When playing on the H.O.C Gazellen-Combinatie U18-1 team, where Dutch was the primary language, junior Ella Beach’s Dutch teammates had to translate everything their coach said to English for her to understand.
“The hardest thing for me was the language barrier,” said Beach. “They’re all really inclusive… Coming in the first time and hearing them talk in Dutch was very hard, but they started talking in English to me, and we got closer, so it got easier.”
During the fall semester,Beach moved to the Netherlands to improve her field hockey skills.
According to Katie Beach, Ella Beach’s mom, she thinks Ella Beach got to play at the highest level in the world aside from competing on the Netherlands national team.
“There’s no other country that has people come from all over the world to play in [their] league,” said Katie Beach. “And so she was playing amongst three … Olympians on that team. There was a girl from Argentina, there was a girl from England and then there was a Dutch girl.”
During her time in Amsterdam, Ella Beach attended the American School of the Hague, an English-speaking school.
Everyone biked to school every day in the Netherlands, Ella Beach said.
“They have roads for bikes,” said Ella Beach. “There’s a bike parking lot at the school. I hated that part. I did not like biking to school everyday, and the Netherlands is known for raining nonstop. I would come to school with soaked hair, pants soaked, everything.”
The food in the Netherlands was so different from American food that every time Ella Beach’s dad would visit her in the Netherlands, he’d bring her a suitcase full of American food, she said.
“We had a grocery store nearby that was … an American and British grocery store,” said Ella Beach. “So they had a bunch of American food, they had Lucky Charms, they had the syrup we get, it was just those little things that [were] kind of refreshing to have there.”
According to Molly Saharge, Ella Beach’s coach at Windy City Field Hockey, she feels lucky that Windy City Field Hockey can reap the benefits of Ella Beach improving her skills and competing at a higher level, she said.
“[In the Netherlands] you’re immersed in this [field hockey] culture,” said Saharge. “This is what they do on the weekends, this is what mom and dad are probably playing too. And to be able to see that and live it and be a part of that, I think you get a taste of that, and you just kind of want more.”
According to Ella Beach, she hopes that she can bring back some of the skills she has learned in the Netherlands to w Field Hockey, she said.
“I think [passing] is one of the most basic skills that is [lacking] in the US,” said Ella Beach. “I think people focus more on the technical skills and being able to do cool tricks around the field, which is something that would work for high school and club levels, but when you get to the higher level, it really shows in games … So I think going there and being able to play with teams that also emphasize the idea of passing and moving was refreshing.”