Milwaukee is home to a number of unusual sports. The Milwaukee Bike Polo Club has been around for over a decade. The Brewcity Bruisers roller derby league has been the subject of a documentary film, and the Milwaukee Hurling Club is one of the largest in the nation.
Now a new sports club is coming to the Walter Schroeder Aquatic Center in Brown Deer. Damir Djidic, John Rothe and Bryna Nielsen are starting the Milwaukee area’s first underwater hockey club.
The sport, which is at this point completely hobbyist with no professional leagues, brings people together who may never meet otherwise according to Djidic.
“Underwater hockey tends to bring together people who don’t usually come across each other,” he says. “The underwater hockey community across the nation has players of all ages that all play against each other and it becomes a unique social circle.”
While there has never been a Milwaukee underwater hockey club, the sport is not completely unfamiliar in the area. The Schroeder Center hosted about 25 events over a five-year period, including a national tournament and an international competition that brought in players and teams from Europe and South America.
Players line up similarly to traditional hockey with three defensive players and three offensive players on each team. There are no goalies.
Djidic is planning on starting slow with one practice per week—on Tuesdays from 7-8:15 p.m. The first scheduled practice is on November 7, starting at 6 p.m.
The first several practices will be free of cost. At a currently undetermined point, they will ask for $25 per month to cover pool time and insurance. Another goal is to expand to a second night and to a second pool within the city of Milwaukee.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
You can find more information here.
