High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) announces funding

This week, Hockey NZ confirmed $1.5m per year in core funding from High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) for the men’s and women’s Vantage Black Sticks for the next four years 2025 – 2028 - a reduction from $1.75m per year in 2024. This funding supports critical costs like travel, events, and coaching.

Additionally, HPSNZ has decided to no longer provide direct athlete payments or support services for team sports, which totalled $1.44m for hockey in 2024. Combined, this represents a $1.69m reduction in funding for hockey. 

While disappointing, this decision reflects the competitive nature of high-performance funding. It does pose immediate challenges to how we support our programmes, and we will work to balance resources across our programmes to minimise the impact. 

We are particularly disappointed for our athletes who make enormous sacrifices to represent New Zealand. 

This decision by HPSNZ further reinforces the importance of our high-performance strategy and the need to allow our athletes to balance work, study and importantly, to choose where they are based. Critical to this is ensuring a quality national high-performance system and continuing the work already underway, including the development of the Premier Hockey League, revised domestic competitions, clear pathways, and growing young talent through exceptional coaching and skill development.

Our men’s and women’s teams have shown good progress, with emerging players meaning the future is looking bright. As we plan for long-term change, we are also focused on ensuring our athletes have opportunities to develop and perform right now.

To ease the transition, HPSNZ will provide funding for the first quarter of 2025 under the previous model, giving us time to adjust. 

Planning for these changes is already underway. We are actively exploring new funding opportunities to support our athletes, coaches, and staff while refining our strategy to operate within our means. Your continued support is critical as we navigate this period of change.