The New Zealand Mens' Underwater Hockey team, the "Fin Blacks", won the Silver at the World Champs, which has taken place in Calgary, Canada over the last week. Defending world champions Australia held out New Zealand 4 goals to 3 in a gripping match, which saw Australia playing the 40 seconds with only 4 players in the water after two players had been sin binned. Leading 3-nil at the half time break after 15 minutes of breath-taking action, Australia relaxed and let NZ score 3 goals to equalise, before Australian Jason Lord scored the winner when NZ had a player sin binned.

The NZ team will be looking forward to the rematch, if the World Champs are held in Christchurch, NZ, in 2004, as they are currently pencilled in, with no other countries bidding.

NZ's path to the final included beating France 5-2, after losing to the French in the first game of the World Champs 4-2. The game started with NZ slowly working their way down the pool with the aid of a procession of French fouls. Finally the NZ Men were awarded an advantage puck 5m from the French goal, during which the French infringed and gave up a penalty goal for NZ to take the lead. France came back hard and scored twice in the middle of the first half to go 2-1 up, but were answered by the NZ men driving the puck back to the French end NZ was awarded, and scored from, a penalty shot. The dying minutes of the first half saw another penalty shot awarded to NZ and they scored to go 3-2 up at the break. The second half was played at both ends of the pool, but some outstanding defense saw NZ absorb a lot of pressure and then fight back to score twice more to take the game 5 - 2.

Other results in the mens' grade: France beat the Netherlands 4-2 to win the bronze medal, the USA beat hosts Canada 5-2 to take 5th, South Africa beat Colombia 4-1 for 7th, Great Britain beat Italy 6-1 for 9th, Argentina beat Spain for 11th and Turkey came 13th. Moldova had visa problems and were not able to play, so came in 14th.

The NZ Women's team Underwater Hockey team, the "Silver Fins", could not better their placing at the 2000 World Champs, ending up 7th. Having to beat the USA in the quarter-finals to progress to the medal games, NZ could not do so, losing 5-2. To improve on their result from last World Champs, NZ had to repeat their round-robin win against France, but were not able to, losing 3-1. NZ then beat Columbia 3-1 to take 7th place. Other results in the womens grade: Australia beat host Canada 4-3 in the final, after losing to Canada 1-nil in the round robin to retain their world champions status, South Africa beat the USA 5-1 to take the bronze, France beat the Netherlands 4-3 for 5th, Great Britain beat Argentina 9-nil for 9th and Italy came 11th. Moldova had visa problems and were not able to play, so came in 12th.

Results in other grades were as follows: Open Masters (over 35): USA beat South Africa 6-2 for the gold medal, after losing 1-5 to SA in the round robin, with Great Britain beating hosts Canada 4-2 for the bronze medal and former world champs Australia in 5th place. Women Masters (over 32): South Africa retained their title in beating Australia 9-2, with USA beating Great Britain 2-nil for the bronze and Canada in 5th place. Open Youth (under 19): Great Britain beat USA 1-nil to win the inaugural Open Youth grade gold medal, with Canada taking the bronze. Moldova had visa problems and were not able to play, so came in 4th.