Umpiring at the Junior World Cup in Chile

Katie Howie shared her story about being appointed to the Junior World Cup in Chile earlier this week.

She received her appointment in February 2025, and as you can imagine has had a long time to prepare for this tournament. A lot of work goes into planning for the tournament before anyone actually arrives. The umpire group had meetings with Umpire Managers and time online as a group to try and get to know each other to ensure consistency of approach. A  fitness programme was provided in September plus video umpire ‘bootcamps’, due to many of the umpires having little to no video umpire experience prior to this tournament.

 

EHL 2025

Katie’s individual preparation included being appointed to the EHL in October alongside a fellow European umpire at this tournament, Ana Ortega from Spain. It was great to get the support from EuroHockey who specifically appointed them in anticipation of Santiago. Domestically she has been umpiring regularly in the men’s premiership, and the Scottish U21 team invited her down to practice with them in some of their training matches. Katie was also invited down to England to umpire matches in their woman’s premiership, thanks to Scottish Hockey’s International Appointments Panel and NPUA for organising this.

She had many hours spent with a personal trainer and sports psychologist as well as trying to fit it around full-time employment. Katie says “there is so much more to umpiring at an International level than people are aware of.  The off field work is as important as those 60 minutes on the field.”

After all this build up and hype, Katie’s travel went wrong. Her flight from Edinburgh was delayed and she missed the flight from London to Chile. So after an unexpected over night stay in London and a diversion via Madrid, Katie finally arrived in Santiago 35 hours after leaving the house in Edinburgh.

Thankfully FIH arranged for the group to arrive a few days in advance not only to acclimatise but for the umpires to get to know each other. This is her first appointment outside of Europe and it has been great to learn about the different styles of, not only playing but umpiring.  Katie organised a ‘pub quiz’ during the official welcome dinner to share a bit from home.

 

Within the group there is a mix of first time FIH appointments, to some very experienced umpires who have been appointed to Olympic Games and Senior World Cups. It’s lead to an environment of learning and positive discussions. “Despite being 18 umpires and 4 umpire managers, the group is very interactive and close, which also helps when sharing a laundry as you can imagine umpiring kit needs washed just as much as players kit” says Katie.

The scenery at the stadium is unbelievable, and the weather is slightly different this time of year than in Scotland.  Katie believes the highest temperature on the pitch so far has been near 40 degrees. The atmosphere has been great and Katie was fortunate enough to be appointed to Chile’s first match against the Netherlands on the first day of the tournament. That was a special moment.  Walking out onto the field with the size of the crowd, their excitement and the atmosphere they created.

Katie commented “it was a very surreal moment, the first time I looked up and saw myself on the stadium screen and thought you didn’t think this was going to happen when you picked that whistle up 15 years ago”.

At the time of writing they had one more day of pool matches to go before moving towards the knockout stages and ranking matches. Katie hoped to continue getting opportunities to perform in whatever capacity that might be for the remainder of this Junior World Cup tournament in Santiago, Chile.

Katie would like to say thanks again to the Scottish Hockey International Appointments Panel, her mentor Jean Duncan and all of her umpiring colleagues for their support. She wouldn’t be able to be there and perform at this level without them.

Recent posts:

Back to all news
Back to top