1st Senior Men National Hockey Championship to be organised by Hockey India: Hockey News
Hockey India (HI) will be setting up their first ever national’s tournament in Bhopal next month. The First Senior Men National Hockey Championship is expected to commence from June 10-19.
Since, HI is now the only authorised and recognised sport’s governing body in India, after a period of conflict with a controversial set-up Indian Hockey Federation (IHF), it will be taking the decisions regarding the international and national competitions.
This contradiction came to an end when recently the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and the Indian Olympic Committee (IOC) both gave recognition to HI as the sole representative of hockey in the country.
Previously, HI tried to organise a tournament many a times, but was objected due to the fuss created by the IHF, causing the cancellation and postponement of these events. Finally, they have succeeded in getting their first national event all set.
Last time national championship took place in the year 2006 in Delhi and Punjab, which was held under the ambit of IHF. HI has a total of 35 bodies affiliated with it, out of which 32 have confirmed their participation in the event ahead. This competition
will be played with a new format, a league c*m knockout format.
Due to the great number of matches, four fields have been booked for the competition so as to conduct matches simultaneously. These artificial turfs are located at the Aishbagh Stadium, Mayur Park and Sports Authority of India (SAI) Centre.
The matches will be played both in day and night. Therefore, floodlights will also be used for the purpose.
A selection committee representing the HI will be present at the venue during the matches that will pick out the outstanding players from the next training camp for the Indian national hockey team in the future.
The teams have been categorised into eight pools, each comprising of four national teams. The details are Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Uttarakhand in Pool A. Chandigarh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Assam in Pool B. Delhi, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Bengal
in Pool C. Air India, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Chhattisgarh in Pool D. Services, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Manipur in Pool E. Haryana, Maharashtra, Goa and Meghalaya in Pool F. Railways Sports Promotion Board, Combined Universities, Puducherry, Tripura
Olympic Association in Pool G and Orissa, M P, Andaman & Nicobar and Jammu & Kashmir in Pool H.
The opening match of the event will be played on June 10 that will feature Madhya Pradesh against Jammu & Kashmir at Aishbagh Stadium. It will be interesting to see how HI manages to schedule the championship and bring the field hockey players to represent
India.
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