Nine years ago, 14-year-old Paige Blake was gutted when her friends were chosen as ball girls for the women’s World League final – while she had to watch from the North Harbour Hockey Stadium stands.
A year ago, Blake stood in a huddle with her Black Sticks team-mates celebrating their Nations Cup triumph in Santiago, Chile – her left knee heavily bandaged, tears streaming down her face.
“It was just so bizarre – I was happy for the team but so devastated I hadn’t really been a part of it,” the now 22-year-old says. “And I was thinking, ‘I won’t get to be part of these moments for I don’t know how long’.”
In a fortnight, Blake has the chance to put things right on both counts – running out on her home turf at Harbour, with friends in the stands, and helping the Black Sticks defend their Nations Cup crown (in the largest international tournament held in New Zealand since that 2017 World League final).
It’s 15 months since the young Black Sticks midfielder suffered an anterior cruciate ligament rupture in just her second game in the tournament in Chile – a major injury that sidelined her from hockey for almost a year.
Yet with all the disappointment, hurt and rehab Blake went through, she’s certain she’s emerged from it tougher, wiser and a better hockey player.
“It might take a little while for me to show it on the international stage, because I’m obviously still pretty fresh,” the seven-test Black Stick says. “But I can do things now I definitely wasn’t doing before, my training has got better, and I have a whole new perspective on the game.”
Blake will never forget the sickening crack in her left leg as she pivoted mid-stride on the hockey turf in Santiago last February. Or the confusion that followed when she went to run – and her leg wouldn’t let her.
There were six minutes left on the clock in the game against Ireland when Blake heard the bang and felt her leg twist.
“I had no idea what was going on. I’d never injured myself seriously before,” says Blake, a hockey player since she was seven. “Even when I got to the sideline, I wasn’t in pain, but I couldn’t run. Usually, I could have strapped it up and pushed through a bit of pain, but physically, I just couldn’t move it.
“I was pretty emotional afterwards because deep down I was scared. I didn’t think it was good, but I didn’t know how bad.”
In denial, she worked with the team physio on the Black Sticks’ rest day but could still only hobble. When her tournament was declared over, Blake asked for a scan “for clarity” – which revealed she’d completely torn her ACL and partially torn her MCL.
Blake’s parents, who were in the stands in Chile, had every sympathy for their daughter. Both had done their ACLs themselves – mum Fern, a hockey player, tore hers playing social touch, while dad Callum suffered his playing rugby at roughly the same age as their daughter.
“They knew the story,” Blake says. “Dad was on my case from day one, which was good. He made me get my range of motion – he wouldn’t help me up onto my bed.
“I really felt for them. Watching me doing my favourite thing, playing hockey, is so important to them, too, and having to watch me go through rehab and not being able to help – they almost did it as hard as I did. It gave me extra reason to fight a little bit harder, knowing how much they’ve put into getting me to where I am.”
Ten months after her surgery, Blake was back playing club hockey for the ABC club. In February she was invited back into the national camp, and last month, rejoined the Black Sticks at the Changzhou Invitational Tournament in China against some of the world’s top teams.
“The hockey was challenging, but just to be back playing at that level was very cool,” she says. “It showed me where the gaps in my game at international level are. At home, you can get through a club match easily, and have a good game, but it’s not the same intensity. That opened my eyes to the improvements I need to make.”
She admits feeling nervous running out back out on the turf after her accident. “You’re actually quite fragile because you never know what could happen. But then I was out there in the moment, playing for the win – at halftime I’d think, ‘You’re still going strong’. So fear has never really stopped me,” she says.
Blake, who made her Black Sticks debut in 2023, was driven to return in time for her first World Cup – in Germany and the Netherlands, in August – but she had other reasons.
“It was great to have the World Cup as a goal, but I also know it’s a privilege. So, getting back into the routine of training and playing well was what I wanted most,” Blake says.
While she was rehabbing, Blake was able to put more time into coaching – something she loves.
“So much good has come out of it. I was able to make a lot of relationships outside playing hockey. I’m now a lot closer to the athletes I coach, and the older ladies at Harbour Hockey,” she says.
Today, she coaches part-time – helping out at her old high school, Westlake Girls’, taking a women’s club side, and working with the North Harbour U18 girls. That experience has helped convince her to pursue a career in teaching. With a bachelor of sport and recreation from AUT completed last year, she plans to do post-graduate study to become a primary school teacher.
She’s been on this trajectory of helping others since she was 17. In 2021, Blake was crowned New Zealand hockey’s ‘Most Outstanding Young Person’.
In her final year at Westlake Girls’, she was coaching juniors at the school, supporting student coaches, and was one of the youngest volunteer player-coaches in Auckland hockey, leading a Takapuna women’s side.
“The award gave me extra motivation for what I could do for hockey, but also what hockey could do for me,” she says.
“It was cool to know early in my career that people appreciate what you do. And imagine if I really tried hard to give back, what other impacts I could have? It was quite inspiring. But it’s just the Harbour way.”
For Blake, who lives with her parents in Kumeu, playing in one of the world’s top hockey tournaments on Harbour turf, at the National Hockey Centre in Albany, is “a dream come true”.
“I remember being at the World League final in 2017 and thinking it was so stink that all my friends were selected as ball girls and I wasn’t. But watching from the stand I could appreciate how cool it was that this tournament was being played on my home turf,” she says.
“From then on, I was like, ‘Damn, I’d love to be out there, representing my country, and showing people, this is my home.” Finally, she has that chance.
- The Black Sticks will defend their Nations Cup title at the National Hockey Centre, Albany, on June 15-21, playing India, Japan, the United States, Uruguay, Chile, France and South Korea.
