Back to home after a month long hockey yatra!

Back to home after a month long hockey yatra!

I left home on 3rd May and returned a couple of days back. Probably a single long spell I ever had.

It was a pleasant non stop month full of hockey.

First 15 days were spent at Ipoh, Malaysia, where our boys again put up a good show. I was happy to do text commentary whose visitors grew by about 10 percent compared to World Cup.

It was a creditable number for my site against the fact that the organizers of the Azlan Shah Cup this year did their bit bringing alive the matches thro twitter.

I returned to Chennai from where I took flight for Ipoh, and then it was a hectic two weeks of hockey research.

First week was spent in a southern city where, with a bit of luck, I found existence of a government archive. Hours I spent amidst dust and more dust, gave me wealth of information on what I thought hitherto missing links in my hockey history collection.

Another week was spent in Chennai, without not many knowing my presence there, again in libraries. Honestly speaking I worked about 10 hours a day in those study rooms, only to find the gaps and missing links in my collection, increase.

That is the beauty of this game, there is still wealth of information to be harnessed and then bring them to the public domain.

I relish this virgin territory which treaded last fortnight.

I intend to add a new section to the site, any case before the Commonwealth Games, which will meet long standing needs of hockey sport and fans.

I was busy because of this, details will follow later.

Of late I came to a conclusion that spending n-number of hours in trying to break news and getting extra news is not of much value even after a day. Chasing AGMs is not going to benefit hockey any way. I therefore thought of doing something solid, and am truly on that mission now.

I could meanwhile spare some time to my pet project One Thousand Hockey Legs, and plan out program for first three months (June-August) of the year. Details of which you can access at www.onethousandhokceylegs.com

During my stay in these two cities, hockey volunteers who came in touch with me through the website, extended a great help, by giving me among others local transport. Its another volunteer who managed all my travel bookings, KL included. I am nothing without them, and I could not have carried out even a fraction of the work which I ultimately could, but for those invisible souls.

I thank you all, once again.