I was a sports photographer. Once I was at a field shooting a college field hockey game. Before the kids took the field, there was a club game with older men playing. Holy crap! It was a very different game. It moved fast. It was very physical and took a ton of skill.
Slow games played on bad fields is the norm for the US. I can understand why it’s not popular here. But, when its modestly good, its fun to watch.
FIH (governing body of the sport) requires artificial turf fields dictated by the FIH. Hard to have multipurpose fields when FIH turf is different from other turf.
The Atlanta Olympics FIH field hockey stadium was at Clark Atlanta University, which now has red artificial turf for NCAA Division II gridiron. Women’s FIH is prominent in North Carolina — former NASCAR O’Reilly Series race winner and Virginia Republican politician of Emporia Hermie Sadler was an equipment manager for the sport.
FIH confused Steve Harvey, as seen in this video from Family Feud Africa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tsMdwrTo1M
Men play field hockey?
It is played in every decent school in New England by girls.
The rugged girls shone there.