The inaugural hockey India league has hit the ground running with an eye on the goal ahead...
Years ago, when I saw my first hockey match in a stadium, the rot had already deepened. The introduction of AstroTurf had taken the game out of the realms of India and Pakistan, the traditional champs, and ushered in new champions in the form of Spain, Netherlands and closer home, South Korea. To set things right, ESPN had devised Premier Hockey League (PHL) and it ran for three seasons before dying quietly. However, the experience was great. Unlike cricket, where you hardly get to see what's happening on the field, hockey is played as the close encounter. If you love the game, the experience of watching it on the field is unmatched.
However, sometime at the end of 2012, when Hockey India decided to start a league based broadly on the model of English Premiere League (EPL), frankly, I was not very excited. Another league, I thought? Only the previous year, at the star-studded World Series Hockey (WSH) matches, I saw officials selling tickets at discounts outside the stadium.
By early January, my cynicism deepened and turned into pure frustration. With only two weeks to go, the official website of Hockey India League (HIL) remained static with no information about dates, players, venues or tickets. However, a week before the tournament, somebody realised that these was important information and suddenly the website and the tournament's Wikipedia pages came alive. The nation was set for a superb hockey experience.
Let's talk about the structure first. The very idea of each team playing three matches against the other team with two or one match at home and similar numbers away, gave the tournament the desired respect. Unless you do home and away matches as is done in football, nobody takes the game seriously. Also, it was decided that unlike the EPL where all the matches are done on a round-robin basis, HIL will have semi-finals, play offs and a final match to bring in more excitement. Technically speaking, this might lead to some undeserved heartbreak with the best team losing in the knockouts, but it will indeed bring more spectators.
Talking of spectators, in all the five matches I watched in Delhi, there was no dearth of enthusiasm. The opening day saw a turnout of 11,000 where as all the other matches drew a crowd of somewhere between 5000-9000. That might not look enthusiastic but to put it in perspective, the matches of PHL and WSH never drew more than 2000. In fact, the attendance at the WSH was in the lower hundreds. What is great about HIL is not merely the numbers, but also the quality of spectators. In every match, you could easily see that even in the general stands, people around you knew the nuances of the game.
I was surprised to see kids as young as nine or ten actually follow players from the Netherlands or Spain to the point that they knew their local clubs in their respective countries. Another clear distinction that can be made here is that spectators who turned up loved hockey as a game and not just India. In a clear contrast, a typical Ranji Trophy match draws merely a fraction because there is no “India” to support, so to say.
After the rickety start, the quality of the matches improved exponentially to achieve world class standards that was expected from it. I cannot begin to say how helpful this tournament is for young hockey players from the subcontinent (hopefully Pakistani players will play in the next edition). Playing with the likes of Jamie Dwyer, Moritz Fürste, Teun de Nooijer, Jaap Stockmann, Ashley Jackson, Joel Carroll, Lloyd Norris-Jones, Nicolas Jacobi, Andrew Bel Mir and Simon Child, among others, will do a world of good to the youngsters. It is evident that these foreign players have lifted the level of the game and have prompted Indian players to match their commitment. Already, the tournament has found stars in the likes of Mandeep Singh, Manpreet Singh, Malek Singh and Imran Khan.
Another important aspect is field formation. India and Pakistan are typically known to play 5-3-2-1 matrix where defenders hardly cross the mid-line. However, in HIL, almost every team preferred the 3-4-3-1 matrix or a variation thereof. The idea is to hammer in the concept that in hockey, you have 10 defenders and 10 forwards. So, for a typical 70 minutes of an HIL match, everyone is a fullback, halfback, midfield/inner and striker. This works for AstroTurf and will do India much good. Also, most of the matches are scheduled late in the evening. It is because of these small changes that the matches have turned exciting, bringing in both spectators and viewership. TAM data suggested that among the non-cricket tournaments, HIL bagged the highest viewership, beating even the recently held European Football Cup. The environment in the stadium too was exhilarating, to say the least.
Years ago, when I saw my first hockey match in a stadium, the rot had already deepened. The introduction of AstroTurf had taken the game out of the realms of India and Pakistan, the traditional champs, and ushered in new champions in the form of Spain, Netherlands and closer home, South Korea. To set things right, ESPN had devised Premier Hockey League (PHL) and it ran for three seasons before dying quietly. However, the experience was great. Unlike cricket, where you hardly get to see what's happening on the field, hockey is played as the close encounter. If you love the game, the experience of watching it on the field is unmatched.
However, sometime at the end of 2012, when Hockey India decided to start a league based broadly on the model of English Premiere League (EPL), frankly, I was not very excited. Another league, I thought? Only the previous year, at the star-studded World Series Hockey (WSH) matches, I saw officials selling tickets at discounts outside the stadium.
By early January, my cynicism deepened and turned into pure frustration. With only two weeks to go, the official website of Hockey India League (HIL) remained static with no information about dates, players, venues or tickets. However, a week before the tournament, somebody realised that these was important information and suddenly the website and the tournament's Wikipedia pages came alive. The nation was set for a superb hockey experience.
Let's talk about the structure first. The very idea of each team playing three matches against the other team with two or one match at home and similar numbers away, gave the tournament the desired respect. Unless you do home and away matches as is done in football, nobody takes the game seriously. Also, it was decided that unlike the EPL where all the matches are done on a round-robin basis, HIL will have semi-finals, play offs and a final match to bring in more excitement. Technically speaking, this might lead to some undeserved heartbreak with the best team losing in the knockouts, but it will indeed bring more spectators.
Talking of spectators, in all the five matches I watched in Delhi, there was no dearth of enthusiasm. The opening day saw a turnout of 11,000 where as all the other matches drew a crowd of somewhere between 5000-9000. That might not look enthusiastic but to put it in perspective, the matches of PHL and WSH never drew more than 2000. In fact, the attendance at the WSH was in the lower hundreds. What is great about HIL is not merely the numbers, but also the quality of spectators. In every match, you could easily see that even in the general stands, people around you knew the nuances of the game.
I was surprised to see kids as young as nine or ten actually follow players from the Netherlands or Spain to the point that they knew their local clubs in their respective countries. Another clear distinction that can be made here is that spectators who turned up loved hockey as a game and not just India. In a clear contrast, a typical Ranji Trophy match draws merely a fraction because there is no “India” to support, so to say.
After the rickety start, the quality of the matches improved exponentially to achieve world class standards that was expected from it. I cannot begin to say how helpful this tournament is for young hockey players from the subcontinent (hopefully Pakistani players will play in the next edition). Playing with the likes of Jamie Dwyer, Moritz Fürste, Teun de Nooijer, Jaap Stockmann, Ashley Jackson, Joel Carroll, Lloyd Norris-Jones, Nicolas Jacobi, Andrew Bel Mir and Simon Child, among others, will do a world of good to the youngsters. It is evident that these foreign players have lifted the level of the game and have prompted Indian players to match their commitment. Already, the tournament has found stars in the likes of Mandeep Singh, Manpreet Singh, Malek Singh and Imran Khan.
Another important aspect is field formation. India and Pakistan are typically known to play 5-3-2-1 matrix where defenders hardly cross the mid-line. However, in HIL, almost every team preferred the 3-4-3-1 matrix or a variation thereof. The idea is to hammer in the concept that in hockey, you have 10 defenders and 10 forwards. So, for a typical 70 minutes of an HIL match, everyone is a fullback, halfback, midfield/inner and striker. This works for AstroTurf and will do India much good. Also, most of the matches are scheduled late in the evening. It is because of these small changes that the matches have turned exciting, bringing in both spectators and viewership. TAM data suggested that among the non-cricket tournaments, HIL bagged the highest viewership, beating even the recently held European Football Cup. The environment in the stadium too was exhilarating, to say the least.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
| ExecutiveMBA |
