Case Studies
TigerTurf constructed a new Wett Pro hockey pitch for the partnership of Kings High School and the Otago Hockey Association. We used an Ecocept base to stabilise and drain the site, implementing a system to drain the surface during major weather events and manage excess water within the site itself.
Hockey is a tremendously popular sport in New Zealand for players and spectators. Our national teams compete successfully at international level, inspiring young hockey players to dedicate hours to practice and competitive play. This enthusiasm has led to schools and the Otago Hockey Association having more teams and talented players than the existing hockey facilities could accommodate.
As the game has become faster, the players work hard to out-manoeuvre the opposition by pushing their ball skills to new levels. On a perfect surface, the impossible becomes possible – but New Zealand hockey needs young hockey players to develop into skilled, top-level players by playing on hockey pitches designed for this standard of play. At the same time, the sport needs more of these hockey pitches for our regional teams to use.
Modern technical hockey surfaces bring teams the responsive, high-speed consistency required for players to develop skills that would be too high-risk on a natural turf surface. Add incredibly durable to low maintenance, and the TigerTurf Wett Pro hockey pitch goes to the top of the list.
TigerTurf
Hockey
Date Project Completed
July 2021
Area
6000m2
Surface
Wett Pro Dynamic + 24mm Ecocept
Base
Aggregate + ECOCEPT
Kings High School offered part of its school grounds for this new hockey pitch and was willing to assist with funding the project. The partnership of the Otago Hockey Association with Kings High School led to social, economic and sporting benefits for the Otago hockey community, Kings High School hockey, and no doubt for Dunedin school teams. National tournaments, regional games and practices allow keen young players to observe the dedication of first-class hockey players consistently developing their basic and extended skills.
These and other positive aspects provided the perfect site and allowed the project to get underway more quickly.
Shared sports facilities bring more New Zealanders into local sports teams at every level and work especially well within our social and sporting culture.
The Wett Pro hockey facility at the school has been welcomed by Otago sports and its supporters, as well as by local municipal authorities, winning full marks environmentally and for long-term sustainability.
The TigerTurf Wett Pro hockey pitch has advanced technical features built into its surface structure, with an unparalleled level of performance supported by the equally technical Ecocept base used to improve drainage and stability.
The construction design implemented strategies to overcome the difficulties intrinsic to the site. We built up the pitch as this site is a natural flood plain for major weather events, in an area with a high water-table, rising even more during king tides.
The council drainage system was already at capacity, so the solution was to control the drainage within the site itself. This was managed by building a raised Tencate Ecocept base to drain the surface water to the sub-grade of the pitch, and into the drainage system we also installed, then controlling this water within the footprint of the area of the pitch. To do this, we created a large retention tank from which the water could drain gradually. Ground water soaks through the porous subgrade at the site’s location extremely quickly.
Ecocept offers many remarkable features to limit the impact of construction on the local environment. Its ability to remove the need for an asphalt base also reduces the quantity of aggregate required on-site, in turn reducing the number of trucks rolling on and off the site.
The Ecocept base has all the the structural and stability capabilities of the asphalt base, along with drainage characteristics to maintain the playing performance of the Wett Pro surface in all weather; furthermore, Ecocept is made with 80% recycled materials and, at the end of its life, is fully recyclable.
Environmentally, Ecocept not only overcame drainage and infrastructure difficulties sustainably, but in performance terms, the Ecocept base will extend the lifetime of the already durable TigerTurf Wett Pro hockey pitch and support its technical playing features for many years.
An Intelligent, technical TigerTurf Wett Pro hockey pitch easily managed by Apps
The TigerTurf Wett Pro pitch at Kings High School features superb Lumosa LED lighting which is conveniently controlled by the Property Manager from the Lumosa App.
More importantly, the players and supporters appreciate the brilliant quality of the lighting on even the darkest nights, promoting safe play and clear observation of the action on the pitch.
Lumosa LED lights focus directly on the pitch, with minimal light spilling onto supporters or neighbours.
The water cannons and scoreboard are also managed electronically via Apps – three Apps to rule the pitch. Technology continues to take hockey to new levels.
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