WAGGA Hockey is confident they will retain Women's State Masters South hosting rights next year after July's event scheduled to be held in the city was cancelled.
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The three-day tournament from July 24-26 was set to attract around 3000 people to Wagga, including 1200 players, and has an economic value of about $1.7 million, but is the latest local event to fall victim to the coronavirus outbreak.
Wagga Hockey president Ken Larkin said it was the only decision the powers-that-be could make.
"It's a good decision considering the age groups of the people who would be playing, and it takes away the worry of them being in a large group," Larkin said.
"I think it's a very responsible decision and the championships haven't been lost to Wagga altogether. Our planning is still in place, and hopefully Hockey NSW in their wisdom will just retain the venues that were planned for this year's championships for this year.
"We're pretty confident we'll be awarded hosting rights for that championships in 2021."
All other state and national championships scheduled for this year, including junior divisions, have been cancelled, with Hockey Australia putting all their energies into ensuring community hockey can resume as soon as possible.
"Our first checkpoint is in May to see if we can get our competition restarted. I'm not sure if we'll be able to, but our focus for this year now is totally on getting our community players back into playing hockey again.
"It's important we get them out there as soon as we can from a physical capacity, and a mental health capacity as well."
A decision on whether the second year of the Hockey One league is expected to be made shortly.
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