Chennai: Over 600 juniors (under-20) from 38 State and institutional units have an opportunity to showcase their talent when the Tamil Nadu Hockey Association hosts the National hockey championship for boys from June 18 to 30. The event is sponsored by St. Joseph's College of Engineering.

What is significant is that for the first time the entire championship will be played on synthetic surfaces. The artificial turfs at YMCA College of Physical Education and at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium are to be used.

While detailing the features of the competition, which returns to the city after a gap of six years, K. Jothikumaran, secretary, Indian Hockey Federation, expressed the gratitude of the fraternity to Dr. Babu Manoharan, Director, St. Joseph's College of Engineering.

Big help

He said perhaps for the first time an educational institution had stepped in a big way to host a National-level event. The college has thrown open its hostels for the officials and competitors and placed a fleet of buses for the teams to commute to and from the venues.

In the last few months, Dr. Babu Manoharan, has been instrumental in sponsoring quite a few events, ranging from chess, ball badminton, athletics and volleyball. The new entrant to the list is hockey.

Probably for the first time, he has announced a hefty prize money totalling Rs. 1.5 lakhs for the players.

The team champion is to receive a cash award of Rs. 50,000, while the runner-up and the third placed team will take home Rs. 30,000 and Rs. 20,000. Apart from this there will be individual prizes of Rs. 10,000 each for the best goal-keeper, defender, midfielder, promising player and a man-of-the-match for the final.

Talent spotting

Mr. Jothikumaran said Gujarat's R.S. Shelar would be the Tournament Director and he will be assisted by international umpire, Munir Muhammad.

A team of experts — A.K. Bansal, Rajesh Chauhan, B.P. Govinda and V. Baskaran — will be scouting for talents.

Former Olympian and coach, Baskaran, will also function as the Championship co-ordinator.

He said the event would be held in two phases; the first for pools A, C, E and G, from June 18 to 22, and the second for pools B, D, F and H from June 23 to 27. The teams will be divided into eight pools with the top team in each pool reaching the quarterfinals. The knock-out matches will be held from June 28 to 30. Efforts are being made to get the final matches live on Doordarshan.

In the last edition held in Jabalpur in 2005, Services won the title defeating SAIL. Tamil Nadu finished third.

This event, Mr. Jothikumaran said, will identify the pool of national junior talent for the tournaments ahead and for the next World Cup in 2009. The championship will be inaugurated on Monday (June 18) by Dr. Babu Manoharan.

The results, details and other news related to the championship can be accessed from www.tnhockey.org

The pools:

A: Tamil Nadu, Madhya Bharat, Vidarbha, Bihar and Gujarat; B: SAIL, Karnataka, J & K, Manipur, and Tripura; C: Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Hyderabad, Maharashtra, and Mizoram; Pool D: Jharkand, Punjab, Uttranchal, Puducherry, and Rajasthan; E: Delhi, Namdhari, Air India, Kerala and Chhattisgarh; F: Orissa, Mumbai, Punjab and Sind Bank, Himachal Pradesh and Bengal; G: Uttar Pradesh, IOC, Andhra and Chandigarh; H: Services, SAI, Bhopal and Patiala.

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