The Hindu : Sport : It’s time for PHL action again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 20, 2007
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It’s time for PHL action again

Special Correspondent

Dutch provide European flavour

NEW DELHI: It will be more than a touch of the Dutch when the fourth edition of the Premier Hockey League (PHL) gets going at the Sector-42 Stadium in Chandigarh on Thursday.

Among the 21 foreign players drafted for the league, 10 will be from the Netherlands to provide the European flavour, while the rest will be from Asia.

There will be eight from Pakistan and three from Korea in the compact format that will wind up with the best of three finals slated on January 7, 9 and 11.

Big prize money

The semifinals are scheduled for January 5 in the six-team league in which the champion will get Rs. 40 lakh and the runner-up, Rs. 20 lakh. The semifinalists will get Rs. 5 lakh each.

“PHL has helped the hockey fraternity promote the game not only in India, but has inspired the launch of the European Hockey League which has accepted innovations like the penalty shoot out and the concept of four quarters which were initially launched in PHL”, said Maurits Hendriks, the technical consultant of PHL and the national coach of the Spanish team.

“We have taken the utmost care to ensure that all the teams are equally balanced so that the spectators get to see quality hockey.

“This is a very important season for us, with the Olympic qualifier just three months away. The quality match exposure that all the Indian aspirants would get during the league will definitely help in our preparation”, said the president of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF), K.P.S. Gill, in a release issued here.

Better discipline

This year, in an attempt to enforce better discipline, it has been decided that the green card would mean a two-minute suspension for the erring player.

Hendriks said that he expected the rule to discourage players from resorting to rough play.

Like in the last edition, the team winning on regulation time will get three points and the team winning through extra time will get two points and concede one point to the loser.

Playing hours

Keeping in mind the cold conditions, the last match of the day has been scheduled to start at 6 p.m.

ESPN will telecast all the matches ‘live’ with Olympian Jagbir Singh as the expert and commentary in both Hindi and English.

Foreign players distribution:

Orissa Steelers: Diederik Mars (Ned)), Chul Kim (Korea), Shakeel Abbasi (Pak).

Sher-e-Jalandhar: Salman Akbar and Dilawar Hussain (Pak), Don Prins (Ned).

Chandigarh Dynamos: Ghazanfar Ali and Zeeshan Ashraf (Pak), Huib Zwerver (Ned).

Chennai Veerans: Cesco Van Der Vliet, Eric-Jan Iding and Joost Van Den Bogart (Ned).

Maratha Warriors: Melchior Looijen (Ned), Rehan Butt (Pak), Kang Moon Kweon (Kor).

Bangalore Hi-Fliers: Oliver Rutgers and Sebastian Westerhout (Ned), You Hyo Sik (Kor).

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