to constantly motivate myself to stay focused to my training plan for the games.

The usual preparation also includes video reviews of umpiring colleagues (movements, positioning, etc.) and the teams. To prepare for the CG, I’ve chosen more videos of teams competing at the Games, and I’m watching their matches from the recently concluded tournaments like World League Finals and EuroHockey Championship, etc. to have a sense of the teams’ and players’ playing styles. I also do some mental preparation here, imaging myself on the pitch!

Heading to Gold Coast as a rookie, I am fortunate to be able to tap on past experiences of two senior umpires who have been to the games to help me manage my nerves, expectation and preparation! Discussions with experienced umpire colleagues whom have attended Commonwealth Games to find out and better prepare have also been really helpful!

Tim: To be honest, it’s not much different from any other tournament from a prep perspective. Physically, I try to stay fit year round, so my main focus right now is getting rid of a little bit of Christmas-belly, as well as trying to push for an extra few metres in the yoyo test.

It’s my first tournament using the video umpire system, so I’m trying to ensure that I’m well prepared for that, as well as continuing to work on feedback from my last couple of tournaments.

From a games perspective, I’ve just done a four nations while I was at home in NZ over Christmas. There’s not a lot of outdoor hockey in Germany at the moment, but I’m lucky to have a few games lined up in England and Scotland – the big benefit of that is that I’m able to do these games with three of my colleagues before we go to the Gold Coast!

Will you be going to the Opening and Closing ceremonies? Or do you have your eye on attending any other sports?

Tim: I certainly hope to go to the ceremonies, although there are games the day after Opening Ceremony, so that depends a bit on what my schedule is. For other sports – as a Kiwi I’d love to see the rugby 7s, and I have a friend who’s a referee for the wrestling, so it’d be cool to see him in action. I have no idea what sort of downtime we’ll get – so it will be a case of seeing what’s on, when I’m free, and making the most of it.

Cookie: Considering that this is my first ever Commonwealth Games, I do hope to attend both the opening and closing ceremonies subject to our schedules. I am pretty sure it would be great to bask in that atmosphere with my team. I do not have any specific sports that I’m eyeing to attend but it would be great to watch any athlete, as the level of competition will be fantastic.

What are you looking forward to the most?

Cookie: I look forward to gaining more umpiring experience and learnings from my team of experienced umpire managers and fellow umpire colleagues. Nothing but just looking to improve myself.

Tim: The first game… there’s been a lot of build-up and no doubt will be a lot of activity and distractions before then. So really, I’m just looking forward to getting onto the turf and getting underway. And off the turf, we have a great panel, so I’m looking forward to catching up with old friends and new, and hopefully spending some downtime on the beach!

What is your advice to up-and-coming umpires?

Tim: One of my biggest problems is that I spend too much time worrying about the outcome (marks and upgrades and appointments and so on), and this can impact my umpiring. So I’d say, forget about all that stuff and just worry about umpiring every game as well as you can… the rest will take care of itself.

I’d also suggest, keep playing as long as you can. I know it can be difficult to balance both, but I think it’s really worthwhile being able to see the players’ perspective.

And of course, enjoy it! As umpires, we give a lot of time to our sport, but we also have the opportunity to travel around the country and sometimes around the world – I have made some amazing friends through umpiring.

Cookie: 1. Believe in your own ability, you never know how far you can go till you keep pushing your own limits.
2. Keep growing and learning.
3. Stay humble, always.

We wish Tim and Cookie all the very best for their tournament at the Commonwealth Games and can’t wait to watch their performances out on the field! Good luck!

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