While browsing Ticket Pia, the less controversial Japanese equivalent of TicketMaster, I saw an ad for the World Lacrosse Women's Championship, to be held at Oi Hockey Stadium in Tokyo from July 24-August 2. In a happy coincidence, we would spend the last four days of our trip in Tokyo, which gave me plenty of matches to choose from. In the end, I picked the Canada-Wales tilt on a drizzly Tuesday afternoon.
Oi Hockey Stadium is part of the Oi Sports Complex and is not far from Oi Keibajo, Tokyo's main horse track. Several sports can be played here, though only a few are honoured with artwork. To be clear, this venue is usually used for field hockey, not ice hockey.
Lacrosse is not followed much in Japan and I was pretty much the only fan walking from the Oi Keibajo-mae monorail station. This train goes to Haneda Airport from Hamamatsucho; there is an express train that skips all stops before the airport, so make sure to avoid that if you are looking to go to one of the sports venues here.
There were 16 teams in the tournament, divided into four pools of four. One of the teams was the Haudenosaunee Nationals, the new name of the powerful Iroquois Nationals, who have won bronze at the last three men's tournaments. The women have finished between 7th and 12th in their four previous appearances. The daily schedule is shown when you arrive; there were two fields holding games simultaneously, with the first games at 9, the second at 3:30, and the third at 6:30. This is to avoid the horrible heat, though on this day, it wasn't that bad.
Two field hockey pitches were constructed for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics: the larger one is known as the main pitch and has a capacity of 2,600, all under cover (below); the second sub-pitch is much smaller, with just 500 seats, most of which are uncovered. The Canada-Wales match was held at the main pitch, and I'd say about 500 fans were on hand, though most were family members of the two teams.
Tickets were an absurd 3,800 yen ($24) but this did get you in for the entire day. Of course, with five hours between the first two games, you had to leave, return to Tokyo for some tourism and lunch, and then come back. A rather painful process, and one that I was not willing to do, so I showed up at 3:00, as the Canada-Wales match was at 3:30.
They had gelato available for just 300 yen, although there is a bit of false advertising as it was prepackaged in a cup rather than served fresh, as implied here. Not that it mattered, it was very satisfying and at $1.80, who would complain.
As Nissin was sponsoring the event, they were handing out bags with food inside. The Cup Noodle and Curry Pan were happily consumed by my daughter that night.
Cute mascots are an essential part of any Japanese event, but I feel like this duck, or whatever it is, is just plain ugly.
The unusual element here is the blue field, reminiscent of that at Boise State's football stadium. According to Wikipedia: "The synthetic turf on the site is Poligras Tokyo GT, a product of the Sport Group that also produces AstroTurf. The mat consists of sixty percent sugar cane, and needs two-thirds less water than is usual for wetting hockey fields." Ok then.
Warmup fields are on both sides and each team was using theirs when I arrived. As game time approached, the teams were introduced and then the national anthems played.
Canada and Wales were in Pool B along with Australia and Germany. The Canadians shutout the Germans 23-0 and edged Australia 11-9, while Wales beat Germany in overtime 11-10 and lost 9-7 to the Aussies. As such, I expected Canada to win without too much difficulty.
The Canucks grabbed the opening draw (above) and scored pretty much immediately. Lacrosse is odd because it is a possession game but they still have a face-off after every goal. So if a team can dominate the draws and score even half the time, they will win easily. Canada continued to win draw after draw (21 of 25 on the day) and scored pretty much at will (the goalie looking behind her below was a common sight) and it was 7-0 after the first quarter.
Meanwhile, the Canadian goalie spent most of the game like this.
Fortunately, the clock does not stop after goals, so the 15-minute quarters take just over that. At the half, it was 12-0 Canada, so I headed over to the other pitch to see how Australia and Germany were doing.
It's a good five-minute stroll and along the way, I passed a few food trucks and a rest area, useful in the heat. Reaching the second field, I saw the big lights behind it; those are for Ota City baseball stadium, where I saw a game back in 2010.
As you can see below, the Germans were not enjoying themselves either, and I stayed for the third quarter, which saw Australia increase their lead to 18-4.
I returned to the main pitch and watched as Canada completed the rout 21-1. Jami MacDonald scored the last goal, a fitting end to my trip.
It wasn't much of a game but it was nice to be in the old neighborhood as I used to live relatively close to this area.
Notes
The semifinals and finals were held at Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium, with the USA beating Canada 16-4 to win the gold, while Israel upset Haudenosaunee 7-4 for the bronze. This tournament is not very competitive, with the USA winning 10 of the 12 titles (Australia won the other two, both times when the USA was the host nation).
The 2027 World Lacrosse Men's Championship will also be held at the same venues. The US dominates that tournament as well, winning 11 of 14 with Canada taking the other three titles.
Next Up
I'm back home and looking to finish my independent ballpark quest with a visit to Glacier in Kalispell, Montana at month's end. Then the Club 124 meetup will happen at Highmark Stadium in Buffalo in late September. Check back for recaps then.
Best,
Sean
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