Indian Hockey down the drains??? - Page 2

Originally posted by: Leo

you said the administrators should be blamed.....but the administrators are interested in money.....they know that we guys are not interested in Hockey......they wont fund Hockey cuz of this reason.....I don't blame them because this is the common human mentality......we think of profit profit profit!! 😃

actually you are looking at it from a money standpoint, this was before the money started coming into sports at this rate

where the Administrators of Hockey in India(and more or less Pakistan) goofed up was an adaptation to the style.

The major attribute of the game in Indian subcontinent(India/Pak) was a finesse game. When the administrators were sleeping at the wheel, the international game moved to astroturf, making the finesse game of India/Pak almost irrelevant, when the game went to Astro-turf it became a speed and stamina game our players were totally unequipped for that, we had like 1-2 astro-turfs in the whole country. And after that we consistently started losing in Hockey.

The finesse game started to be considered as a selfish attribute.If Dhyanchand were to play in 1980's he would have been considered a selfish player. Mohmammed Shahid of the 1980's was as good as a player

That is the big failure of Administrators.

When team doesnt win, money doesnt come in, then you dont get better facilities. On the other hand cricket started winning. and they started getting the money. Now cricket has reached such a point the money will automatically come since the audience is so hooked to the game.

Originally posted by: sareg

actually you are looking at it from a money standpoint, this was before the money started coming into sports at this rate

where the Administrators of Hockey in India(and more or less Pakistan) goofed up was an adaptation to the style.

The major attribute of the game in Indian subcontinent(India/Pak) was a finesse game. When the administrators were sleeping at the wheel, the international game moved to astroturf, making the finesse game of India/Pak almost irrelevant, when the game went to Astro-turf it became a speed and stamina game our players were totally unequipped for that, we had like 1-2 astro-turfs in the whole country. And after that we consistently started losing in Hockey.

The finesse game started to be considered as a selfish attribute.If Dhyanchand were to play in 1980's he would have been considered a selfish player. Mohmammed Shahid of the 1980's was as good as a player

That is the big failure of Administrators.

When team doesnt win, money doesnt come in, then you dont get better facilities. On the other hand cricket started winning. and they started getting the money. Now cricket has reached such a point the money will automatically come since the audience is so hooked to the game.

Cricket always had money, Vineet. I am talking about the relative terms. Even in '70 and '80s the cricketers made very good money per international game compared to hockey or soccer or any other team game.

I completely agree with your view on what led to the deterioration of the game. It was Polygrass first and Astro-turf later. Sad thing is that at the time when India and Pakistan were ruling the roost of hockey, they made no attempt to curb the western desire to change the future of the game by introducing the Polygrass and Astro-turf. There was no fight. Can you imagine India and Pakistan doing the same thing and taking the game back to the grassy surface which suits their style more?

Anyways, not to harp on the paucity of foresight on part of our admins, the fact, I believe, is that we just cannot blame the Gov't for lack of funding etc.

Gov't does not provide funding to cricket😉. Public does.😛. Question is how do we make public fund the hockey as well. Answer is "show us the winning spirit"😃. We are not talking about winning the world cup. We are just talking about showing a consistency in winning. Even reaching the semi finals of the world cup will create enough hype to start generating the money (maybe not in the same gargantuan proportions of cricket). Continue this trend and money will start puring in.😉

You cannot produce a winning spirit in such situations Manish.

Actually you cannot produce winning itself

Indians and Pakistani hockey players in general in terms of hockey are exceptional in skill but lack the stamina and the speed.

So if you have a exceptional ball player the other team will double-triple team him, get the ball out of his hands and pass it way up

You need to have a team concept. you need to slow down the game. All the coaches India has generally have that skill thinking.

You cannot beat a Germany/Australia/Korea with that.

First thing is they need is a foregn coach

I stopped following hockey when the losing string started and I moved out of India

see the difference in this clip, the begining part and the end part

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wqGumHoOuzg

nothing has changed, India plays great against Pakistan and gives a tough fight to Germany lose tamely to Australia and Netherlands 😆

Dont remember whether it was the 80's or 90's

India had Md Shahid and Merwyn Fernandes, Pakistan had Saliludin and another fella, simply amazing players

one of the most difficult sport to play though😆

Originally posted by: Leo

My debate question is.......who should be blamed for India's National game Hockey's downfall??
Should it be the media ppl who exaggerate the controversies abt handsome players in cricket or should it be the government who don't encourage Hockey and publicize it.....and don't provide enough funds to support this game?

According to me it's the IHF which is to be blamed. First of all as Sareg pointed out the switch from grass to astroturf was really slow.

Secondly, they never tried to attract corporate sponsors who can pump in huge amounts even when the team was winning. Now that the team has not much potential obviously it's hard to find sponsors (though they've fianlly got one in the form of Sahara).

The rest of the points follows the failure to net big sponsors.

If there were big sponsors, the players would've been paid more and more youngsters would've been interested in pursuing the sport as a career instead of all of them converging on cricket.

If the corporate world was involved in sponsoring, it'd have taken an interest in generating more interest in the common public. They'd have taken it upon themselves to give more ads, make the media cover more about the sports, buy prime slots in TV, which would've led to more public awareness and justified the investment from the corporates.

The IHF desperately needs someone like Dalmiya, one with a keen business sense, instead of K.P.S. Gill, who might have been a brilliant cop but very poor as a manager.

Originally posted by: ChameliKaYaar

We are not talking about retreiving things from drains!!😆

OMG you both 🤣🤣🤣

Nice topic Leo ji 👏👏👏

Its the GOVT who should be blamed.It does'nt give the importance to the Games but gives importance only to successful players.

India should learn somuch from China in this aspect.Competing in population is not enough but utilizing the human resources to the fullest extent should be the motto !

Hope Chak De film helps to some extent in raising interest in Hockey among children and youngsters...

Wishes,

Myth

I think Visual Media have role to encoraging sports........... 😊

Criket hey tho suba se shaam tak Ad. milegaa...hocky or Soccer they not get like that things so they avoid or not give much importance to these games...If a internationl hockey match and Indian one day series happing same time TV people show only criket. 😳