Another hockey light goes out

Fiona Ruttle died on Monday at home. She was due to move into a hospice in Raheny but decided before the ambulance arrived that she would leave us peacefully and at home. Single minded to the end.

It was too premature for the rest of us, for those who played hockey with her in Trinity and Pembroke, knocked golf balls around Howth Golf Club with her or failed to beat her at tennis.

In sport Fiona was the player who would play for the duff team rather than the firsts because her friends were there. She loved sport but her interests encompassed too broad a sweep for her to place it at the centre of her universe. Her considerable talent as a hockey player far outweighed her ambition to collect baubles or seek acclaim.

It was a frustrating exercise for those with less talent to watch someone so acutely self aware but apparently unable to see what gifts she had at her own disposal. Of course, Fiona saw everything. But she looked at it through a different prism, a psychology degree and a career in law.

At her removal in Sutton on Tuesday Irene Johnston, an Irish Hockey Association stalwart, arrived to St Fintan's church somewhat perturbed and spoke privately about what many people had been already thinking. She drew Fiona and another young hockey player, Jacqui Potter, who died just before Christmas, into the same circle. In that light hockey has indeed been winded.

Who knows what Fiona would have made of the funeral fuss. Certainly, she'd have been uncomfortable by being such the centre of attention.