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Introduction
Field hockey's beginnings can be linked to rudimentary games with a stick and a ball as far back as 300 BC in East Asia and Greece. Today's hockey found its origin in England/Scotland and the Netherlands. The game is now played in 132 countries around the world attracting many active players; there are 37 000 players in Belgium, more than 80 000 in Germany and more than 250 000 in the Netherlands ( http://www.fih.ch ). The International Hockey Federation (Fédération Internationale de Hockey, FIH) is the governing body for the five continental federations of hockey.
Hockey, played on artificial turf, natural grass and indoors, is one of the fastest team sports. Recent changes to field hockey rules (such as the self-pass and the permission of playing high balls) have made the game even faster and possibly more dangerous (ie, more prone to specific injuries).
Few data exist on injuries in field hockey played at a high international level. There are injury reports on college field hockey in the USA, national hockey in Australia and Junior World Cup hockey. 1-6 Sport injury epidemiology data were obtained at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, and these data contain basic information on hockey injuries. 7-9 However, these injuries (or illnesses) were recorded using different systems. Injuries during competition (matches) were collected for selected team sports during the 2004 Olympics, whereas in 2008 and 2012 the head physicians of the National Olympic Committees reported the daily occurrence (or non-occurrence) of newly sustained injuries and illnesses during competition and training. Furthermore, owing to the IOC's commitment to protection of the health of the athletes, information was retrieved on all athletes treated in the polyclinic and medical venues during the Olympics. 10
Injury data collection is a mainstay of injury prevention in professional sports. 11 12 For example, the World Football Association (Fédération Internationale de Football Association, FIFA) has a comprehensive injury recording system. 13-15 The International Hockey Federation (Fédération Internationale de Hockey, FIH) requires a basic collection of all injuries by officials at every international tournament using a standardised match report form.
The present study evaluated all data on injuries during major international FIH events that were collected on match report forms and investigated the incidence and severity...