For most people, mastering the unicycle would be challenge enough. But for the group of athletes you're about to meet, they've combined that impressive skill with another: hockey. In an unassuming indoor gym in Canberra's south, some of the best unicycle hockey players this country has to offer have been battling it out in the first round of the sport's Australian championship.
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00:00 It's a sport you have to see to believe.
00:04 I love how it's so high energy and everybody is so into it and you've got to be here in
00:10 one place and focusing on this spot and it's so chaotic.
00:15 The thrill, bringing together teams from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, hitting off round
00:21 one of the Australian Unicycle Hockey Championship.
00:24 Before COVID we had six or seven of these interstate competitions in a year.
00:28 It was bigger, we had more teams but at the moment we're all recovering numbers.
00:32 The sport demands balance, speed and accuracy.
00:36 It's biggest in Europe and the United States.
00:39 Same as standard hockey games, the nets are the same, we use ice hockey sticks and tennis
00:45 balls and the rules are pretty much the same.
00:48 But you can't come off.
00:49 A game for almost all ages.
00:52 The youngest here is in their teens and the oldest is in their seventies.
00:56 Age doesn't matter, it's just the best because it doesn't matter how old you are, it's just
01:02 what you can do.
01:03 For a non-contact sport, there's a lot of contact with the floor.
01:08 But competitors are quick to get back up.
01:11 Further proof unicycle hockey isn't for the faint hearted.
01:14 It probably doesn't take any longer to ride than learn to ride a bike.
01:18 You really just have to get a unicycle which is pretty cheap and a wall and find some YouTube
01:23 videos and just stick at it.
01:24 It's a lot easier.
01:25 It's a lot easier.
01:26 It's a lot easier.
01:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]