Today we'll visit Queensland to see how art is being used to encourage children to play hockey.



WES FERNS: You do get a couple of kids that are naturals that can handle the hockey stick and ball quite well and you can easily spot them out from the group.

NICK HARMSEN: It's hockey's great push northward.

For the past two years, development officers like Wes Ferns have been working to establish their sport as a viable alternative in the Gulf and on Cape York.

It'll be a tough task for the sport, which is competing against the already-popular football codes of Aussie Rules and rugby league.

But hockey officials are using a unique tactic to establish a foothold in the far north communities.

By incorporating traditional artwork with sporting equipment, the game's promoters are hoping to grant hockey its own cultural relevance.

They've teamed up with a visual arts course at Cairns TAFE run by Cath Brown.

CATH BROWN: Hockey Queensland provided the hockey sticks and the students had to strip the sticks back and paint some design - paint or make some design on the sticks - that reflected where they were from, their country and their culture.

KEVIN EDMONDSTONE: Yeah, this is about my country, Yarrabah, where I come from, just outside of Cairns. It's all representing sea and land Murri, the colours. This all represents, here, the brown, the land, and this all up here represents the sea Murri.

NICK HARMSEN: And outside the art room, Wes Ferns is imparting a different sort of knowledge.

WES FERNS: I think it's great, especially in the communities.

We're not just concentrating on the hockey side, we're also concentrating on the Dreamtime stories and all their culture.

NICK HARMSEN: Buoyed by the success of the hockey-art program, organisers hope it'll have a lasting legacy.

CATH BROWN: Mostly it helps keep the culture alive, you know, through telling of the stories.

When you look at a lot of the sticks there are stories on them, and these are stories that have been handed down from many generations and told to the students that are here working at TAFE, so that's an important part of the culture, is that it's passed down.