The betrayal of our hockey heroes

The scene was set at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium for felicitating the victorious Indian Hockey team, who had successfully pipped eight teams from all over Asia to win the Asian Champions Trophy 2011. The icing on the cake was the win over our neighbours Pakistan in the finals of the tournament. India won the Asian Champions Trophy by defeating arch-rivals Pakistan 4-2 via shoot out in the summit clash.

The lads must have anticipated a hero’s welcome on entry to the stadium, some may have already thought what they would do with the fortune that they would be bestowed with, by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Hockey India (HI). Sadly a lackluster welcome in a dimly lit stadium accompanied by a reward as meagre as Rs.25000 being offered to each player were enough to add insult to an injured mentality, a mentality that strongly suggested huge levels of indifference being shown by the governing body of Indian hockey, and Hockey India.

Switching over to cricket, on any given day, even when a cricketer is not a hot property, it ends up raking in lakhs through advertisements, sponsorships and administrative benefits, an amount considered puny compared to the crores they make when they are on a roll. Remember the World Cup win and the adulation’s that followed? Agreed, the Indian cricket proved themselves worthy in the world stage, but didn’t the Hockey team do the same on the continental stage? Many words come to mind that can be used to describe this situation, the one that fits the bill the most is “Step-Motherly Treatment”

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In one of my previous articles-“Hockey-Still the National Sport”, I had made a mention of the reasons why Hockey faced a systematic decline in popularity, whether it be mal-management from the part of the administration or the astronomical rise in popularity of cricket. Whatever may have been the case, the acts that have been perpetrated are inexcusable. Indian Hockey, for the first time in a long time proved their worth and this is how we honour them, shameful to say the least.

The opinions of players in the field of hockey were both fiery and justifiable.

“We were offered Rs 25,000 each by the secretary general Narinder Batra as reward for winning the Asian Champions Trophy but we all refused to take it because it a very small reward considering our achievement,” senior player Gurbaz Singh said. Gurbaz said it was not possible to draw youngsters to the game with such rewards.

“We did not expect such a small amount as reward, considering the fact that hockey is our national game. If such things continue, there will be a day when there will be very few kids interested in playing hockey. They would rather opt for cricket or any other individual sport,” he added.

Another member of the victorious team said that such a meagre reward did not come as a surprise to him “These things are not new in Indian hockey. Now we are used to such step-motherly behaviour. This doesn’t make any difference,” the player said on condition of anonymity. In every respect, the player is right because even after the controversy over the pittance being paid to the players came to light, all Mr.Ajay Maken and Hockey India were doing was passing the blame onto each other.

The felicitation at Major Dhyan Chand Stadium after which the players were left fuming at the news of the Rs.25000 reward

I said it before and I am going to say it again, measures need to be taken to make sure that hockey regains its long lost glory. Providing incentives to private sector industries so as to popularise the game is one such measure. Evens like the PHL (Premier Hockey League) should be brought back from dormancy to the forefront so that new talent can be scouted, for securing the future is of utter importance. On the other hand, what can go against this proposal is the diminishing popularity of the game itself. Whatever incentives the sponsor may be getting, he would be more inclined towards investing his money in a place with some redeeming value as compared to hockey where if things remain the way they are, there will be little or no redeeming value.

Mend your ways for once

Aren’t our beloved celebrities, part of the blame as well? Think about it, there is the newly commenced Celebrity Premier League or CPL (a rip-off of the hugely popular cricket league IPL), movie and TV stars playing charity cricket matches (John Abraham on the other hand prefers football- worthless information you may say, but information nonetheless), ad-gurus and marketers using cricketers for promotion of products, for obvious reasons and finally, publicity hungry ones, willing to anything to pep up the team, case in point- Poonam Pandey, whose stripping actions distracted the team to say the least, how else can you explain a test series whitewash, a T20 loss, and an ODI series loss. After all that has happened till now, the average Indian viewer would prefer to watch an MS Dhoni or a Yuvraj Singh over a Gurbaz Singh or a Rajpal Singh.

How we are to come out of this situation is something for the administration to decide because all we can do is give opinions and hope for the best and my opinions are as follows,

• Mr.Maken should take into cognizance the issues that ail present day sports, excluding cricket and pass the Sports Bill that Mr.Pawar, Mr.Sibal and Mr.Abdullah so ignorantly prevented.
• At a time when the cricket team is being robbed of its dignity abroad and the hockey team is emerging victorious in a continental competition, the administration should suit up and popularise the national sport of India (strike the iron when it’s hot, as they say)
• Last but not the least, never should we as sports enthusiasts forget that once upon a time, our team used to be the blitzkrieg that ravaged teams and tournaments alike. Never should we lose hope regarding regaining past glory. Like Marty McFly was told in “Back to the Future”,

‘If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything’

Bright future in store?