Tasmania’s sporting messiah Eddie Ockenden has another miracle to perform at the Paris Olympics. He tells Editor-at-Large Louise Evans it’s all about belief.
Even now he finds it hard to watch – losing the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in a gut wrenching penalty shootout. Then enduring Covid quarantine and going home with another Olympic silver for the Kookaburras, the team’s fourth.
“It’s hard to relive, hard to watch for sure, yeah that one hurt,” Eddie Ockenden winces.
The Australian men’s hockey team is a dependable Olympic brand. They usually come home with a medal. But they haven’t won gold in 20 years, since the 2004 Athens Olympics, back when Ockenden was 18 and moved from Hobart to Perth as a teenager to join “the men” preparing for Beijing 2008.
Ockenden has been a member of every Commonwealth Games and Olympic team since. He’s won four Commonwealth Games golds in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 in Birmingham where he was a flag bearer at the opening ceremony.
He helped “the men” win two Olympic bronze medals at the 2008 Beijing, where he was the youngest in the team, and then 2012 London Olympics.
Don’t talk about 2016 Rio when the Kookaburras finished sixth. Then the hot pain of Tokyo, losing the gold medal to Belgium in a crushing shoot-out after being locked 1-1 at full time. Belgium prevailed 3-2 in the shootout to win its first men’s hockey gold medal, leaving the men in green and gold to nurse a four-year ache. It was the Kookaburras’ fourth Olympic silver after Mexico 1968, Montreal 1976 and Barcelona 1992.
Now Ockenden is staring down history. He’s 36, he’s captain Kookaburra. He’s played for Australia a crazy 424 times, the first Australian hockey player to appear in 400 internationals, and he’s scored 72 goals so far.
Come Paris he’ll make history as the first Australian hockey player to compete at five Olympics. So what’s his prediction for Paris? It’s all about belief.
“We’re going to Paris with a realistic goal that our best is good enough to win a gold medal,” he said. “We have the belief that we are a very good team. We believe we’re good enough to win.
“I have a strong belief in myself – I know I can do it. I know I am good enough and I am always thinking how can I get better.”
After Tokyo, Ockenden is expecting there’ll be an explosion of Olympic fervour in Paris. Tokyo was hard because of Covid, the masks, the heat, the empty stadiums, quarantine with no gold medal to keep you company. Going home with silver. No shame – just the wrong colour.
“I’m expecting Paris will have a very different vibe to Tokyo. Tokyo was hard for so many reasons. It was very different. I’m expecting there’ll be an explosive vibe in Paris.
“Going to the Olympics is the coolest thing you can do as an athlete, as a fan. It’s a very special event on the world landscape. I remember going to my first (Beijing 2008). Competing at my fifth is mindblowing. Never thought I would play this long.”
So how’s he managed to keep mind and body together for his fifth in Paris? Except for rupturing his kidney playing hockey aged 14 he’s spent two decades playing at the highest level relatively injury free, developing his mastery of the game and a hockey brain the size of a beach ball.
He hasn’t missed too many training days off-sick either. It means that even though he’ll be one of the oldest in the Paris team, he’ll be fit, fast, resilient, competitive and determined.
“I feel like I’m pretty athletic in the way I can move,” he said. “I can cover a short distance quickly and keep running. I have a good understanding of the game. It’s a good mix. I also like to fit into the team dynamic. I love the team dynamic. Scoring gives you that instant satisfaction, that rush of euphoria, but the deep satisfaction is that winning feeling with the team.”
Ockenden says another key to his longevity is learning to enjoy the “hard stuff”. Not losing in Tokyo but when you’re doing a night training session and you’re bone tired because your kids – three young boys – have stolen some of your sleep and you’ve already had a full day.
“I’ve learned to enjoy the hard parts because there’s a lot that’s difficult, when it gets hard at training and it’s tough. There are high-stress times, tough times with selection and performance.
You can enjoy getting through that. You can enjoy the challenge, the tough stuff, and give yourself a pat on the back.”
Ockenden said his love of his sport came from growing up in a hockey household in Hobart. As a kid he played with his Mum Angela in the hallway and the backyard and watched her matches at the North-West Graduates Hockey Club where he ran around with a stick with his mates.
Ockenden joined the Tasmanian Institute of Sport aged 14 and he rates the next four years as crucial to his hockey education and training. He followed in his Mum’s footsteps too, playing for the North West Grads, a strong club with good mentors and trying all the time to keep up with and beat the bigger players.
“I just love being out there, running around, chasing the ball with my teammates, my best mates,” he said. “Some of your happiest moments are when you’re a kid and you’re just out there running around. It’s important to keep that feeling of freedom and happiness.”
Aged 18 he moved to Perth to the Hockey Australia High Performance hothouse. He started his Kookaburras career as a striker before becoming a midfield workhorse and now he’s a play-making defender.
Should he perform the Paris miracle of Kookaburra gold, Ockenden is not ruling out playing on for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics when he’ll be 40. Come what may he knows life after the Kookaburras will be in Hobart with his partner, Dutch hockey player Louise Mitterdorfer and their three young boys.
He’s keen to look at coaching and turning his knowledge bank of training, nutrition, tactics and competition, together with his many notebooks, to foster the next generation of hockey stars at the Tasmanian Institute of Sport or the University of Tasmania.
Intersperse coaching with his “third place” passions of fly fishing and hiking and Ockenden reckons life after the Kookaburras would be “pretty sweet”. He says you need a “third place”. “You’ve got work and home and … you need that third place.”
Growing up in Hobart as a kid and in Perth as a Kookaburra means Ockenden has spent most of his sporting life off the radar. He could walk from Cairns to Melbourne and barely get recognised.
But in Tasmania he’s a sporting god. Okenden is already one of Tasmania’s most successful, enduring and gifted athletes. Paris will elevate him to messiah level. Gold will guarantee he’ll be able walk on water across the Derwent River.
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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