Indoor field hockey, often referred to simply as "indoor,” is an official game format for inside play that has slightly different rules and equipment, including side boards. Indoor is growing in popularity around the world for both recreational play and international competition, particularly in climates where outdoor play is not possible year round.
Indoor is officially a small-sided 6v6 game, which makes it a great game for development. Modifications to the size of the court, number of players, positions and equipment are encouraged to suit the stage of development of the athletes. Many new to field hockey confuse “indoor” with field hockey played inside, but the two different, but complementary games. Some prefer indoor to traditional outdoor field hockey, and most believe indoor to be good for outdoor skill development.
USA Field Hockey’s largest annual event is the National Indoor Tournament. National Indoor Tournament Qualifiers are held throughout the country for the U-16 and U-19 Girls divisions. Other divisions including U-10 Co-Ed, U-12 Co-Ed, U-14 Girls, U-19 Boys, Adult Men and Women can compete in the National Indoor Tournament by registering and do not have to qualify.
U.S. NATIONAL INDOOR TEAMS
From the months of October through March, many indoor tournaments take place in which USA Field Hockey fields teams at the junior, senior and masters levels.
U.S. Women's National Indoor Team, U.S. Women's National Indoor Development Team and U.S. U-15 Women's National Indoor Team. In January, the U-21 and senior sides traveled to Sveti Ivan Zelina, Croatia for the second annual Croatia Cup. The Senior Indoor USWNT was crowned the champions which the Junior Indoor USWNT came in second.
The last competition that the men's indoor program competed in was the 2014 Indoor Pan American Cup in Uruguay. The team finished in second, narrowly missing qualification for the Indoor Hockey World Cup.
The focus of the coming year for both the men and women is to continue the progress made over the past two years and retain the Indoor Pan American Cup title, which will be held in March 2020 in Pennsylvania, and qualify for the 2021 FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup.
USA also has U.S. Masters Indoor National Teams. In 2019, the O-40 Men, O-50 Men and O-40 Women traveled to Hong Kong, China to compete in the World Masters Hockey Indoor World Cup.
