Mr Barry Dancer
Published Mon 01 Jan 2018
| SPORT | Hockey |
| YEAR INDUCTED | 2020 - Athlete Member |
The "Kookaburra Curse' lasted 48 years from the national men's hockey team's Olympic debut in Melbourne in 1956.
The Kookaburras - World Cup and Commonwealth champions, winners of the Champions Trophy and three times Olympic silver medallists - but no Olympic gold.
Barry Dancer, Ipswich born and bred, felt the pain. An Australian representative 48 times from 1973-79, he was a member of the silver medal team in Montreal in 1976.
Twenty-eight years later, he helped provide the ultimate cure to the curse, coaching the Kookaburras to their first Olympic gold in Greece in 2004 - the ultimate in a 30-year career in international hockey and an eight-year stint as Kookaburras coach in which they twice won Commonwealth Games gold, twice won the Champions Trophy and took Olympic bronze in Beijing in 2008.
Queensland Hockey Hall of Famer in 2005, he was head coach at the Australian Institute of Sport and also coached Great Britain at the 2000 Olympics. Now a Queensland Hall of Fame Inductee - Barry Dancer.
