The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Starting trouble once again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 08, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport - Hockey

Starting trouble once again

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: The 20-year-old Super Division league hockey tournament, conducted by the Karnataka State Hockey Association, which attracts entries from premier clubs and institutions from all over India is facing difficulty in kick off yet again.

A critical meeting at the hockey stadium here on Thursday will decide the shape and format of this year’s edition of the most important fixture in the state association’s calendar.

Last year too the league had starting problems — the reason for the delay being the state of the pitch at the hockey stadium and the inordinate delay in getting a new turf there.

Incidentally KSHA’s synthetic turf was laid in 1997 for the National Games and has been used almost every day in the last decade for a number of official matches.

Turf not fit

The weather-beaten, overused, pounded, repaired and patched up synthetic turf at the hockey association is just not fit for use for an important tournament like the Super Division.

Last year, KSHA mooted a proposal to shift the Super Division to Madikeri, a district centre, where enthusiasm for hockey is the highest in the state. The major participating teams welcomed the suggestion and made every effort to convince its sports administrators to sanction a fresh budget for the teams to camp at Madikeri and play the tournament.

However, the proposal fizzled out for various reasons. This year too a similar proposal was discussed but with the new turf at the SAI centre in Madikeri not going to be ready till January next year, the idea was shelved. An informal meeting of the technical committee was held at the KSHA and after lengthy discussions the team felt that once again the Super Division has to be played in September at the hockey stadium, on the worn out turf.

The league is likely to begin in the first week of September and major teams will join the league after September 11.

Lynch-pins

Players who are lynch-pins of these premier clubs and institutions will be away participating in the Asia Cup and thus can only find time during the three weeks in September.

After this event the players will have to prepare for the PHL, the Olympic pre-qualifiers and other international engagements.

The unofficial word (till Aug 9) is that even if a couple of top teams drop out of the tournament, KSHA will push it through just in order to have an uninterrupted run of its showpiece tournament.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail