Deanna Ritchie (born 15 December 1995) is a

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

player from

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, who plays as a forward.

Personal life

Deanna Ritchie was born and raised in

Pukekohe, New Zealand Pukekohe is a town in the Auckland Region of the North Island of New Zealand. Located at the southern edge of the Auckland Region, it is in South Auckland, between the southern shore of the Manukau Harbour and the mouth of the Waikato River. Th ...

Career

Domestic league

Deanna Ritchie made her

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL) debut in 2014. She was an import player in the Central team. From 2015 until 2019, when the NHL was discontinued, Ritchie represented her home side of

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

. In her first season with the team, she took home the national title.

National teams

Under–21

In 2015, Ritchie made her debut for the New Zealand U–21 team during an invitational tournament in Breda. She went on to represent the team again the following year. She won a silver medal at the Junior Oceania Cup in the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

, and was a member of the team at the

FIH Junior World Cup The Men's FIH Hockey Junior World Cup, formerly known as the Hockey Junior World Cup, is an international field hockey competition organized by the International Hockey Federation (FIH). The tournament was started in 1979. Since 1985 it has been ...

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

Black Sticks

Since her debut in 2016, Ritchie has only made occasional appearances in the Black Sticks squad. Following a number of retirements in the national squad after the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

, Ritchie was officially raised into the squad.

References

External links

* * 1995 births Living people Female field hockey forwards New Zealand female field hockey players People from Pukekohe 20th-century New Zealand women 21st-century New Zealand women {{NewZealand-fieldhockey-bio-stub 2023 FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup players