Eddie Ockenden

Eddie Ockenden, who made his international debut in 2006, is on track to become the first Australian hockey player to appear at five Olympic Games.

Eddie, a midfielder who doubles as a striker whose first Olympics was in Beijing in 2008, will be the most experienced member of the Kookaburras at the Paris Games.

In a remarkable international career, Eddie has played well over 400 games for his country and collected a slew of trophies, including two World Cup titles, for Commonwealth Games gold medals and Olympic silver at Tokyo. There is just one notable omission – Olympic gold – and Eddie has his sights set on correcting that.

Despite a disrupted 2020 for most athletes, one giant accolade came Eddie’s way when he surpassed Jamie Dwyer (365) as the most capped Kookaburra with 366 when he played FIH Pro League matches against Argentina in Perth.

“In the scheme of things, it doesn’t feel like it means a lot because it is just a number of games, but when I sit back and think about it, it means a lot to have been in this team for this amount of time,” Eddie said.

“I reflect on the guys that I have been able to play alongside and the friendships and my best mates in this team, so I think that is really cool … it’s a special team and I love being part of the Kookaburras so that’s what means the most to me.”

His excellence has been recognised with the FIH’s Young Player of the Year award in 2008, followed by being named Hockey Australia’s Player of the Year in 2010, 2014 and 2015.

Highlights of Eddie’s career include gold at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games stunning the India team 8-0 before their home fans, and scoring in the gold medal-winning game against Germany at the 2010 World Cup.

However, heartbreak came at the 2012 Olympics losing to Germany in the semi-finals – their first defeat of the tournament – but rebounding to win the bronze with a 3-1 over Great Britain.

World Cup gold in The Hague and Commonwealth gold in Glasgow, both in 2014, helped soften the blow but the Rio Olympics inflicted more pain. Australia were heavily-backed favourites to take Olympic gold, but lost 4-0 to The Netherlands in the quarter-finals to finish sixth. 

The Hockey veteran became a four-time Olympian at Tokyo 2020, where he achieved his best Olympic placing, winning silver. Eddie was the backbone of the team, captaining the squad in the gold medal match in which they narrowly lost to Belgium in a tense penalty shootout.

It was a devastating loss for the men in yellow and green, but just a year later Australia and Eddie were back winning trophies, bringing home their seventh – and Eddie’s fourth – Commonwealth Games title in Birmingham. Remarkably, Eddie has never lost a game in the tournament. Eddie was one of the Australian Flag Bearers at the Games Opening Ceremony.

That year he would earn his 400th Australian cap in a friendly against India, becoming the Australian with the most field hockey appearances and the seventh in the sport overall to eclipse this. 

The Kookaburras qualified for Paris when they ground out a 3-1 win over traditional rivals New Zealand to retain the 2023 Oceania Cup in Whangarei.

As Eddie’s teammates will attest, supreme fitness is a huge factor in his longevity. The GPS unit on his back confirms that he has run more than 7km in each of the more than 400 Kookaburras games he has played – which tallies up to close to 3000km. And all of that is high-intensity running, often with four or five games in as many days.

“There is no real secret, I have just kept it relatively simple,” Eddie said. “I love the game.”

Teammate Jeremy Hayward said of Eddie: “He’s a silky mover with and without the ball … he’s one hell of a player. He’s always thinking about the game, thinking about how he can get better.”

On 24 July 2024, Eddie was named Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony flag bearer, alongside Jessica Fox (Canoe Slalom).