Hockey: Pride or free ride

Most of us have watched the movie Spiderman, and there was a good quote which says, “With great power come great responsibilities”. Hockey India, who runs the sport in the country, does not think the same way.Visit the about us section of Hockey India website and what you see there is

The sport of Hockey is referred to as the ‘National Game of India’.

HI with the assistance of Sports Authority of India and Department of Sports, Government of India, has drawn out a long term development programme to train players and to provide overseas exposure besides regular International competition. It is committed to getting our teams into the top six in the world.

The question that should come into the minds of everyone is that what have they done in the last one year?

A body which cannot hold elections to run the game democratically even after various deadlines by the International Hockey Federation (FIH), how do they plan to run the game? After the dissolution of Indian Hockey Federation, HI was formed to run the sport in India and FIH also recommended the services of legendary Ric Charlesworth, an International coach but he was just left as a mere consultant to the team. He quit the post just after 10 months. This is just one of the many stories. Players not being paid for their performance and pathetic living conditions are very common.

Even the coach Jose Brasa cannot have a say in the team selection and he has to use the players selected by the bureaucrats and bring India gold medal. And to add to the woes now the team manager will have a say in the playing eleven of the team. So it is better to sack the coach and let the top management of Hockey India coach the team.Since the inception of Hockey India, there is been only mud throwing. The body has been fighting among themselves in order to control affairs of hockey. They are so much obsessed with the fighting off field; there is no attention to what is happening on the field. After World Cup both men and women team have played some tournaments but none of them were shown. If people do not know what is going on, how can we expect them to support hockey. They are not able to provide basic facilities to the players forget about holding the nationals. If they really want to revive hockey, let IHF hold nationals than issuing strict warning to them.

The game can only be improved only if everyone comes together and fight for a common cause i.e. improvement of hockey. But who is going to tell them?

I am going to write a series of articles on this and try to understand the real state of hockey in our country.