Assam Hockey to employ coaches from Punjab, Haryana

Guwahati: In an endeavour to provide a fillip to the below-par standard of hockey in the state, Assam Hockey will rope in coaches from the sport’s powerhouses in Haryana and Punjab to work at the grassroots level across various district training centres.

Elaborating on the plan, Tapan Kumar Das, Assam Hockey secretary general, said around 5,000 youngsters are currently part of the coaching camps at the junior and sub-junior levels across the state, and at the same time, the governing body of the sport has been organising numerous district-level competitions to scout talents.

Das said Assam Hockey has collaborated with the State Level Advisory Committee (SLAC) to work towards building an eco-system that could fuel interest in the sport in the remotest parts of the state. In that regard, the association conducted an umpire seminar and umpire exam at the Nagaon Sports Club Pavilion last week. A total of 56 trainees (male and female) from different districts of the state appeared in the written examination.

“Assam Hockey has a tie-up with the State Level Advisory Committee for Students and Youth Welfare, Assam (SLAC) for the development of hockey at every level (in the state),” Das said.

“In order to make the game popular in the state, we have started distributing hockey equipment, which includes sticks, balls, t-shirts, and other essential items in various districts of Assam. We have already covered 13-14 districts so far which include Kokrajhar, Tinsukia, Chirang, Baksa, Goalpara, Darrang, Udalguri, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, and more. We are now targeting to distribute the equipment in the remaining districts in the next few days,” he added.

Das further said the process of roping in coaches from the hotbeds of the sport, including Punjab and Haryana, are very much in the pipeline and the shortlisted ones will be tasked to scout, develop and fine-tune the skills of the youngsters emerging from the district-level competitions.

“We are committed to improving our training program and for the same reason we are in the process of providing hockey coaches to every district. Most of the shortlisted coaches are senior-level players and they belong from different states like Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh etc,” Das said.

“Currently, there are around 5,000 trainees that are part of hockey coaching camps at junior and sub-junior levels across the districts of Assam,” he added.

Highlighting his association’s preparedness for the upcoming junior girls’ national hockey championships, Das said that three teams have been formed from the ongoing state-level camp, out of which one team will be deputed for the tournament.

“At present, a state team coaching camp is underway and in total 137 girls have attended the camp. So far, we have already shortlisted players for three teams, out of which one team has been formed for junior national championships, while the other two teams will be prepared for exposure tours,” he said.

“As of now, we are hosting hockey tournaments in 28-29 districts in Assam and later this year, we are aiming to organise zonal tournaments at the district level and U-14 state championship for both boys and girls to scout as much talent as possible,” he added.

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