Almost every sport in Canberra is desperate for more government funding, but there's only so much money to go around.
That's what Hockey ACT came to terms with four years ago and started thinking outside the box to keep their membership fees down and maintain their facilities.
The indoor hockey centre at Lyneham was the first purpose-built in Australia.
Photo: Submitted.
Field hockey is the most expensive sport club sport in Canberra, with adults paying more than $700 each year for membership.
A new synthetic pitch costs $2.2 million and to keep properly maintained the top-layer must be resurfaced every decade for $300,000, while the under-layer must be replaced every 20 years for $400,000.
Hockey ACT realised it was unsustainable to rely on sporadic government grants to maintain their five synthetic pitches to an elite standard.
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They also acknowledged if fees continued to rise they would price their players out of the game.
When Hockey ACT boss Gavin Hunt was appointed in 2014 he ordered an evaluation on their assets and concluded they were being underutilised.
The governing body spent $2.5 million refurbishing its Lyneham headquarters to provide office space for commercial tenants.
Hockey ACT then lodged development applications for two childcare centres to be built on unused sections of land at its Lyneham and Greenway sites.
The applications were approved and construction is set to start next month. They currently have seven commercial tenants at Lyneham.
The changes have allowed Hockey ACT maintain its facilities without any government funding, while membership fees have been frozen since 2014.
Hunt said something needed to change to "control their own destiny" and keep the sport alive in the ACT.
"Traditionally we've relied on grants and membership fees to fund ourselves and hockey is one of the dearest team sports in Canberra,"Hunt said.
"It's double that of other team sports and was going to continue to go up if we didn't change our business model.
"Prior it's been a handout approach to the ACT government, if and when they've been able to assist us in pitch infrastructure, but they've never been able to assist in maintaining our building assets.
"The whole premise of this change is to allow us to maintain our existing infrastructure in a far greater capacity than we have been able to and we now sit in control of a $36 million piece of infrastructure."
Hunt emphasised they "can't get complacent" and will need to put away $500,000 annually into "sinking funds" to maintain their assets moving forward.
He said they were just trying to do their bit because there would never be enough government money to keep everyone satisfied.
"It's been a difficult journey. We had to stop relying on ever increasing member fees because then we'd just drive every member out and that would have been be a terrible downward spiral," Hunt said.
"The model we've designed is one we're quite proud of, we are genuinely trying to be self-sufficient and not rely on ACT government revenue as it's stretched at the moment.
"The budget doesn't cover everything so we're just trying to do our bit to take the pressure off."
Across the winter season players spend more than 7000 hours on our their synthetic pitches and Hunt said during their indoor season over summer they're bursting at the seams.
"The winter season is field hockey and the summer season is indoor hockey, I'd love to switch it around to suit the Canberra climate but that would require a national shift," Hunt said.
"The Lyneham facility was the first purpose-built indoor hockey centre in Australia and its utilised everyday for competition, there's no capacity to train.
"Indoor and outdoor space is very difficult across all sports in Canberra, even when using school space, but were at absolute capacity in indoor hockey."
Eamonn Tiernan is a sports reporter with The Canberra Times
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