A spirited Tasman Districts team performed with real credit at the week-long 2026 National Hockey Championships in Wellington.
The tone was set by the Boars’ 6-0 win over Southland in the opening Tier 3 match.
The composite side then overwhelmed Whanganui 5-0 before drawing 2-2 with Taranaki and losing in a penalty shootout.
The Boars bounced back against the New Zealand Army, winning the quarter-final 4-1, and then beat Central Otago 2-1 in the semi-final.
That set up a showdown with Bay of Plenty, which had come behind to upset Wellington B 7-6 in a shootout.
It was cold and windy for the final at the Wellington Hockey Stadium and Tasman continued its trend of struggling to convert penalty corners.
But a penalty stroke from captain Toby Bowden finally opened the scoring just before halftime.
Goalkeeper Jack Waddell repeatedly denied BOP until a penalty corner was deflected by Karambir Singh to level the scores in the third quarter.
With promotion to the Tier 2 up for grabs, it was a tense final quarter, but in the final minute, Harmanpreet Singh scored the matchwinner for the Bay to win 2-1.
Will Nichol was Tasman’s leading goal scorer with nine, followed by Ben Harris and Carl Quinn with four a piece.
Meanwhile, the Tasman Districts Women’s side finished fourth in Tier 2, after losing a play-off match to Auckland which scored the sole goal in the 50th minute.
The highlights for Tasman were beating Northland 4-1, Waikato 3-0, and then North Harbour 3-0 in the quarter-finals.
The team went down to Canterbury by that same score in the semi-final.
Captain Rebecca Kirsten and Jessica Kelly both scored three goals across the six matches.
