Our Vision
Canoe Polo in Victoria
What is Canoe Polo?
Canoe polo, also known as kayak polo, is a worldwide competitive sport. Known simply as "polo" by its aficionados, polo combines boating and ball-handling skills with a contact team game, where tactics and positional play are as important as the speed and fitness of the individual athletes. The game requires excellent teamwork and promotes both general canoeing skills and a range of other techniques unique to the sport. Each team has five players on the pitch (and up to three substitutes), who compete to score in their opponent’s goal which is suspended two metres above the water. The ball can be thrown by hand or flicked with the paddle to pass between players and shoot at the goal. Pitches can be set up in swimming pools or any stretch of flat water.
The Victorian Youth Polo Academy
The Victorian Youth Polo Academy (VYPA) is a not-for-profit organisation that has been created to help to grow and develop canoe polo throughout the state. We endeavour to work on a grassroots level and try not to be tied down to one location. We aim to offer opportunities for members of the public and local communities around Melbourne and Regional Victoria to become involved in canoe polo and endeavour to remove as many barriers to the sport as possible, whether they are financial, accessibility or location. Established in 2019 with the goal of starting programs in 2020, our timeline has been delayed by the COVID19 pandemic and we have been unable to run or establish many of our programs. We are hoping that into 2021 we will be able to start to offer ‘come and try’ and development sessions, initially based on the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne’s inner west, with the hope to explore potential opportunities in other communities as time goes by.
Our Goal
Our goal at VYPA is to see the growth and development of canoe polo throughout Melbourne and Victoria. In past decades the sport has been a huge success, with the old Melbourne League hosting 50+ teams at the Richmond Recreation Centre over 5 weeknights. In addition Australia won 5 Gold medals over the 1990s at the biennial Canoe Polo World Championships with their open mens and open womens teams. Unfortunately those days are past and polo has reduced dramatically in size around the country, meanwhile other countries including New Zealand, China and many European countries have seen massive growth in the sport. We hope that through development of the sport at a grassroots level, focusing primarily on junior and youth development, we can start to see the increase in participation within canoe polo, which as the years go by will see stronger representation at national and international events, and future success on the world stage.
Team VYPA