College Corner: Michigan State Club Brings Underwater Hockey to the Surface

DReportersSeptember 28, 202404 views

When he started college at Michigan State five years ago, Joe Voisinet had never played underwater hockey. He’d never even played ice hockey before.

But there was just something about the Spartans’ club that intrigued him..

“I quite simply looked at a list of MSU clubs online, and it was one of the ones I tried out,” Voisinet told The Hockey News. “I was a high school swimmer that couldn’t make the MSU swim team, so I was looking for swimming alternatives.”

If he hadn’t tried out, Voisinet wouldn’t have become a member of the United States Under-24 national team. He wouldn’t have gotten to travel to Malaysia in July, where Team USA placed ninth out of 11 teams in its age group world championship. And Voisinet wouldn’t have gotten to join a big community of Spartan underwater hockey alumni — one that is bringing a niche sport to a wider audience.

At Michigan State, underwater hockey is a sport about camaraderie as much as competition. The club began in 2003 as a branch of the scuba club, and the program has produced many players over the years who still regularly compete in the sport’s various friendly tournaments. Two of the 13 United States U24 team members started with the Spartans’ club team. No, the state of Michigan’s craze for hockey isn’t just limited to ice rinks.

So what exactly is underwater hockey? Red Wings fans might be endeared by its name in the United Kingdom — Octopush — but the sport traces its roots back to 1954. That’s when an English diving club invented the sport to keep entertained when winter’s cold limited members to the boring confines of a swimming pool.

In a way, underwater hockey plays like the descendent of ice hockey, soccer and swimming combined into one hybrid sport. Stick-wielding players dive under the water for their shifts, where holding their breaths and nimbly swimming are paramount. Like soccer, there is a forward line, a mid line and a back line that take to the water with different objectives. Players line-change with teammates at the surface, who catch their breath before exerting themselves underwater. There’s checking, there’s goals and there’s a whole lot of breath-holding. There’s also a whole lot of fine details to make everything work under the water.

“This is more than just swimming with a stick in your hand,’ Voisinet said. “There’s actually technique and passing.”

It’s a common refrain from Michigan State players that they had never even heard of the sport when they got to campus, but they quickly fell in love with it. Even the club’s current president, Kevin Koch, had never played before his freshman year of college. He wasn’t even a swimmer in high school — he ran track and cross country. But, right next to the running club booth at a club sports presentation was the underwater hockey club’s table. His roommate was an ice hockey player, and they and some friends thought the sport sounded interesting. There’s just something about “underwater” and “hockey” that piques curiosity.

“We went in thinking it was gonna be a one-off type of thing,” Koch told The Hockey News. “But we ended up liking it so much that we’ve stuck around.”

As one could imagine, playing a sport for the very first time can be a steep learning curve — especially in a sport where swimming and holding one’s breath are both integral.

“When they come in, they’re apprehensive as most people would be when attempting a sport such as this,” Koch said. “But I can tell you, every single person I’ve watched during the year comes out with a smile at the end of their first scrimmage, just because they finally get a little bit of a knack to it, and they kind of understand that there’s a lot of growth to be had in the sport. And that’s where that smile comes from.”

In a way, the Spartans are stewards of the sport. It’s so niche that there isn’t a particularly large player pool to draw from. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Michigan State program had three members, only one of which was an actual enrolled student. But in the past few seasons, enrollment has steadily increased.

The Michigan State underwater hockey team dives under the water. The team is one of the few underwater hockey programs in the state of Michigan.

Courtesy of Kevin Koch

On the national stage, the Spartans are one of a few programs in the Midwest. The only closeby college peers are those of the University of Illinois, and a lot of Michigan State’s tournaments are in Wisconsin and some are even in Canada. But whereas a lot of club sports couldn’t survive without other teams to play, underwater hockey plays a little differently. Most tournaments are potlucks, which means that teams show up with as many players as they can, all of whom enter with a note of how long they’ve been playing. From this, teams are divided by experience — not necessarily their team affiliation. In a way that gets back to the beauty of sport, these events foster community across so many different teams and people.

One of the features that Koch and his peers love about the sport is the way that being underwater levels the playing field. An elderly player can school a college kid in their athletic prime. A little kid can be just as integral to a team as a gifted athlete. In a sport where technique and finesse are so important underwater, a lot of different people can find prominence in the sport. It’s about technique and lung capacity more so than brute strength.

“The age range of the teams will literally be down from like 12 or 13, to sometimes people in their 80s,” Voisinet said. “That 13-year-old will play the same position as that 80-year-old. The same position subbing with each other.”

This inclusivity includes that of gender, too. The Spartans’ team is co-ed, with many women on the team. On a lot of college campuses, co-ed sports teams tend to be so only in name. On average, men tend to claim prominent roles with the team, and this leaves many women to feel left out. But in underwater hockey, the water again levels the field, not to mention how frequent line changes mean that everyone on a team is relied upon to contribute. This fosters an actual community of engagement across a variety of backgrounds, athletic inclusivity in practice instead of just in name.

“A lot of the time the guys just rely on strength, where we are more technically skilled,” said Passie Harris, who is one of the women on the Michigan State team. She specifically pointed to a potluck tournament at the University of Illinois which organizes an all-women’s game. “That game is always so much different than a normal game, because it’s like I can’t even try and get the puck from anybody, because everyone has their go-to move or they’re getting turned around all the time.” Harris also credited the community driven by women in the sport, specifically older women who try to keep other women in the sport.

While an inclusive community is a prominent feature of the sport, it’s still a serious sport at the national level. At the second-tier masters level, the United States has won gold at four tournaments, the most recent being 2023. The U.S. women’s team has won two masters, in 2004 and 2006.

Michigan State’s underwater hockey team crafts their own gloves. The team has existed since 2003.

Courtesy of Kevin Koch

Even if national teams exist, the sport is still so small. For example, Voisinet’s tryout for the men’s U24 team was extended when someone from the national program went up to him after playing in a potluck and asked if he’d like to try out. The national program isn’t of the magnitude of, say, USA Hockey, but that makes programs like the Spartans’ even bigger difference-makers.

“This is such a small, niche sport that even when we go to Milwaukee or places in the Midwest, you’ll see the same people,” Harris said. “And so you’ll be like, ‘Oh, that guy was on my team in a potluck.’ ”

To Harris, it’s exciting to think that when players leave college, they might start new teams wherever they end up. This is truly grassroots hockey, with the potential to sprout up wherever there’s a pool. And while it’s a very college thing to drop into a sport you’ve never played before, the sport’s overall legitimacy rises when players start engaging with it at a younger age.

Michigan State, meanwhile, remains one of the state’s big programs and a gateway for many players. There are also a number of new teams in the fold. The Detroit Ducks Underwater Hockey Club operates in the Motor City, while a team in Kalamazoo brings the sport to the west side of the state.

If new players are anything like Voisinet, perhaps they could be future national team players. But even if they aren’t, the culture that the sport fosters makes for an entertaining pastime.