Embedded Files
I started playing field hockey in France where, as in Canada, it takes special circumstances for a young boy to pick up this sport instead of the much more popular sports of soccer or rugby. For me, it was simply that one of my father’s colleagues was playing field hockey and had three sons more or less my age also playing the sport.
So I joined CASG Paris, a multi-sport club with basketball, (field) hockey, rugby, tennis, track & field and volleyball facilities nicely spread out around a Club House boasting offices for the various teams, a restaurant and, of course, a bar that never seemed to close.
25 years later, when I left Paris to move to Canada, I was still a member of the same Club. I had played up the various age group teams, up the various levels of senior teams and 10 years in the top team, “la Première”, which was playing every week-end all over France in the National Championship. When the official season (September to April) was over, we were travelling to tournaments in England, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland or Italy. One year we even put together a month-long tour of South Africa!
Very quickly, I was also involved as a coach (for junior teams and briefly for our women’s team) and as a Club Administrator. My speciality seemed to be the organisation of events, from mixed 6-a-side intramural tournaments to trips all over Europe for our men’s and women’s teams, and of course the obligatory monthly dinner-dances.
I was also during 4 years the redactor of a weekly newsletter, produced and mailed every Monday night during the season. Thanks to the efficiency of the French Post (at the time…), all Club members had it under their door by Tuesday afternoon and were informed of the results of the past week-end, the games and team rosters for the following week-end, as well as all the newest and hottest gossips of the Club. It was at a time when personal computers, email and Internet were not even yet clever concepts for the future, when photocopy was still an expensive commodity we couldn’t afford; so we used a typewriter, an ink roneoprint machine and a lot of enthusiasm. Our Monday night sessions were a lot of fun and we were never short of hands to put together these 5 or 6 pages.
My playing days seemed over when I moved to Canada (apart for a few seasons with the Outaouais FHC in the Ottawa League and a brief stunt with the Saracens when I lived for a year in Calgary around 1998) so I decided to stay involved in the sport as an umpire and a technical official. I umpire in the local (Ottawa) league, in the high school championship and occasionally in the University championship; I was the T.D. of various National Competitions from 1995 to 1998.
In 1996, I was elected as V.P. Administration for Field Hockey Canada, then in 1998 switch to the vacant Domestic Competitions portfolio. I was re-elected to this position in June 2000. We tried to implement some changes to the National Championships (introduce club teams from the stronger provinces alongside provincial teams) which were not supported by the administration of the time, but interestingly were suggested again a few years later.
In 1997, I jumped on the Internet bandwagon when it had just started and created a web site for Field Hockey Canada, which I maintained until 2003. In 1998, I had planned to go to the World Cup in Holland as a spectator, but managed to obtain a media accreditation and maintained the FHC web site “live” from the venue during the competition, a first which was very well received by the field hockey community back home. I was subsequently selected by the COC (Canadian Olympic Committee) as a Media Attaché for the Canadian Team for the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg and for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, then selected by CGC (Commonwealth Games Canada) for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, also as a Media Attaché.
And it snowballed from there!
I was appointed as a Media Attaché by FHC, the COC (Canadian Olympic Committee) or CGC (Commonwealth Games Canada) for the following competitions:
1998 World Cup in Utrecht, The Netherlands
1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, MB, Canada
2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia
2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England
2003 Indoor World Cup in Leipzig, Germany
2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece
2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia
2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India
In 2001, I created a web site for the Pan American Hockey Federation, which I maintained until 2019. I was elected shortly after as a Member of the PAHF Media & Communications Committee and have been regularly re-elected since. To boost communications during PAHF competitions, a position of Communications Officer was added to the roster of Technical Officials and I was appointed to a number of events, including:
2002 Indoor Pan American Cups in Rockville, MD, USA
2003 Pan American Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
2004 Pan American Cup (M) in London, ON, Canada
2005 Indoor Pan American Cups in Kitchener, ON, Canada
2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2009 Pan American Cup (M) in Santiago, Chile
2013 Pan Am Cup (M) in Brampton, ON, Canada
2015 World League R2 (M) in San Diego, USA
I was also privileged to be called upon by the FIH (International Hockey Federation) to be a Media / Web Officer at various international competitions, including some of the most prestigious (Olympic Games, World Cups and Champions Trophies):
2006 World Cup (W) in Madrid, Spain
2007 Indoor World Cups in Vienna, Austria
2007 Champions Trophy (M) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2008 Olympic Qualifier (M) in Santiago, Chile
2008 Olympic Qualifier (W) in Victoria, BC, Canada
2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China
2009 World Cup Qualifier (M) in Lille, France
2009 Champions Challenge (M) in Salta, Argentina
2010 World Cup (M) in Delhi, India
2011 Indoor World Cups in Poznan, Poland
2012 Olympic Qualifiers in Delhi, India
2012 Olympic Games in London, England
2013 Junior World Cup (M) in Delhi, India
2013 World League R2 (M) in Saint-Germain, France
I have developed over the years strong ties with the players of the Canadian Teams and warmly support them, even when I have been appointed to a competition in a more global role by PAHF, the FIH, the COC or CGC.
When doing web sites for FHC or PAHF during competitions, it was obvious that pictures were quite popular, but it was difficult to get any, let alone good ones. Our personal cameras were not good enough to capture action shots, so we had to beg professional photographers on-site for a handful of pictures…
So, I decided to try shooting pictures myself and purchased a half-decent camera for the 2007 Pan Am Games in Rio. I managed to shoot a good number of…half decent…pictures for the PAHF web-site. It showed me, however, that there was a lot of room for improvement and I started to progressively upgrade my equipment, selling a camera or lens to partly finance the next one. I also took a number of photography workshops and, most importantly, asked a lot of questions of the pros to get some guidance and hints, not only on taking pictures but also processing them.
As of 2011, I switched completely to photography and covered the following competitions as a photographer:
2011 Pan American Games (M & W) in Guadalajara, Mexico
2014 Commonwealth Games (M & W) in Glasgow, Scotland
2015 Indoor World Cups (M & W) in Leipzig, Germany
2015 Pan American Games (M & W) in Toronto, ON, Canada
2015 World League Final (M) in Raipur, India
2016 Junior Pan American Championship (M) in Toronto, ON, Canada
2016 Olympic Games (M) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2016 Junior World Cup (M) in Lucknow, India
2017 Indoor Pan American Cups (M & W) in Georgetown, Guyana
2017 World League R2 (W) in Vancouver, BC, Canada
2017 World League semi-final (M) in London, England
2017 Pan American Cups (M & W) in Lancaster, PA, USA
2018 Commonwealth Games (M & W) in Gold Coast, Australia
2018 World Cup (M) in Bhubaneshwar, India
2019 Hockey Series Final (W) in Valencia, Spain
2019 Pan American Games (M & W) in Lima, Peru
2019 Olympic Qualifiers (M & W) in Vancouver, BC, Canada and in Dublin, Ireland
2020 (2021) Olympic Games (M & W) in Tokyo, Japan
2022 Commonwealth Games (M & W) in Birmingham, England
2023 Pan American Games (M & W) in Santiago, Chile
2024 Indoor Pan American Cups (M & W) in Calgary, AB, Canada
2024 Olympic Games (M & W) in Paris, France
All in all, I was privileged to be involved in:
7 Olympic Games: Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 (2021) and Paris 2024
7 Pan American Games: Winnipeg 1999, Santo Domingo 2003, Rio 2007, Guadalajara 2011, Toronto 2015, Lima 2019 and Santiago 2023
6 Commonwealth Games: Manchester 2002, Melbourne 2006, Delhi 2010, Glasgow 2014, Gold Coast 2018 and Birmingham 2022
5 World Cups: Utrecht 1998 (M & W), Madrid 2006 (W), Delhi 2010 (M), Bhubaneswar 2018 (M) and Terrassa 2022 (W)
5 Indoor World Cups: Leipzig 2003 (M), Vienna 2007 (M & W), Poznan 2011 (M & W), Leipzig 2015 (M & W) and Berlin 2018 (M & W)
2 Junior World Cups: Delhi 2013 (M) and Lucknow 2016 (M)
4 Pan American Cups: London 2004 (M), Santiago 2009 (M), Brampton 2013 (M), Lancaster 2017 (M & W)
4 Indoor Pan American Cups (all M & W): Rockville 2002, Kitchener 2005, Georgetown 2017 and Calgary 2024
1 Junior Pan American Championship: Toronto 2016 (M)
1 Champions Trophy: Kuala Lumpur 2007 (M)
1 Champions Challenge : Salta 2009 (M)
12 various other FIH competitions
Awards:
FHC Hall of Fame (2023)
PAHF President’s Award (2007 and 2023)
PAHF Order of Merit (2023)
FIH Diploma of Merit (2008)
FIH Certificate of Recognition (2023)
prepared by Yan himself.
---------
Yan was also the treasurer for the Outaouais Field Hockey Club from 1992 - 1995
Page updated
Report abuse