The MIAA Field Hockey Committee convened digitally on Friday to a host of agenda items concerning the upcoming fall season, division realignment in future years and efforts to create a boys league.
The committee passed updates to the 2020 tournament format by a vote of 12-0. The changes were mostly adjustments due to new rules such as the quarter system and lack of timeouts in regulation play, as well as updating the seeding to reflect the new system with MaxPreps.
The most notable adjustment involves protests. A protest in last year’s tournament, if denied, would first result in a loss of timeout. A second denial would mean a penalty corner for the opposing team, and then all subsequent denials would result in a penalty stroke for the opposing team. With no timeouts to lose, coaches now risk giving up a penalty corner on their first denied protest. The second denial results in another penalty corner before the third and subsequent denials result in penalty strokes.
Another major point of discussion were the alignment proposals for the 2021-2022 and 2022-23 seasons. Two proposals were discussed, one including three divisions and another including four. The former proposal disperses 68 teams across each division, and the latter creates four groups of 51.
Teams were sorted by enrollment then adjusted based on factors as determined by the Tournament Management Committee (TMC). Vocational schools were moved down two divisions, while private schools and cooperate schools were moved up one division. Single-gender schools were aligned by doubling their enrollments.
Proponents of the four-division proposal lauded a higher percentage of tournament teams as a benefit, as a roughly 32-team tournament encompasses nearly 63% of teams under four divisions, but only 47% of teams under three divisions. Proponents of the three-division proposal were concerned about regional divide and travel under divisions with fewer schools.
Under a three-division alignment, local schools would be placed as such:
Division 1: Holyoke
Division 2: Amherst Regional, Northampton, Belchertown, Smith Academy
Division 3: South Hadley, Frontier Regional
And under a four-division alignment:
Division 1: Holyoke
Division 2: Amherst Regional, Northampton
Division 3: Belchertown, Smith Academy
Division 4: South Hadley, Frontier Regional
Schools that opt to move up would automatically be approved, while schools that want to move down need to appeal to the TMC. Appeals will not be heard based on a program’s success rate. Appeals will be heard based on the following factors: school type (private, urban, co-op, vocational), participation numbers and large enrollment changes.
The committee decided to table alignments in order to gather more information before it meets again on June 15, when it plans to officially vote on which proposal to send to the TMC.
Representatives from the Massachusetts Coalition to Preserve Girls Field Hockey presented a slideshow to begin the meeting, advocating for equitable opportunity for girls in field hockey while upholding Massachusetts Equal Opportunity law. As the rules currently stand, boys can join field hockey teams even if it meant a girl would be cut from the team, given she had adequate opportunity to participate in a different sport.
The presentation included two main proposals, one of which would revise the rules to where only two boys could be on the field at the same time while also restricting them from certain playing scenarios (strokes, offensive and defensive corners, one-on-one’s or overtime).
The other proposal sought to create a boys field hockey league in a smaller 7-on-7 format. Meeting participants discussed the issue at length, but talks were only preliminary with no set action in place.
However, the board already had slated a vote on a similar rule proposing the creation of a 7-on-7 boys league, and later on in the meeting they revisited the topic to review their own proposal. The proposal is only the beginning of what the committee expects to be a long process of building a league from the ground up, but multiple members emphasized the likelihood of increased participation once the league is off the ground and the former success of pilot leagues such as girls wrestling.
After discussion, 11 members of the committee voted to pass on the proposal to the MIAA, with one opposed.
Other topics on the agenda included planning for a likely virtual field hockey summit this summer for the players and discussing announcements from the National Federation of State High School Associations, including a new partnership with USA Field Hockey to grow interest in the sport at the high school level.