Balbir Sr to present a plan to Maken for revival of hockey
NEW DELHI: Triple Olympic gold medallist Balbir Singh Senior has apparently “prepared a blueprint” to revive the national game and will present it to union sports minister Ajay Maken during his next visit to India.
“I was shocked, when India failed to qualify for Beijing Olympics. That rude shock prompted me to prepare a plan to Revive Indian Hockey,” Balbir Sr who now resides in Canada’s Vancouver said over telephone.
“One of the important elements of this plan is that from players and coaches to administrators, everyone should be accountable. There should be total transparency in the system.”
Balbir Sr said that he hasn’t been able to present his blueprint last time round due to the two warring factions.
“I could not present it on my last visit because of the continued tussle between Hockey India and Indian Hockey Federation. I will present it to the union sports minister during December.”
When asked about the reason behind the success of Indian Hockey in his era, he said that there were a number of thing which contributed.
“Hockey developed sooner in India than other countries because the smaller hockey balls rolled faster on our hard and fast playfields and needed quick reactions and better ball control. Practice on the hard and fast fields consequently gave Indian teams the edge over their European counterparts.”
Another fine insight that he gave was about the shortened curve of the blade.
“We shortened curve of the blade much before other countries thought of it. That enabled our players to use both sides of the stick for dribbling and at the same time develop a peripheral vision. The teams in Europe however continued playing the orthodox right hand game with wider curved hockey sticks for quite long,” he opined.