The Hindu : NHL: Foreign players may take part

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 02, 2004

Sport

Sport - Hockey

NHL: Foreign players may take part

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, APRIL 1. Foreign players, including stars from Pakistan, Holland and Germany, may be seen in action in the National Hockey League (NHL) scheduled to get underway at Hyderabad after the Athens Olympic Games.

In addition to permitting foreign players, various innovative concepts are being considered by the Indian Hockey Federation, the promoter, ESPN Star Sports, and Leisure Sports Management, with the view to making the game more competitive, spectator-friendly and designed for television. At the same time care will be taken to see that the essential character and fabric of the sport is retained.

The details were released to the media at a press conference jointly addressed by K. Jothikumaran, Secretary, IHF, Richard Young, Vice President, Event Management Group of ESPN Star Sports and S.S. Dasgupta Chairman and MD of Leisure Sports Management (LSM).

According to Mr. Jothikumaran, the final touches are being given to the blueprint for the first ever NHL which is to be known as the Indian Premier Hockey League championship and will be played in two tiers.

Hyderabad will play host to the Tier I competition at the SAAP hockey grounds in Gachibowli complex. All the matches will be telecast live and exclusive on ESPN Star Sports. The title "Premier Hockey League" (PHL) was decided after deliberations with ESPN Star Sports and LSM.

Among the new ideas which will be put in force are playing the matches in four quarters instead of two halves, and introducing the concept of time outs as in basketball. The teams will be representative of cities. Each team will be allowed to have five foreign players and at a time four of them will be allowed to play on the field. In the extra time period the number of players will be reduced. In each Tier the matches will be played on round-robin basis on double leg format.

The total prize money for Tier I will be Rs. 71 lakhs and besides this, there will also be individual prizes for Man of the Tournament and Highest Scorer of the tournament. The winning team will get Rs. 30 lakhs and the runner-up Rs. 10 lakhs. The winner of Tier II will get Rs. 4 lakhs and runner-up Rs. 2.5 lakhs.

The Tier I tournament in Hyderabad will have teams from Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Jalandhar, and Hyderabad while the Tier II tournament to be held at a venue yet to be decided will have Chandigarh, Delhi, Imphal, Kolkata and Lucknow. The top team from Tier II will be promoted to Tier I for the following year while the bottom team from Tier I will be relegated to Tier II for the following year. Each team will have its own name and identity and will be selected by the IHF.

Mr. Richard Young, Vice President, Event Management and Programme Development Group of ESPN said that ESPN would make elaborate arrangements to telecast the matches live. Ten cameras would be on the ground to cover the action from all angles. Mr. S.S. Dasgupta, MD of LSM, said that his organisation which had had the experience of working for the development of the National Football League in India and Bangladesh had also been involved with Indian hockey for years.

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