New initiative to promote school hockey

On the lines of EPL and IPL, Mumbai School Sports Association (MSSA) have come up with a new concept to promote hockey at school level.

Presently, the tournament, Super Hockey League, is being played on an experimental basis for two days (May 8 and 9) at Bandra’s St Stanislaus High School grounds with six U-14 teams split in to two groups participating in it.

The pool ‘A’ has teams from outside Mumbai – Pune Lions, Thane Strykers and Nashik Panthers – while pool ‘B’ comprises Mumbai sides – Mumbai Tigers, Mumbai Zions and Mumbai Wizards.

The concept is the brain child of MSSA secretary N Chandrashekhar and two other hockey enthusiasts. “The two-day event is just an experiment for the future league. It has gone well so far. We are planning to have a league at the all-India level to promote hockey in December,” said Chandrashekhar.

All the six teams have different owners. The concept is a bit different from the usual. The owner doesn’t have to shell out big sums of money. They only need to provide kit and take care of the welfare of the players. Also, the teams have been divided on a lottery system. “Since it is just a beginning, we decided to give the teams to hockey enthusiasts who could look after their respective teams. To have balanced teams we had organised a lottery system and that’s how the players were divided,” said Chandrashekhar. “The MSSA is fully supportive of it.”

Results: Pune Lions 1 drew Thane Strykers 1; Mumbai Tigers bt Mumbai Zions 1; Pune Lions 8 bt Nasik Panthers 1; Mumbai Tigers 0 drew Mumbai Wizards 0; Thane Strikers 3 bt Nasik Panthers 2