Olympian Balbir Singh Senior Hockey Stadium, Mohali. Photo/ Maninder K Chandhoke
By Prabhjot Singh
Mohali (TIP): Mohali has become the latest Indian city to get on the international hockey map. Commissioned more than a decade ago during the state’s SAD-BJP government, it never got the chance to host any international, let alone a tournament.
Facilities at this ultramodern sports complex, built across the road from the famous Inderjit Singh Bindra Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, will now be put to the test during the next two days of the Hero Asian Champions Trophy finals.
In fact, the PCA stadium brought this sleepy town on the outskirts of Chandigarh, a city planned by French architect Le Corbusier. The PCA Stadium was rated as one of the best not only in India and Asia but also in the world, for it has a long room, an exhibition hall, a clubhouse, a swimming pool, and indoor and outdoor training pitches, besides a plethora of other perks.
However, the PCA fell foul of the Punjab government that had leased its land for the construction of the stadium. Earlier, the Sector 16 Cricket Stadium in Chandigarh used to be the nerve center of all international and national cricketing activity. But once the PCA developed differences with the Chandigarh Administration, it decided to build its own stadium in Mohali.
The same story is true of the newly commissioned Olympian Balbir Singh Senior Hockey Stadium.
Chandigarh was the first to build a massive ultramodern hockey stadium with a synthetic surface in the late 90s. The Chandigarh Stadium had the fortune of staging a couple of editions of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Invitation Hockey Tournaments for women. It also played host to an international tournament for men when the Punjab police supremo KPS Gill was the president of the then Indian Hockey Federation.
With the turn of the century, the Punjab Government launched an expansive and elaborate scheme to modernize sports infrastructure in the State. Several towns and cities in the state were provided with synthetic hockey surfaces, both for five-a-side and full playfields, besides laying synthetic tracks at a couple of places, including Guru Nanak Stadium, Ludhiana, and a multipurpose sports complex at Gidderbaha.
Though India played host to many international sporting events, including the 2010 Commonwealth Games, 2010 World Cup Hockey and even Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad, Punjab was deprived of holding any international meet.
On the other hand, Chandigarh continued to be the main alternative, as it played host not only to several Davis Cup matches, including the World Group semifinal against Australia in 1993, and the Asian Rowing Championships twice; Punjab sulked.
In the meantime, Punjab, tormented by decades of militancy, witnessed an unprecedented downfall in its sports potential. Its contribution to the national registry receded rapidly. Instead, neighboring Haryana overtook Punjab as the new sports powerhouse of the country.
Punjab’s offers to stage some of the international competitions, including hockey, were thwarted by the national sports federations, as they started demanding huge capitation and hosting fees. Other States, especially Odisha, grabbed the opportunity and emerged as the new sporting center of the country. It built world-class sports infrastructure, including hockey stadia at Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, indoor sports complexes at Bhubaneswar, an indoor athletics stadium and sports science centers. Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and now Madhya Pradesh followed the Odisha example.
Punjab, waiting in the wings, got this golden opportunity that met the immediate approval of the political bosses of the state. With elections to the State Assembly due in early 2027, Punjab agreed to the terms and conditions of both Hockey India and the Asian Hockey Federation to host the Hero Asian Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament.
Encouraged by the public response to the event, the government has now offered to host the 2030 FIH World Cup for men. Hockey has won, and it is a win-win situation for the Punjab government as well.
(Prabhjot Singh is a senior Toronto-based, award-winning independentjournalist, who worked with The Tribune, Reuters, and several media groupsin a career spanning nearly five decades. He has written extensively aboutDiaspora, Politics, Business, Aviation, Health, Public and Private Sectors andSports. He can be reached at prabhjot416@gmail.com)
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