School Hockey: Ryan Intnl School on hockey rein

It is a Ryan’s mission to develop a student with Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, Social and Moral Values to make them a complete citizen of the country. The school envisages development of student’s physical and psychological capabilities / talents through professional training in sports, artistic and personality enhancement programs. With this mission, the Ryan has completed four years in Amritsar under the visionary benevolence of its Chairman Dr. Augustine Francis Pinto and Managing Director Mrs. Grace Pinto. The school, situated on G.T. Road, Bypass near the Amritsar Entrance Gate, sports modern infrastructure, sprawling grounds and well qualified and experienced staff. With everything on board, the school is scaling new heights every passing year.

The Principal Mrs Gurpal Anand believes in holistic development of students. She not only emphasizes teaching with innovative activities but desires that a child should be a good sportsman as well. Her reason: “What a child can’t learn sometimes in classrooms, can understand on playgrounds, especially the virtues of discipline, team work and competitive spirit”. There is therefore no surprise Mrs.Anand introduces new sports and games in school time to time.

Being an ardent hockey fan, Principle Mrs Gurpal Anand wanted to revive our national game so that it can regain its past glory. And the small step taken in this direction was that the students were introduced to Prof. Randhawa of DAV College in the same city. Randhawa is a noted columnist, on the mission to motivate the students across the country to play hockey.

While addressing the students in the morning assembly he said that it is not an old story but the story of 1975 when the dignity and popularity of hockey was at its peak on the soil of Punjab. On one hand the players used to play hockey very enthusiastically and with keen interest on the grassy play grounds, on the other hand there was no lack of spectators who were very loving and affectionate towards hockey. It was so popular in villages, towns and cities and especially in the villages at least one member of every family used to play hockey. It was considered to be the game that compelled the players to undergo severe exercises and be fit and fine. The hockey stick and hockey ball could be seen in a corner of every home. The hockey lovers use to carry them to the play grounds either in the mornings or the evenings. The whole day they were lost in the thoughts and dreams of hockey. A wave of joy was always there in their hearts.

The hockey enthusiast Prof.Randhawa recollected the olden days and said that there were a few warriors of hockey who never went to any school and college, who were not familiar with ABC but they were the most intelligent students of the class of hockey in the play ground. In spite of being illiterate, they earned respect in the name of hockey. Even schools and colleges demonstrated there keen interest for the national sport. A single P.T. master was efficient enough to create mighty hockey teams in the past. The hockey tournaments were in full swing at various levels in t grounds, on the other hand there was no lack of spectators who were very loving and affectionate towards hockey. It was so popular in villages, towns and cities and especially in the villages at least one member of every family used to play hockey. It was considered to be the game that compelled the players to undergo severe exercises and be fit and fine. The hockey stick and hockey ball could be seen in a corner of every home. The hockey lovers use to carry them to the play grounds either in the mornings or the evenings. The whole day they were lost in the thoughts and dreams of hockey. A wave of joy was always there in their hearts

The hockey enthusiast Prof. Randhawa remembered the olden days and said that there were a few warriors of hockey who never went to any school and college, who were not familiar with ABC but they were the most intelligent students of the class of hockey in the play ground. In spite of being illiterate, they earned respect in the name of hockey. Even schools and colleges demonstrated there keen interest in this national sport. A single P.T. master was efficient enough to create mighty hockey teams. The hockey tournaments were in full swing at various levels in the educational institutions in those days .

Prof. Randhawa further remembering the golden days of Indian hockey said that tere was a romantic relationship between the hockey world and the Bollywood. The hockey stars used to gather to watch the popular and the superb movies of the famous film stars similarly the film stars used to reach the play ground to watch the tournaments of the popular game hockey. But the problem they had to face was to sit secretly on one side of the play ground avoiding the glances of their fans to enjoy the dynamic, daring and beautiful performance of the hockey players. The Aga Khan hockey tournament, which was held in Mumbai, used to attract crowds of film stars. The film stars like Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Raj Khosla, Om Parkash, Manoj Kumar, Dharminder, Jatinder, Ranjit, Vinod Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Shashi Kapoor, Dara Singh and especially the film stars of the Punjabi movies were the great fans of hockey. It is true that film stars of India and the other countries of the world have always been associated with the world of sports and the world of glamour.so was the case with hockey.

The orator of the day reminded the gathering during those days, in one of the stadiums of Mumbai, the film stars hounoured the hockey team that had won the world Cup(1975) under the captaincy of Ajit pal Singh. It was a beautiful and graceful effort on the part of the film stars to honour the winning hockey stars of our National Game with respect, devotion and dedication.

The hockey buff Prof. Randhawa remarked that the interesting aspect was that a friendly match was played between the film stars and the champion hockey stars. Almost forty thousand spectators graced the play ground with their benign presence. This match was highly romantic as the film stars are often closer to our hearts. On the other hand, the hockey stars too had gained intimacy and closeness to the hearts of the people on account of their best and dynamic performance. The hockey stars under the leadership of Ajitpal Singh and film stars under the captaincy of Raj Kapoor had played this special match. There was strange kind of thrill and excitement in their leadership and the whole atmosphere of the play ground was charged with romance of hockey. How was the art and skill of playing hockey by the famous hockey star Gobinda appreciated and praised. How the people clapped and clapped for the performance of Aslam Sher Khan, Harcharan Singh, Ashok Diwan, Surjit Singh, Varinder Singh, Onkar Singh, Mohinder Singh and H.Chimni.

The hockey enthusiast professor said that the people got up and shouted at their highest pitch again and again to cheer up their hockey stars like M.Kundo, V.J.Phillips, S.R.Pawar and Ashok Kumar etc. Remembering them the hockey lovers heave deep sighs even today. Such romantic display on the part of our hockey players was an evidence to the fact how during those days people had love for their national game hockey. The film stars were great hockey lovers. The fact remains wherever the film stars went, they enhanced the grace and beauty of that field. Once the film stars and the hockey stars were very intimately associated with each other. Such was the atmosphere of the world of films and world of hockey during those days. The world champion of wrestling Dara Singh, who later on got famous as a film star, had once said, ” Hockey is the only game of India which fills me with great zeal and enthusiasm.”

The hockey missionary expressed his regrets over the fact that our modern youth is not familiar with their national game. It is because of its neglect on the part of media. This is the very reason that our film stars have created a distance from it in the modern times. The foreigner game cricket has replaced our national game hockey. The fact is that the Indian mentality these days is being dominated by the alien game cricket and there is no nationality left in them. The modern film star are not aware of the contribution of Hockey to India in the field of sports. The truth is that the craze for cricket is simply because of its commercialization and marketing., said the Amritsar based writer

We often find the scenes from the field of cricket in our movies but there are no scenes from the field of Hockey. But we can’t close our eyes to the fact that Hockey is the sport that has made India famous in the field of sports and games at the international level. But today it is being given step motherly treatment, it is treated as a stranger in its on motherland. He quoted Mr. Gurbaksh Singh –former national hockey OLYMPIAN who was forced to say ,”Why has this nation turned antagonistic to its own traditional game?”

The worthy writer is of the opinion that HIS pen, devoted to Hockey, won’t hesitate in saying that the Govt. and the Media of our country have not only distanced Hockey from the common people, they have also distanced it even from the film stars. Day by day this gap is increasing from those film stars who were once crazy after Hockey. The film stars are still very fortunate, rolling in money and they have associated themselves with the cricketers who are already millionaires but the Hockey stars are facing misfortune and ill-luck on account of the craze of media & people for cricket and on the other hand the indifference of the Govt. to Hockey. The poor performance of the Hockey players added fuel to fire

Prof. Randhawa conducted two-hour workshop in school premises on hockey through which he motivated students to play hockey and demonstrated finer points of the game which the participants took up keenly The Principal Mrs.Anand assured Randhawa that as the school has all the infrastructure, facilities and environment for hockey, soon the two hockey teams – of boys and girls would soon come up with encouraging results. At the end of the workshop the atmosphere was so charged with enthusiasm for hockey and the sky was filled with the shouts of “CHEK DE HOCKEY”.