Report by North Derbyshire Radio’s Sports Correspondent Dylan Pick
A ball hockey side from Chesterfield have been denied entry to the league system for the 2025/26 season due to a lack of players.
The Chesterfield Chieftains, who are the lone ball hockey club in Derbyshire were denied entry to the Ball Hockey UK Central Conference due to not having the minimum 15 registered players required for a team.
Despite only a maximum of 12 players plus two goalies being able to be on the team sheet per game, the rule is in place to guarantee the team will be able to field enough players per game.
With ball hockey being an amateur sport the concern will be surrounding work and life commitments restricting players from being available for every game, meaning there could be a concern that games have to be postponed or cancelled.
Like any sport, cancellations of games has a big financial impact on clubs, mainly due to the fact of the rental costs of halls and rinks to play in. Without games being played, fees wouldn’t be able to be recouped putting strains on both teams involved.
Speaking exclusively to North Derbyshire Radio, the club’s General Manager Lucas Thomas said that the lack of league games is going to put a financial strain on the club anyway.
The club who play their games at Outwood Academy, Hasland Hall still have high hopes for the future with the team still hosting training sessions and looking to play friendlies throughout the season.
They also hope to compete in the Nationals and other tournaments this year to keep the club playing some form of competitive hockey.
As for the 2025/26 league season, Thomas said “Our players will play for a Sheffield team in the Stingrays organisation, while still training with us”
“The long term plans have changed slightly, but more or less we’ve just had to delay our plans by a year”
After only being founded a few months ago, the club will look to continue to grow and reapply in 2026.
What Is Ball Hockey?
Ball Hockey is a sport similar to Ice Hockey, played with the same equipment like the stick, gloves and helmet, but instead of ice it is played on a hard surface where players run instead of skate.
The rules are largely similar with slight changes to the offside rule and a reduction in player on player contact.
Due to a lack of roller rinks, even more so now local councils are closing more down such as Bench Buddy Arena in Rotherham, a lot of clubs have to play out of sports halls.
Whilst it is still a relatively unknown sport, a lot of progress and growth is happening here in the UK including a recent announcement of a partnership with Skate Central, one of the last remaining roller facilities in the UK.
The benefit of this is it will allow a permanent home for the sport in the UK for the nationals teams, elite competition, grassroots development and coaching education.
They have also recently announced a partnership for TriggerHub who are the title sponsor of the Sheffield Steelers, one of the largest Ice Hockey teams in the country, further showing the growth of both sports.
In 2026 Great Britain will also get a division in the NBHL, the biggest ball hockey league in the USA, and one of the biggest in the world.
This will allow British players to compete for a spot at the NBHL playoffs in New Jersey, giving more elite competition, more often, for British players to develop.
In 2025 the Great Britain Under-23s team also made history by becoming the first junior national team of any age group to get a win at a World Championship, beating the United Nations side in Hradec Kralove in June.
As the sport continues to grow and become more prominent, hopefully it won’t be long before Chesterfield will be able to fully get involved in the sport and be another big piece of the growth of the sport, both in the town and county.
