Margaret River Hockey Club to cheer on former junior player Aran Zalewski in third Olympics campaign

School might be well and truly back in swing after the recent school holidays, but there are likely to be a few young hockey players in the Capes region who will be asking to stay up past their bedtime. Former Margaret River Hockey Club junior and club ambassador Aran Zalewski will be leading the change for Australia at the Paris Olympics. It is the third Games for the Kookaburras captain, who will be hoping his team can go one step further following a silver medal result in Tokyo. Margaret River Hockey Club president Maxine Williams said the club was proud to see Zalewski competing on the Olympic stage once again. “We have followed him every step of the way,” she said. “The children are all across everything he does. He comes back when he can, and plays on the turf with them. “To see him there again, we are really thrilled.” Zalewski has fond memories of his time playing juniors at the club, speaking in 2019 about his journey. “My first memories of playing hockey were certainly down, probably getting pretty muddy, in Margaret River on the grass fields there,” he said. “We had a really big hockey community when I was younger — there must have been five or six fields.” It was there Zalewski fell in love with the sport, following in his father’s footsteps. “Dad chopped off one of his old sticks, and that’s what I used to use when I was a grommet, so that’s how I got into it, and then I just fell in love with the game from a young age,” he said. Margaret River Hockey Club is still planning how it will celebrate the Games, but the action is sure to leave junior players on the edge of their seats — if parents let them stay up late enough.