HOCKEY
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Casey Eastham has had to cancel her honeymoon plans.
The Albion Park hockey star has had precious little time for rest and relaxation since she won gold at the Commonwealth Games with a wedding to plan.
In less than three weeks, Eastham - part of a golden generation of Illawarra sporting talent - will marry long-time partner Scott Sablowski at a ceremony in Bali.
The original plan was to spend a time on the beach afterwards in a rare break from her international commitments.
But as is common in their lives, hockey got in the way.
"The wedding is on the Thursday and then [I] leave on Monday or Tuesday," Eastham told the Mercury.
Amid the training for a Commonwealth Games and the organised chaos of wedding planning, the 25-year-old picked up a contract with Dutch club Pinoke, in southern Amsterdam.
It's another valuable stepping stone on the path to Rio de Janeiro, where she will chase an elusive Olympic gold at her third Games.
After her return from Glasgow, Eastham has already made one trip to Bali to finalise wedding arrangements.
Then it was back to Perth - where the men's and women's Australian hockey squads are based - this week for dress fittings and all those other last-moment considerations a bride-to-be has to contend with.
Most of the 90 guests are from the Illawarra and South Coast; Sablowski is a former Shellharbour rugby league player, who moved to Western Australia with Eastham.
So after the vows are done on September 4, the newly weds have less than a week to pack their lives up and move to Europe for the rest of the year.
"We had planned to stay on in Bali but we had to rethink those plans pretty quickly when the move to Holland came up," she said.
"They have a winter break though, when the fields are frozen over, so we'll get a bit of a break and a chance to see some of Europe then."
Eastham's global tour will continue in November, when she joins up with the Australian squad to play at the Champions Trophy in Argentina.
After missing out on a medal at the London Olympics, the Hockeyroos have been steadily building as an international force again.
They lost the World Cup final 2-0 to the Netherlands in June before winning Commonwealth Games gold in a shoot-out against England in Glasgow.
Those results lifted the Hockeyroos to No 2 in the world.
Australia equalised in the final seconds of the game to force the stroke showdown - Eastham successfully led off before captain Madonna Blyth sealed victory.
"Usually I'm one of the last ones to go [in a shoot-out]," Eastham said.
"But the coach who does our one-on-one training wasn't over there with us so [coach] Adam [Commens] had to draft who was shooting when and it worked out that way.
"It was such an amazing game. I remember trying to mentally prepare myself for losing in the last couple of minutes of the final when we were down [1-0].
"Even when we took the short corner [which led to the equaliser], I was getting ready to finish with silver but it's a credit to everyone that we didn't give up."