The East Gippsland Hockey Association is a field hockey

Field hockey

Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...

 league in the East Gippsland

East Gippsland

East Gippsland is the eastern region of Gippsland, Australia covering 31,740 square kilometres of Victoria. It has a population of 80,114....

 region of Victoria, Australia. The league features five divisions, Open (Men's), Women's, under 18s, under 15s and under 13s.

History

Until the early 21st century, the league was essentially structured to provide a women's competition, with girls and younger boys playing in the league's B division. Women's clubs in the league came from towns such as Bairnsdale

Bairnsdale, Victoria

Bairnsdale is a small city in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. With a population at the 2006 census of 11,282, it is a major regional centre of eastern Victoria along with Traralgon and Sale....

, Swan Reach

Swan Reach, Victoria

Swan Reach is a small residential town located in the east Gippsland region of Victoria. It is situated east of the state capital, Melbourne and is located approximately halfway between the townships of Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance on the Tambo River. Swan Reach falls under the jurisdiction of...

, Lindenow

Lindenow, Victoria

Lindenow is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on Dargo Road, in the Shire of East Gippsland near Bairnsdale.At the 2006 census, Lindenow had a population of 338....

 and Orbost

Orbost, Victoria

Orbost is a town in the Shire of East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, located east of Melbourne and south of Canberra where the Princes Highway crosses the Snowy River. It is about from the town of Marlo on the coast of Bass Strait. At the 2006 census, Orbost had a population of 2452...

, as well as a club based at Nagle College

Nagle College

Nagle College is a Catholic Secondary School in Bairnsdale in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia.- Background and Location :Nagle College is a Catholic Regional College, established in 1958 to provide a Catholic Secondary Education for the families in the parishes of East...

.

This structure did not provide for any competition for boys past the age of 12, nor a dedicated juniors competition for girls. This was remedied with the creation of an under 16s league in 1995. The under 16s competition saw Sale join the league from the Latrobe Valley Hockey Association. The move was initially only for junior matches, but club's senior teams eventually also left the and joined the EGHA. The league grew to eventually having under 13s, under 15s and under 18s divisions, a structure which has continued up to the present.

Men competed in the Gippsland Men's Hockey Association, with Bairnsdale and Swan Reach fielding teams in this league until its collapse in around 2003. To fill the void in structured men's competition, the EGHA created its new "open" division, with teams consisting mainly of men. As the only men's hockey competition in Gippsland further east than Warragul

Warragul, Victoria

Warragul is a rural centre with a population of 12,943 people east-southeast of Melbourne in Victoria. Warragul lies between the Strzelecki Ranges to the south and the Mount Baw Baw Plateau of the Great Dividing Range to the north...

, it has since seen the entry of teams from as far afield as Churchill

Churchill, Victoria

Churchill is a town in the Latrobe Valley, located in central Gippsland in the east of Victoria, Australia. The town had a population of 4,588 at the 2006 census, and is part of the Latrobe City local government area...

, who entered a men's team for the 2009 season.

A lack of structured juniors and mens competitions in the LHVA saw Maffra

Maffra, Victoria

Maffra is a town in Victoria, Australia, 220 km east of Melbourne. It is in the Shire of Wellington local government area. It relies mainly on dairy farming and other agriculture, and is the site of one of Murray-Goulburn Cooperative's eight processing plants in Victoria...

 join the competition in 2005, fielding teams in all grades. The growth of hockey in the Sale

Sale, Victoria

Sale is a city in the Gippsland region of the Australian state of Victoria. It is the seat of the Shire of Wellington as well as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sale and the Anglican Diocese of Gippsland. It has a population of around 13,336, and is expected to reach a population of 14,000 soon...

 area saw the creation of a team in the nearby town of Wurruk, which joined the league in 2007.

Interleague Representative Squads

The EGHA is affiliated with Hockey Victoria

Hockey Victoria

Hockey Victoria is the governing body for the sport of field hockey in Victoria, Australia. It is responsible for the administration of intrastate competitions, state representative teams, officials and the financial position of the sport...

and fields teams in junior and senior country championships. The East Gippslanders wear the colours of orange and blue for representative matches.

Clubs

Clubs	Colours
Bairnsdale
Churchill
Maffra
Nagle
Orbost
Sale
Swan Reach
Wurruk