Is the National Sport dead?

From being the first Non- European team to be a part of the International Hockey Federation and remaining unbeaten at the Olympics for 6 games in a row from 1928 till 1956 to the present state of Hockey, what went wrong?

The record speaks of a tremendous record until the 1980's, winners of 8 Olympic Golds, 1 silver and 2 bronze, 3 medals at the world cup with 1 in every position at the podium and the startling fact is that nearly 60% of these medals came before the 90's although we won the Gold at the Asian Games in Bangkok in 1998. The decline of India's hockey powers which started in the early 90's can be largely contributed to the change in playing conditions and surfaces.

Cricket frenzy in India started around the time the decline of Hockey started. The 1983 world cup and the subsequent win at the world series down under started a new cricket revolution while Hockey saw a decline

The synthetic Hockey field came into being in the 1970's and the game has definitely changed since then but the powers that run the game in India have never looked beyond the National team for the development of the game. The differences between the administrators and the various State bodies has badly affected the infrastructure from reaching the masses.

A simple case in example is the situation of Hockey in Kodagu. A Hockey fraternity like Kodagu got its first Astro Turf Stadium only last year. This inspite of the known fact this tiny district has produced some of the stalwarts of Indian Hockey like BP Govinda, MM Somayya, AB Subbaiah and so on.It is said that more than 50 players have represented the National team in some form or the other. The worlds biggest hockey tournament, the inter family hockey festival had a participation of 225 teams last year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodava_Hockey_Festival) last year. And yet, the access to infrastructure and exposure to tournaments is zero.

And this brings us back to the moot question, What is the problem or rather what is the solution? We need to bring corporates to get involved in the running of the game on a PPP model rather than just being employers. The PHL was a good model to increase popularity of the game, and this needs to be tweaked to make it more lucrative for investors and corporates similar to the IPL.

Its time we act to bring glory to our National Game for the powers that run the game in the Country will take a long time to realise this. Axing coaches and players is not the solution. The game needs to be nurtured at the grass root level if we have to return Indian Hockey back to its days of Glory..................