India's first beach hockey tournament a sparkling success

Andrea Thumshirn (left), founder of Hockey Village India and promoter of beach hockey in India with former Dutch hockey player Floris Jan Bovelander

A few years ago, the concept of beach hockey would have sounded quite alien on Indian shores. Because, as it was, the masses were perhaps more concerned about the dwindling fortunes of their field hockey team, which suffered setbacks and success in equal measure.

However, as reported in an article a few weeks ago, Goa was to be the destination for a first of its kind, beach hockey tournament, which would be not just a first in India, but in the whole of Asia.

In cooperation with Hockey India and their local body in Goa – Goan Hockey – Hockey Village India (HVI) organized India’s and Asia’s first Beach Hockey tournament in Goa from 7th to 10th of November 2013 at Sernabatim Beach between Colva and Benaulim. The idea behind the whole concept was to promote hockey and create awareness and fundraising towards the Hockey Village project in Rajasthan. Over 90 athletes, including some from beach hockey playing nations such as Germany and the Netherlands descended upon the beaches of Goa for the event. There was much buzz created around the event and the athletes from abroad thoroughly enjoyed making the trip down to India for the event.

The slightly different hockey sticks used for beach hockey

According to Andrea Thumshirn, founder of the HVI project and former German hockey player, there isn’t much of a hockey culture prevalent around Goa. Yet, what it head in abundance, is sun and sand, and plenty of enthusiastic youngsters who were pretty keen on playing the game.

So she thought that beach hockey could serve as a good option to introduce them to the game of hockey, especially as it did not require stadiums or Astroturf to get the game going. The game as such not requiring much infrastructure, was also easy to organize within as short period of time.

Beach Hockey started more as a fun game in Europe some years ago. It used to be played during the summer breaks at the beach. Since then, former Dutch international player Floris Jan Bovelander, has been going around Europe popularizing the game. Initially a big hit in the traditional European hockey strongholds of Germany and the Netherlands, it has slowly spread to other countries as well in the continent such as Spain, England and Belgium.

The local Calangute team in action against the eventual winners Kuestenjungs

Being a fast and skilful game, and something that can be easily followed, the game has good potential to take off with spectators and countries like Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Brazil and now even New Zealand and Australia have taken up the game already.

Which brought Bovelander to India and in association with Andrea and HVI, they went about organizing the 3-day event in Goa. It was a great event and something that Andrea insists should be repeated over and over again, in a bid to try and get the sport popularized and breed familiarity among the local folk.

The event received plenty of positive feedback from the participants and sports enthusiasts in general, particularly about the idea, the venue, the organization, the food and the game itself from most of the teams.

So, HVI is motivated to keep up their efforts on beach hockey and are raring to go for the next tournament. In fact, Andrea says that HVI has spoken to Hockey India about the possibility of holding more such tournaments, to which they have been receptive.

In future, they are looking at having qualifying tournaments in all major areas of the country that have beaches such as Chennai, Kerala, Goa, Maharashtra and maybe even the Andamans. The best teams from all areas will play to qualify for the World Cup of beach hockey, the first of which is going to be held next year at The Hague, Netherlands.

The winners in the women’s category – Poldis

The local Goan players are said to have been very happy with regards to playing the game and they have picked up some good skills watching the European teams play.

HVI itself had a team playing at the tournament, led by their founder Andrea, which finished second in the women’s category. Kuestenjungs from Germany were the winners in the men’s category, defeating the local team of Goan Juniors 5-4 in the final.

Another German team, Poldis, triumphed in the women’s category beating the team from HVI 4-3.

There were teams from Mumbai Customs, Western Railways and others from Goa that participated as well.

The team from HVI that finished second

The full list of winners is given below.

Men:

1. Kuestenjungs (Germany) – defeated Goan Juniors in the final by 5:4

2. Goa Juniors

3. Goa III (defeated Mumbai Customs by 2:1)

4. Mumbai Customs

5. Hockey Village India (defeated Goa I by 5:1)

6. Goa I

7. Dutch boys (defeated Bhusawal Railways by 3:0)

8. Bhusawal Railways

Women:

1. Poldis (Germany) – defeated Hockey Village India in the final by 4:3

2. Hockey Village India

3. Western Railways (defeated Dutch girls by 3:0)

4. Dutch girls

5. Goa

The event was as such managed without any sponsorship, but Andrea reveals that they are in talks with a few corporate about pitching in for the next edition. And she believes that with the successful completion of the inaugural edition, it could very well be possible, as it has introduced the sport to people and made it easier to talk about it.

The event was supported by Goan Hockey, HOLI, 53 Grad, Furtado’s Beach Hotel, Hockey India, Hockey Village India, Tasvra, International Beach Hockey and Wanderers Qatar.

So, next time you hit the beach, there’s another sport that you can play apart from volleyball, Frisbee and football – its hockey.

Also check out, our interview with Andrea Thumshirn, where she talks about beach hockey, her project in Rajasthan and India in general.

(Photos Courtesy: Andrea Thumshirn, founder of Hockey Village India and promoter of Beach Hockey in India)