Malwa Khalsa School – a budding ground for hockey players

“We are thankful to Pargat Singh, Director S t Sports, Punjab, who revived the enthusiasm in B the game.We hope to produce better progeny”

IT WILL not be an exaggeration to call Malwa Khalsa Senior Secondary School for Boys in Model Gram as the ‘Nursery for Hockey’. Ever since its inception in 1907, the school has produced national and state-level hockey players. At present, the Sports Wing of the school is busy training 43 budding players.

William Jit Singh, hockey coach of the school, said, “Students from Classes V to IX are being imparted training at the Prithipal Singh Astro Turf Stadium in the Punjab Agriculture University, where they practice rigorously for four hours everyday. Students from Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Ferozepur and Jalandhar study as well as stay in the school hostel.”

William, who was a member of the Punjab Police hockey team, was made the school coach last year. He said, “In 2007, our players won respectable positions in many prestigious tournaments.

We won ‘S N Vohra Tournament’ of U-14 level, stood fourth in the All-India Nehru Hockey Tournament of U-15 level, remained second in U-16 of the Punjab Hockey League and bagged third position in a U-14 tournament organised by the Punjab government.”

Willaim said, “Three players trained by us have been selected by renowned academies of hockey. Among these Akashdeep of Class VIII and Harsimranjeet of Class IX have been selected by Surjeet Academy of Jalandhar and Sukhdev Singh of Class IX have been admitted in STC, Patiala.”

The school got a separate sports wing only last year.

School Principal Khagesh Sharma said, “The school’s alumni include KPS Gill, former Punjab Police director-general; Shiv Kumar, a senior coach of the Canadian national team, Baldev Singh, Deputy Director of Sports, Haryana; Dalbir Singh, a national-level player; Gurdeep Singh, Superintendent at the Punjab Armed Police, Jalandhar; Ashok Kumar, Raj Kumar, Dharmender Singh of Punjab Police and Mahinder Partap Singh, a hockey player who died in an accident.”

The coach of sports wing said, “We are thankful to Pargat Singh, Director Sports, Punjab, who revived enthusiasm in the game. We hope to produce better progeny