News for 05 January 2016
All the news for Tuesday 5 January 2016
Adnan, Karim strike to take PTV to last-eight
KARACHI: Adnan and Karim Khan scored a goal apiece to steer Pakistan Television (PTV) into the quarter-finals of the 62nd National Hockey Championship by defeating Pakistan Steel Mills 2-1 in a thrilling encounter at the Hockey Club of Pakistan Stadium in Karachi on Monday.
Before the game, PTV sat on fourth with four points and needed nothing less than a win to pip Steel Mills, who were second in Pool B with six points, for a place in the last-eight.
Determined to progress from the group stage, PTV took the game by the scruff of the neck from the onset and continuously tested Steel Mills’ defence in the opening minutes of the game. They succeeded in finding the opener when Adnan netted a beautiful field goal in the 11th minute to give his side a 1-0 lead.
For the next 24 minutes, PTV managed to keep their opposition at bay but were helpless when Mohammad Imran netted the equaliser in the 35th minute to keep his sides’ hopes of progressing to the last-eight alive. Sadly for Steel Mills, all those hopes were quashed when Karim took his team ahead with a spectacular strike in the 51st minute, which proved enough to take PTV into the quarter-finals.
In another match, NBP, who had already booked their place in the last-eight by topping their pool with a whopping goal difference of +30, cruised past PAF 6-2 to conclude the group-stage encounters.
Other teams to qualify for the quarter-finals are PIA and Port Qasim Authority (PQA) from Pool A, Pakistan Army and SSGC from Pool C and NBP and Navy from Pool D.
The Express Tribune
PTV down Pakistan Steels to qualify for quarterfinals
KARACHI: Pakistan Television booked their place in the quarterfinals after beating Pakistan Steel Mills in the 62nd National Hockey Championship at the Hockey Club of Pakistan Stadium here on Monday.
PIA and Port Qasim Authority (Pool-A), Pakistan WAPDA and PTV (Pool-B), Pakistan Army and Sui Southern Gas Company (Pool-C) and National Bank of Pakistan and Pakistan Navy (Pool-D) have already confirmed their quarterfinal berths.
PTV defeated Steel Men 2-1 while NBP beat Pakistan Air Force 6-2. In the opening match of the day, PTV took command of the proceedings in the 11th minute when Mohammad Adnan netted a beautiful field goal. Steels used all their skills and energy to level the score but PTV defenders guarded their fort effectively. However, they succeeded to find a chance and levelled the score in the 35th minute through a field goal by Mohammed Imran.
PTV’s Karim Khan netted another field goal for his team in the 51st minute.
Hamza and Muneer supervised the match.
The Daily Times
OTHL girls make winning start at HI SubJr National
Combined One Thousand Hockey Legs (OTHL) team, named as Citizen Hockey XI, made a winning start in the 6th Hockey India Sub-Junior Girls National Championship, which started with this match against Bombay Schools, another Hoc-Key member of HI, at Nagaon in Assam.
Nippy forward Manoni Paria, student of Duria Niharkanta Madhyamik Sikshakendra, struck the only goal of the match.
The match was the event opener played in the wee hours of today (the 5th Jan.)
In order to encourage schools hockey, Hockey India has so far given affiliation to two school based teams, Delhi based NGO Hockey Citizen Group's (this NGO runs widely acclaimed One Thousand Hockey Legs Project) and century old Mumbai Schools Sports Association.
OTHL is being run five cities - Delhi, Chennai, Puducherry, Kanpur and Kolkata since 2008. Since the Nagaon is close to (though 15 hrs train journey) Kolkata, the NGO decided to send a combined team from Kolkata.
Though OTHL has been taking part in the Sub-Junior Nationals for the last two years, its first time girls too entered the fray.
Citizen Hockey XI team is in Pool A, clubbed with teams from Bengal, Himachal and Kerala besides today's loser Mumbai Schools Sports Association.
Citizen XI will take on biggie in the pool Bengal tomorrow 7.30 AM
The present team is trained by Nashim Uddin and managed by Shukla Ghosh, under the overall guidance of OTHL volunteer Imran Azad.
The team: Bera Sudeshna (gk), Khataun Harjeera, Shree Juma, Dasmal Dipshika, Modi Monisha, Chakrabarti Rima, Soren Safali, Malik Priya, Sheilk Sarmina, Dasgupta Megha, Ghosh Sirsha, Namoni Pariya, Shaw Hritika, Dutta Riya, Parveen Ayesha, Das Hiramani, Das Anuradha, Das Sujata. Coach; Nashim Uddin Manager: Shukla Ghosh
Stick2Hockey.com
Baart set to swap OZ for Antwerp
Sander Baart is looking forward to a new challenge in the 2016/17 club season as he confirmed today he will switch from EHL champions Oranje Zwart to his original club Antwerp.
He confirmed the news today on his personal website, stating that he will make the move once the Rio 2016 Olympic Games are complete.
Baart was born and raised in Antwerp with a Dutch passport and lived in Belgium until he was 19-years-old before making the switch to OZ in 2007.
During that time, the midfielder won the last two Dutch Hoofdklasse titles as well as the EHL in Bloemendaal last Easter.
On the national front, he has played in the final of each of the world’s major events – the Olympic Games, the World Cup, the World League and the Champions Trophy while he took gold at the Euros last August in London.
He has signed a four-year contract with Antwerp, linking up with his brother Jeroen who coaches at the club.
Speaking about the decision, Sander said: “I have been very lucky to have been surrounded by some exceptional top players in both OZ and Antwerp before.
“Besides the relentless drive for new titles, now it's time to give back to the club that trained me. In the coming years, I will use my try and transfer my experience and hunger to the new generation at Antwerp.”
He reached the decision in consultation with Dutch national coach Max Caldas and is looking forward to the closing months with OZ in pursuit of another Dutch and EHL title.
Euro Hockey League media release
Under-21 team to host Great Britain Wednesday
DIANA PUGLIESE
The United States women's Under-21 field hockey team opens a five-game test series against Great Britain inside the Dome Arena at Spooky Nook Sports Wednesday.
In their final preparations before the Junior Pan American Championships March 29-April 10, the Americans will host the first two games of the series Wednesday and Thursday at 4 p.m.
Play continues Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m., before the series concludes Tuesday, Jan. 12 at 11:30 a.m.
Admission to all five games is free.
Led by former Hempfield standout Sarah Helgeson, Team USA will follow the series with a pair of training camps in Chapel Hill, North Carolina over the next two months before heading to Trinidad and Tobago for the Pan Am Games.
The series against Great Britain was first announced back in October, following the senior national team's four-game set in London.
Team USA dropped two matches while playing to 2-2 draws in the remaining contests.
Lancaster online
Senior men’s indoor camp to be held January 9-10 in Toronto
Shaheed Devji
(Image: Yan Huckendubler)
Canada’s Senior Men’s Indoor Program is holding an identification camp in Toronto, Ontario on January 9th and 10th and is currently accepting registrations.
National team talent identification and selection is an on-going process and is done through various streams, one of which are open camps such as the one being held in Toronto this week.
The camp will be held at the University of Toronto Athletic Centre and will including testing and training sessions. For more information about the camp, click here.
For registration details, click here.
Field Hockey Canada media release
Netherlands- A Hockey Lover's Paradise
By Ijaz Chaudhry
On my first visit to the Netherlands in 2010, I was bewitched by the scene at the MOP hockey club in the small town of Vught, near Eindhoven. One could see from seven years to seventy, people of all ages, of both the genders, playing hockey with great enthusiasm on club’s four artificial turfs. Have been to this beautiful country thrice more and visited many places- the hockey culture pervades the entire nation, and like no other nation.
In the Netherlands, hockey is the sport of masses and organized in a professional manner akin to soccer in Europe. The media coverage and following is also unrivalled.
Just to provide some figures: the country with a population of 16.8 million has around 350,000 active members who play regularly for their clubs’ various teams. This makes it more than 2% of the total population.
It is entirely club based. There is very little hockey in schools.
Every club has a number of teams. Usually, it starts from under 8 and goes to under 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 sides, both for boys and girls. Then there are men and women sides; 1st, 2nd, 3rd… Likewise, veterans have quite a few categories. They begin from above 35 years of age. 35-50 come in the ‘Veterans’ category; 50-60 in the ‘L’ Veterans and above 60 are ’XL’ Veterans. Top clubs such as Kampo, boast around 35 teams.
Hockey is a family sport in this country. It is not an unusual sight to see the entire family active on different pitches at a club: father, mother, son, daughter and even grandparents playing for various teams. All clubs have a number of artificial turfs; as many as nine in some instances. The total number of artificial pitches in this small country is around 450.
Country’s love for hockey started well over 100 years back and most of the clubs have very old history. Amsterdam Hockey and Bandy Club (set up in 1892) is in fact Europe’s oldest hockey club. The members’ number runs in hundreds. The big five Blomendaal, Orange Zwart, Kompo, Rotterdam and Amsterdam have more than 2,000 members.
Coming to the serious business, the Dutch league is easily the most competitive as well as the best organized hockey league in the world. The season runs in two phases: September to December and, after a long winter break, March to June. During this interval, most of the players keep themselves busy with indoor hockey though not all the clubs have such facilities.
Both Men and Women leagues have five divisions with promotion and relegation. The top tier is called Hoofdklasse. Mega hockey stars from all over the world are attracted by lucrative contracts. Australian Jamie Dwyer, the five time FIH world player of the year, was reportedly paid up to 150, 000 Euros a season by Blomendaal. Even, the women get very good money. Dutch super star Maarte Paumen whose club Den Bosch has won as many as 15 of the last 17 Hoofdklaase titles as well as 13 EuroHockey Club Champions Cup during the same period, earns 60,000 Euros.
Apart from the contract money, the big names are also provided with sponsored cars. Some make additional money conducting coaching clinics, etc. Once, the playing days are over, many stalwarts go into full time coaching at clubs as well as the national teams. Presently, Holland, along with Australia, provides the highest number of coaches to national sides.
Views of a couple of foreign stars about the Dutch league:
Australian forward Kieran Govers, double World Cup winner, plays for Den Bosch in the Netherlands, “It is the best competition in the world. Being a professional hockey player means I can devote more time to training and skills development, rather than working in a job outside of hockey just to keep afloat with bills and family needs.”
For New Zealand’s Shea McAleese, who has spent several seasons with HGC, “Some games are as good a quality as international games due to the strengths of the top teams.”
The league games, especially towards the end of the season, are attended by thousands of cheering spectators.
In the Netherlands, hockey has always been second only to soccer in participation as well as in following. There is excellent coverage in the newspapers and every Sunday, one top division match is televised live.
It is a glamorous sport here. Top stars such as Teun de Noijer and some females including Fatima Moreira and Australian Anna Flanagan have appeared in TV ads and featured on the covers of popular social/lifestyle magazines.
How the clubs manage all this? There are two main sources for their income: Membership fees and Sponsors. The membership fee for a playing member ranges from 300-400 euros per season. For a family, any number of a household can play paying 1,000 euros. Then every club has a number of sponsors. 
Generally, membership fee makes larger contribution but for the top tier clubs, it is the sponsorship- some have more than one hundred patrons.
It is the members again, who make the Royal Netherlands Hockey Board (KNHB), the richest national hockey federation in the world. 10 euros of each member’s fee paid to the club goes to the KNHB.
The KNHB has a staff of 25 people working full time. There are regional offices as well: North, South, West and East, who only play coordinating roles.
It is bottom from top and horizontally as well. Hockey is very much ingrained in the Dutch culture and psyche.
In fact, the Netherlands is a hockey lover’s paradise; from any part of the world.
Ijaz Chaudhry writes on hockey and other sports. For more about him and his work, visit www.sportscorrespondent.info
Fieldhockey.com