As used in water-polo, must have ear guards. At tournaments all players must wear hats of the colour corresponding to their team stick colour (dark or light, i.e. blue or white hat) with an identifying number on. At Regional and International tournaments each player in the team must have a different number but this is currently not necessary at local and National games. While not a guaranteed protection against burst eardrums ear guards do help prevent them, as well as protecting your ears from getting ripped up.

It is a good idea to remove the chin-strap cords and replace them with a Velcro strap as this is more reliable and allows quick, easy removal and adjustments. The mask strap can be worn over or under the hat. If worn under, it can help prevent the mask from being pulled off. Personally I wear my mask strap over the hat as I find that this prevents the earpieces from flapping around and holds the hat on if the chin strap comes undone (my hats tend to be rather old or badly fitting with rather useless chin straps so my advice here is probably not applicable to most people). Basically just wear it however you prefer.

The same goes for the snorkel, some people prefer to have their snorkel attached to their hat's earpiece rather than their mask strap, it is simply a matter of preference, just remember that if your snorkel is attached to your hat then you need to change it to your other coloured hat whenever you change stick colour, unless you have two snorkels.