How does that saying go? Waste not, water not? This apparently does not apply to Duke University's precious hockey fields being watered to a point of saturation despite residential water restrictions in place due to severe drought conditions as per an article in the local newspaper [1]. Oh yes, and by the way, those fields aren’t even real grass but rather fake turf so that makes this consumption that much more ridiculous and wasteful. Duke says it’s only abiding by the International Hockey Federation’s rules that specifically require all hockey fields to be saturated prior to a game and all practices.

Chapel Hill/Durham residents are prohibited from using water frivolously to water their brown lawns or wash their dirty cars as per water restrictions posted on Chapel Hill’s website [2]. This is reasonable in a time of drought. People may not like crunchy dry grass or dusty vehicles but when the water supply is dwindling, we must conserve for essential usage like…………….watering sports fields as sports sustain life and take priority over everything else. Don’t take a bath; take a short shower but flood the fak out of those hockey fields with hundreds of gallons of water as if we’ve oceans at our disposal. Water customers are being charged surcharges for high consumption as a deterrent but punishment only applies to people taking long showers not watering fake sports fields.

The International Hockey Federation though assures us that the saturation rule is not simply in place because field hockey balls bounce better on wet turf but rather is a safety measure. Players experience fewer injuries when playing on a wet field where they can get a better grip. Ah well that completely justifies wasting water then because sports equal life, right?

Ok, let’s see: I can’t help myself. Logic time.

If there’s a severe water shortage and if you’re in charge of field hockey and fear your players are at risk because you cannot saturate the fields properly because there’s this slight problem of a severe water shortage which means your area may actually risk running out of water for other trivial things like drinking and cooking and bathing and putting out fires that may spring up from all this dry grass we can’t water because we’re watering artificial hockey turf, what on earth can you do to observe the restriction while keeping your team players’ safety in mind? Hmmmmmm. I know: CANCEL the games until the water restriction is lifted. Gee, that was easy but then again, we couldn’t possibly do that because we can’t possibly cancel sports. Sports equal life. We could very well die without sports or at the very least become very very sad and have nothing enlightening and meaningful to discuss with our coworkers the following day in the office.

What the FAK? Why is that allowed? What is next? Shall we restrict people to 3 short showers per week so there's enough water to fill Olympic-sized swimming pools? How is it that sports always seem to manage to take priority in the U.S.? Don’t dare get caught washing your car and let’s hope we don’t run out of water to fight fires or to drink BUT it’s perfectly ok for Duke to water the fak out of its hockey fields.

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