‘I am wedded to hockey. I can’t leave it’, is how Sukhvir Singh Grewal, a prosperous real estate businessman and former international hockey player, reasoned why he is taking all the trouble of organizing Punjab League, which will start from today.
After years’ of vision and six months of ground work, the Punjab Hockey League, wherein a number of Under-14 teams will feature, will be held at Ludhiana synthetic hockey turf. About 25 teams will take part. Grewal is the Chief Organizer of this PHL.
“Ever since the project was envisioned, we found many young teams prepared by various academies and hockey centres are starved of real-time match practice. Besides, proper coaching and other necessary inputs such as psychology are also lacking. We already have a working synergy with Punjab sports department, which is now providing so many coaches. This is a small step, and we arraigned many other things for the years to come”.
The organizers also lined up two sponsors and each of the about 350 boys will also be given a kit worth of Rs. 1200. The whole concept revolve around the reality that hockey needs development at grassroot and it needs to be harnessed in a systematic and scientific way.
According to Grewal, most of the former players are running an academy or hockey centres at their native villages and towns. This is the target resources the organizers are aiming at improvisation.
In future, Under-16 category will also be added. With that the target is to train and polish about one thousand boys and girls on regular basis, giving them opportunities on the synthetic turf grounds.
Punjab is the biggest hockey nursery in India, where even in villages the sport is being talked about with passion. Despite the national teams’ dwindling fortunes, hockey remains a mass sport in that province. Therefore, every effort taken to fulfill the needs of grass root is laudable. This time lot of ground work had been done so that the effort is being sustained for long is a bonus indeed.