Chinese Field Hockey Player Smokes A Belgian Player With A Midfield Shot After The Final Whistle

We're still away from the NHL season getting started but we got a taste of some old time hockey in an unexpected place and that was in the women's field hockey tournament at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

It's really hard to juggle all over the events happening over in France, so you'd be forgiven for not knowing that China and Belgium had a semifinal match to play on Wednesday and things got very intense late in the game.

According to Daily Mail, the two teams were tied at 1-1, when the referee blew the whistle to signal the end of regulation and send this thing to a penalty shootout.

Who knows if Chinese midfielder Fan Yunxia was just a little perturbed about something or if she was just playing to the whistle and a little bit beyond that, but just after the whistle, she wound up and absolutely smoked a ball into Belgium forward Delphine-Daphne Marien's midsection. 

Marien's teammates rushed to her aid and confronted Fan, while officials tried to keep the peace.

I'm not going to pretend I know the do's and do-not-do's of field hockey, but I do know about ice hockey, and that move definitely wouldn't sit well with the team whose player was on the receiving end of it, no matter what level of play it is.

I've seen Beer League games fall apart after shots like that.

Belgium's Judith Vandermeiren was given a yellow card and told to take a hike for ten minutes after pushing Fan in a bid to stick up for Marien.

Fortunatley, cooler heads prevailed… but for the sake of those of us who don't normally watch field hockey, it was cool to see it get a little heated.

The drama wasn't over yet, however. China went on to win the match in a shootout.