More than $1 million in federal funding for Northern Hockey Centre

The commitment includes $500,000 for a pitch two replacement surface and builds on the $750,000 committed by the state government.

The plan is to improve the grandstand, changerooms, function area and disability access.

"It's a huge relief, particularly when I've been working on it for many years to try and get it upgraded," Withington said.

"To hear the announcement made by Bridget (Archer) and the Liberal government is really important. Something needed to happen, there's been a lot of people working on this for a long time."

Withington elaborated on the long-term effort to improve the facility.

"We've had a lot of meetings and we've had some commitments in the past that unfortunately didn't come to fruition," he said.

"So we're hoping that this time it does and we can see the upgrade to the facility happen."

He said the great hope was to attract national events, including elite-level Hockey One games.

"I've been working on trying to get the facilities upgraded for about eight years, largely due to the fact that we received some feedback from Hockey Australia not so long ago in relation to the centre and running national tournaments," he said.

"We definitely need to upgrade our centre to be able to keep holding those tournaments."

Withington said the alternative was to miss out.

"If we don't upgrade this facility, we won't be having any national tournaments here at this centre," he said.

"The centre at the moment is certainly not fit-for-purpose in relation to changerooms and medical facilities.

"One of the things is our medical room, we don't necessarily have a dedicated medical room. Also the changerooms are joined changerooms so they're not fit-for-purpose. Obviously, we're a dual gender sport so we need to get that upgraded."

He highlighted the facility had not seen much change in its history.

"In the 30 years, there's been a couple of coats of paint maybe thrown on it but that's been it," he said.

Archer, the federal member for Bass, said she appreciated the hard work the hockey community had put toward bettering the centre.

She noted more than 1500 players and supporters in the North would benefit from the upgrade.

"They're a pretty vocal group Hockey Tasmania, they definitely get their elbows out and speak up for what they need," she said.

"I've had some great conversations with them and they've really gone in for their members to talk about these facilities here, which are very well-utilised. Of course, we want to encourage more and more people to take up sport."

Archer said the changeroom upgrade would be of great benefit.

"There's some changerooms that need a little bit of attention, little bit of love," she said.

"Like many of our sporting facilities, particularly in terms of increasing female participation, we want some nice changerooms to get changed in."

Archer said the prospect of continuously attracting national events was exciting.

"As well as encouraging that grassroots participation that's so important, it's also an important economic driver for northern Tasmania to be able to attract those tournaments to Launceston and for them to be played at St Leonards would be a great advantage as well," she said.

"I know Damian's (Smith) got a lot of plans, he's very ambitious for the future and this will give Hockey Tasmania the opportunity to realise some of those plans."

Hockey Tasmania chief executive officer Smith last week told The Examiner Launceston was missing out on significant hosting duties because of its facility.

"I've got a six-year runway of events coming to Tasmania, starting this year. I can't hold any Australian championships in the Launceston region while it sits as it is," he said.

He welcomed Wednesday's funding announcement.