CHANDIGARH (TIP): The Pakistan Hockey Federation’s (PHF) decision not to send its Asian Games bronze-medalist team to Mohali and Jalandhar for the inaugural Asian Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament is not surprising.
Instead, the Asian Hockey Federation has invited Bangladesh to take the slot Pakistan vacated in the tournament originally designed for the continent’s top six teams. The selection criteria were the just-concluded Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026.
Absence of Pakistan will deprive this first-ever FIH-sponsored international tournament on the Punjab soil of much of its glory and sheen, while the AAP government has been excited to jump on the hockey bandwagon to boost its electoral chances in the ensuing Assembly elections early next year.
Punjab has taken a leaf from several other states, including Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, which claimed to have drawn favorable feedback from followers of sports in their respective territories.
Since the elections to the State Assembly must be completed before the end of March next year, the possibility of rescheduling this major hockey mega event in Punjab does not arise.
Organizing the state’s first-ever international hockey event at the end of the hockey calendar has not met with the approval of hockey experts. After the 2026 FIH World Cups, both for men and women, in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and Wavre (Belgium) in August, closely followed by the Aichi Asian Games 2026 in September, have satiated the appetite of hockey lovers of the subcontinent.
The holding of such a mega event is welcome. Welcome, yet it would have been better if it were scheduled at the beginning of a new hockey calendar year, say, for many of the hockey Olympians and international hockey players of the state.
“Why spend so much when the top hockey events have concluded in the just recent past? Those who competed in the FIH World Cup and the Asian Games must have been at different stages of fatigue. No one can, and no one should expect them to give out their best after a hectic and tiring year in competitive hockey.
Players have no choice, as they must appease their political masters, and hence their consent matters the least.
The first phase of the tournament—round robin group matches with each of the six teams playing against the rest of the five teams—will be at Olympian Surjit Singh Hockey Stadium in Jalandhar.
The classification games to decide the first to sixth positions will be played at the Mohali Hockey Stadium after a day’s break.
The participating teams—India, Malaysia, China, Japan, Korea, and Bangladesh—will enjoy Punjab’s warm and cordial hospitality. It will also boost Punjab’s sports goods industry in Jalandhar.
Before the synthetic surface was introduced in the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, the leather balls used on the grassy playfields used to be from Jalandhar or Sialkot in Pakistan. But once the playing surface changed, the leather balls went out of competitive international hockey as they were replaced by dimpled balls that initially came from Australia.
With the inaugural Asian Champions Trophy coming to Punjab, the sports goods industry, especially the hockey stick manufacturers of Jalandhar and Meerut, must be excited to get endorsements from Asian stars during their week-long sojourn in Jalandhar.
The allied sports industry associated with hockey, including protective wear, has also changed significantly and will also get a chance to renew its stakes in the international arena.
Be the first to comment