The Black Sticks hockey teams are preparing for the Tokyo Olympics to go ahead but admit they're not sure what they're preparing for.
Black Sticks hockey player Jacob Smith training at his Auckland home. Photo: Photosport
Already postponed from this year until next, the Games continued to be surrounded in doubt due to the ongoing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
With the start of the domestic Premier Hockey League looming next week, New Zealand men's team striker Jacob Smith said their preparations did involve a certain level of uncertainty.
"From what we hear from the International Olympic Committee, they're confident that they're going to be able to get the Games going.
"What the format looks like we don't know but that's pretty much the extent of our knowledge.
"As an athlete you just have to put that out of your mind, expect that it's going to happen and train as if you're going to the Olympics in just over half a year."
Training is something both Kiwi teams had been doing a lot of in recent times.
With travel across borders heavily restricted around the world, neither New Zealand team had played internationally for more than eight months. No matches for the near future had been locked in, either.
European teams, however, restarted international Pro League matches in September.
While Smith admitted some of their rivals may go into the Olympics having played a lot more international matches, he said that wasn't all bad news.
"That gives us the advantage of being relatively unknown and we get to have a really great internal hockey programme here and then have that element of surprise factor as well.
"I don't think that's actually the end of the world. It's certainly a question and we would love to play those international games but we're also dynamic in our thinking at the moment."
Experienced Black Sticks women's side defender Liz Thompson agreed.
She said they were open to fact they were going to have to be ready to play it by ear as the Olympics loomed closer.
"As players it's a really challenging thing to go well this is sort of the plan but you've got to understand that it could shift and change and matches could be cancelled or not going ahead.
"That's the reality of it, unfortunately, and I think we've got to look at what we can do with our time and how we can utilise this window."
Part of that included the Premier Hockey League.
New Zealand's top 80 men's and women's players had been split into eight teams for the competition which started next week and ran until early December.
Smith said they were excited to get the domestic league underway, even if it had been frustrating to watch their European rivals play actual international matches.
"You watch and you see that these guys are really enjoying being back on the field and playing and you just want to be a part of it. That is hard to get your head around.
"We are extremely lucky in New Zealand to have had a lot of freedom coming out of lockdown but at the same time we are very isolated and we don't have the ability to connect with other teams like that, and that's why the Premier League is so important."