Queen's Hockey Get Hooked Program

Aim

Our project is to increase participation numbers across our Men's and Women's Hockey program here at Queen's.

Who are we?

We are Queen's Hockey, home to 2 men's teams and 6 women's teams. We offer opportunities for players of all levels—whether you're interested in social, recreational, or high-performance hockey. Our aim is to engage international students in enriching extracurricular activities that promote health, well-being, and balance beyond academic life. We now want to cater for international students who haven't had the opportunity to try and play hockey before. Within Ulster there is a strong hockey culture and we want to broaden our outreach and cater for students who haven't traditionally played it, including a cross-community angle too. While our current initiatives continue to provide strong foundations, this new international outreach program represents a forward-thinking strategy to include more players will traditionally don't reach! We don't currently offer any mid-week training, throughout the day. We think this is another important barrier to remove so players can attend straight after class rather than in the evenings when traffic increases and daylight begins to dwindle. Rather than our focus being on competitive league structure and regional rankings, we are focusing on integration, cultural exchange, development, friendly competition and social inclusion. 

Why are we crowdfunding?

We are currently crowdfunding to help us continue delivering a top-quality experience for our students. Running programs for beginners means we need to invest in further equipment and coaching resources to ensure all players are being treated equally at our club. As well as more pitch hire.

We’re committed to ensuring these financial pressures don’t fall on our players. Your support will help us continue to offer meaningful opportunities across all levels, including participation in the Ulster Leagues, Student Sport Ireland mixed leagues, Queen’s Hockey social league, and Hockey Ireland league and cup competitions. This ultimately allows more all students to get involved in hockey and stay physically active. Our New Get Hooked program is another strand to get males and females at a beginner level involved in University Sport and enjoy the social culture of our club without facing performance or financial barriers. We are hoping to attract 30 new players from our new program. Our plan would be they then represent the university at SSI mid week events. 

Our program will run mid-week, in the afternoon at our Club House. We feel midweek will cater for more international students who have a job at weekends and can't commit to University Sport for this reason. After our 6 week training block including catering after every session we will run a celebration event in which our beginners play their first competitive game representing Queen's University in team kit, running from November to Christmas time. We feel this is important so our new players can feel the tie to club brand and heritage. 

How we’ll spend the money raised

The funds raised will go directly towards essential costs such as kit, coaching fees, playing equipment and catering for our socials after every training session. We feel it is important that we are creating an atmosphere where new players feel welcomed into our club. We provide catering for our Performance Squads and we feel players who have never played hockey and want to give it a try should be treated the same - regardless of standard or history.

We’re proud to keep player fees as low as possible to ensure hockey remains accessible to everyone, without financial barriers. That’s why fundraising is so important to us.

All money raised will be split across our Men's and Woman's club to continue to support our community focused opportunities which we are creating for our 250 active students. Between performance-level hockey and participation-level sport within Queen’s Hockey—supporting both elite competition and inclusive opportunities for all.

Community impact

Queen's Hockey plays a vital role in the wider community by promoting inclusivity, teamwork, and healthy lifestyles through sport. Beyond the pitch, we foster a sense of belonging and community among students, offering opportunities for personal development, leadership, and lifelong friendships. By encouraging participation across all levels, we help break down social and financial barriers, support mental well-being, and contribute to a more active and connected community across Northern Ireland. Our community impact will be even more noticed by catering for our players so after training they are able to enjoy the social aspect of sport, but also being fueled with nutrition food.

How you can play your part

There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.

1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!

4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made