This summer, the field hockey association at Moorpark College will be hosting its 46th annual California Cup, a tournament that is nearly as old as the college itself. In preparation, almost half a million dollars have gone in to renovating the field.
“It is absolutely beautiful,” said director of competition Joe Knetch. “First thing I did of course when I got here, was I rolled in it, as a little boy would…We’ve not had a new turf in ten, twelve years.”
Knetch is one of the coaches for the Moorpark field hockey club, as well as an avid player, and for that reason he’s very enthusiastic about the field getting an upgrade.
“It’s international rated, we have four, or five now, on the west coast,” said Knetch. “We are just super thrilled.”
The renovations are not simply routine, however. The new turf was installed for use in the international California Cup tournament, better known as the Cal Cup.
Each summer, players, coaches, referees, vendors, and spectators come to Moorpark College for the competition, while almost every field on campus is converted to field hockey pitch. The massive amounts of preparation, organization, and training that go into the tournament pay off when visitors from all over the world come to enjoy the sport.
“It started out as a three-day tournament, it now crept into Friday and Thursday,” said Shilpika Reynolds, the commissioner of the Moorpark field hockey club.
The event, pioneered by founder Tom Harris in 1972, has grown into one of the nation’s largest tournament of its kind, drawing in over 150 teams from Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Even teams all the way from Argentina, Holland, and Taiwan come to participate. Harris, a retired engineering professor from Moorpark College, was the first to bring field hockey to Moorpark, and to an extension, Ventura County as a whole, creating the locally based FHF (Field Hockey Federation).
“Field Hockey Federation has traditionally supplied over 70 percent of the male national team players since the 1984 Olympics,” said Dave Jackson, director of volunteer affairs for the FHF.
Ventura County has subtly become a hotbed for field hockey in the United States, with the current Olympic national team being 60 percent comprised of players from the area. A lot of the popularity can be traced back to Field Hockey Federation, and the field here at Moorpark College.
“One of the reasons that Cal Cup and FHFsurvives is that it is a volunteer organization that draws in families and provides sporting outlets for youth and adults in one organization,” said Jackson. “We have a number of families where there is now a third generation of that family playing in our league and at Cal Cup.”
“My son is eight, he’s out there, and he started playing when he was two,” said Reynolds. “I played for 30 plus years, my daughter plays there, my son plays there, my husband plays, we all play.”
Reynolds is also one of the coaches for the Moorpark club, and her teams, the U10s and the U12s, will be competing in the Cal Cup as well.
Training for the Cup is no different than that of the regular season, it helps that leading up the tournament, the club members are playing competitively against other clubs and scrimmaging.
“Cal Cup is a week or two weeks after our season ends, so we practice through, and when Cal Cup comes, we just add another hour of practice,” said Knetch, “It’s really nice to have Cal Cup run at the end of the season.”
Reynolds, being coach of the U10s and U12s, is concerned not only about her teams having fun, but their ability to compete and succeed in a competitive environment as well. Many of the players at the Moorpark club have gone on to play field hockey at a collegiate and even international level, getting scholarships and offers to play for universities including Stanford and Yale.
“We have several [players] that make it to nationals,” said Reynolds. “And we have had a few who make it past that into the Junior Olympics.”
“It’s a little gem, there’s not a lot [of people] that know about it… We really just want to build the sport,” said Reynolds.
