Thoiba to inaugurate NE Challenge Cup hockey today

GUWAHATI, Oct 20: With an aim to popularize hockey in the Northeast, the organizer of the Second Northeast Challenge Cup Hockey Tournament has decided to provide latest facilities to the players who would take part in the tournament. Apart from the financial supports, the players and the participating teams would also receive playing kits during the championship.

The second edition of the championship will get under way at the Tayabulla Hockey Stadium, Bhetapara from tomorrow. Six Northeastern States, excluding Mizoram, would take part in the championship which would be jointly hosted by the Assam Hockey Association and the Northeast Hockey Association. Olympian Thoiba Singh will inaugurate the tournament.

Talking to the media at a press conference, the president of the Northeast Hockey Association G M Srivastava said: “The idea behind to host this championship is to popularize the game in the region. This year we managed to get sponsor for the championship so we have decided to provide financial support to the players.”

Elaborating the importance of financial support to the players and teams, Srivastava said, “Earlier in many occasions we have noticed that few teams were forced to withdrew their names from different championships due to cash crunch and we feel that this type of steps would encourage the participants.”

Srivastava added that this time Sahara Group would sponsor the tournament. The champion and runners up team would earn Rs 30,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively. There would be cash award too for the man of the tournament, man of the final and highest scorer of the Championship. On the other hand, each player of participating team would receive Rs 1,000 each as special cash incentives along with playing kits. The organizers also decided to provide 100 hockey sticks to the each participating teams so that other players of the respective States could be benefitted from it.”

The secretary of the Assam Hockey Association Tapan Das, who was also present during the media conference, said that though Mizoram in the last minute withdrew their name from the championship, however the other six States of the region would take part in the event as per their earlier commitment. Asom is placed with Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh in Group ‘A’ while Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya are placed in Group ‘B’.

The inaugural match would be held between Manipur and Nagaland in the morning while in the second match, which would be held just after the inaugural function in the afternoon, hosts Asom will face Tripura. Both the semi-finals would be held on October 24 while the final is slated on October 25.