Perth all decked up for the D-day

Those who know things here in Perth say with pride it is a land mark day for hockey in Australia.

Their constant refrain is market marvel, first-ever live telecast from the traditional hub of hockey, the Perth Hockey stadium — for old-timers it is Commonwealth Stadium as the Commonwealth presented this turf and ground as a gift to Western Australia Hockey Association on its centenary year — and alike.

The stadium, which hosted big ticket event – a Women’s World Cup – long back, ten years ago, comes alive here on the eve of Lanco International Super Series Hockey 9s.

A stadium that used to have only government and its agencies’ billboard as advertisements, here is a surprise. A very big Lanco advt. curtain is placed on one end of roof top, giving far away view even one approaches the stadium Lanco and Hero’s advertisement are there everywhere.

About 30-strong Australian Broadcasting Crew is busy in fine-tuning the things. They are there everywhere to catch the quick action for the rest of world, with four cameras, some of them on roof tops, besides each above the goal cage.

Western Australia’s CEO Kevin Knapp is happy about the presence of India and Pakistan in the fray. “The ticket sales are good. As far as India-Pakistan match billed for Friday, the sales graph shows sharp rise, its almost all the tickets for the day is sold out.

There is lot of talk the Super Series to turn an annual event, and many of them say it will be, though none of us at this point of time is sure of the success of the new format hockey.

There are half a dozen marquees have come up on one side, if one purchases a bulk of 100 ticket, they can have a marquee.

Sukhdev Pandher, who promotes hockey among the Indians here for over a period of time, exactly eyes a marquee for Indians. “The response for the Series is fantastic, even Hockey Officials came on ethnic radios, spoke about the Series”, he says.

There going to be a marquee for Sikh Association of Western Australian (SAWA), they all going to come with traditional instruments to pep up the teams”, he says with a twinkle of spark in his eyes.

Shaun Anderson, the young Communication Manager, has just distributed accreditation cards, even as two Pakistan journalists land up, one carrying Delhi Commowealth Games’ all black Reebok bag.

We could have created more space for visitors, but at the same time we had to put up some hospitality tents on one side”, he says.

It is gathered the stadium can accommodate about 4000 persons, majority of them on the grass floors that make up three sides of the main ground.

All matches will take place on the main turf.

Singapore’s Madhavan Devadas is Tournament Director, while local guy Don Prior will be the umpires manager. There are seven umpires here, four men included. Indian team includes umpires Bhupinder Singh and Karnataka’s