Bronze - that's Denise Gersbach's and Lee Hodge's new favourite metal after the pair brought home their very first indoor hockey World Cup medals.
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The Parkes hockey veterans were selected in the first teams to represent Australia at the Indoor Masters World Cup in Hong Kong from February 14-17.
Both Hodge's team, the Over 40s women, and Gersbach's Over 45s finished with bronze medals in what the women described as an intense and outstanding tournament.
"We are ecstatic!" Gersbach said.
"Australia is a relatively new nation in indoor hockey, it's the first time Australia has sent Australian Masters teams to an indoor competition.
"Australia came home with four bronze medals - in the 40s and 45s women and 40s and 50s men."
Hodge had an exceptional tournament as goalkeeper, a particular standout being her bronze-medal match against the USA which saw Australia win 1-0.
Gersbach played defender and claimed bronze after defeating Canada 5-0 in her bronze-medal match.
"It was a particularly impressive team performance as Australia had only defeated Canada 2-1 in the round match," she said.
"The Australian 45s were unlucky not to compete in the gold medal match after narrowly losing their semi-final to Germany 2-1."
Parkes was also represented in the form of David Mike, who was coach of Hodge and the Over 40s women's team, representing Australia for the 10th time in a coaching role.
Mike has been instrumental in getting indoor hockey up and running in Parkes and is the coach of the Parkes Masters Division 1 and Division 3 indoor hockey teams, and the Parkes team that came runners-up at the Hockey Australia Indoor Masters Challenge.
Based at Wentworth Falls and coaches in Sydney, Mike has been coaching the Parkes teams for 10 years, heading west regularly to run coaching and development sessions with Parkes masters players.
He has also been a coach for the NSW Masters field hockey teams for the past 11 years.
"David has been a wonderful support to the Parkes masters women," Gersbach said.
"Lee and I were thrilled to experience this World Cup with David."
Gersbach and Hodge said it was a big honour to part of Australia's first campaign at an indoor hockey World Cup.
"I love playing for Parkes and my state but there is a different sense of pride and excitement when you wear the green and gold and belt out the national anthem before the most important match of the tournament," Hodge said.
"[I have] a couple of highlights - one, sharing my Australian representation with Lee and Dave," Gersbach added.
"Standing on the court arm-in-arm with my team mates in the bronze-medal match while the Australian anthem was being played, it was quite an emotional moment," she said.
"And hearing the final siren sound and knowing we had won an international indoor medal."
For Hodge, her highlight was taking home the bronze medal behind Germany and the Netherlands.
"Given they are two of the leading nations in hockey, and getting to experience the excitement and nerves before and during each game, along with being part of a champion team, are pretty much on top of the highlights reel," she said.
"But getting to share the experience with 'old' friends who are as passionate about the sport as I am and making new friends whose love for the game is as deep as mine, would have to be up there too."
The duo found the play very different to what they're used to in Australia.
"The hockey was really intense and physical, and it was great to play against such quality opposition," Gersbach said.
"The Europeans play a really slick style of indoor so I found the pace of it much more intense than in Australia."
"Each game can be very different from the previous match - your game plan and tactics need to be individually tailored to each team which is quite difficult if you have never seen that team play before," Hodge added.
"The intensity and pace of the games are higher than the tournaments I have played in in Australia and the drive and passion to win is off the scale," she said.
"But the comradery among the nations once the final whistle blows is something else!"