The game of field hockey is one of the largest team sports in the world that is played in over 100 countries. In Macau, the presence of field hockey activities can be traced back at least as far as 1930's, but it was not until 1975 that the Macau Hockey Association was founded. Aside from being a member of the Asian Hockey Federation, the Macau Hockey Association is the governing body for this spo
rt in Macau, where different competitions are organized every year. The rules of field hockey are very similar to the rules of soccer except that players must use their sticks instead of their feet to play the ball. Each player has a stick with a rounded head to play the ball with and the objective is to score goals by putting the ball in the opposing team’s goal. The only player on the field who is allowed to use their feet and hands as well as their stick is the goalkeeper. Probably the key rules differential between field hockey and soccer lies with there being no offside rule in field hockey allowing for an extremely fast, potentially high scoring and exciting game. Despite the name “field” hockey, the game has developed (since the mid 1980’s) from a grass pitch based sport into a sport played on artificial synthetic surfaces. The pitch at the Macau Hockey Center is made of synthetic turf with 91.4 m × 55 m in dimension which is an official and standardized size by the International Hockey Federation(FIH).
