1.i cant agree with those who say cricket destroyed HOCKEY....true champions raise to t challenges...u cannt ask cricketers not to play becoz hokey in india is sinking..that wld b ridiculous!! 2.we are not ..never short of TALENT..but i think t attitude and coaching is what matters more in modern hockey...n t DIRTY POLITICS(which but exists in all administrative stratas of this country) 3.was just thinking...if we are angry,sad,irritated,depressed by this failure..can u imagine t mental state of those players who played to WIN???? but thats is sports...so is LIFE
4.is this t end of t road for t OLYMPIC HOPES???is there any other way...like if some team pulls bac...or some thing dramatic happens???
RE:is it t end of t road???
by donald devasia on Mar 11, 2008 12:01 AM
dont worry we still got chances for a a medal remember tennis, shooting, weightlifting, long jumps anjubobby george we will get medals just pray for our athletes, bad days are always there thats india.
I am heart broken. This is the least in hell that we deserve.
We had known that this Chakde Team will never cross the 6/7/8 position in Olympic but never expected the National Team of our NATIONAL GAME will not even eligible to quallify for Olympic !
They are responsible for their own fall and rise of cricket.
By beating India in the oplympic qualifiers the GB has done a Lagaan reverse to India beating India in its own legacy game.
Well many of people will want to disagree that Hockey is now India's game. But on similar lines cricket also does not seem to be Englands game and has changed to soccer.
RE:Is this lagaan Reversed
by pratap on Mar 10, 2008 08:07 PM
Yeah, it seems so. That was a movie,it is real. Bitter truth!! May be, it proves a LIFE TIME SHAKE/JOLT and IHF and govt. can wake up!!!
RE:Is this lagaan Reversed
by donald devasia on Mar 11, 2008 12:07 AM
we can only win in movies and movie stars are real heroes who just act why cant we indians motivate sports, guys who are good in sports are bad in studies that means they are good for nothing,i am in england even at the age of 27 i practice boxing in the gymn u get lot of kids and they dont come there for just fun instead if u ask them they are preparing to qualify for london olympics wow look at that
IHF needs complete overhauling. Poor Hockey Players!They get nothing. Even when they won Asia Cup, all their achievement was overshadowed by 20-20 world cup win. They don't get rewarded suitably. No good diet, nothing. Dictator KPS GILL treats them,coach and other officials like servants. Look at his face expression even infront of media. This man refuses to step down. What a shame! What did he do for betterment of Hockey as IHF president? If players get RS.1000(wow! what a big prize) for one goal, they are penalised double time if they lose. They get demoted. Does this ever happen to Cricket? This all is fault of IHF. Gill has bad reputation of abusing and even hitting senior officers (SSPs)while he was DGP in Punjab Police. This man should be Replaced by some really good, sport loving person immediately!
Indian Hockey was on death bed in very painful condition, on its last breath. This was only formality. It breathed last yesterday in Santiago.May be, it in rebirth it would be better. It was victim of step motherly/fatherly behaviour for its entire life. KPS Gill, the dictator proved to be its killer. He gave last blow. Poor hockey was orphan. Everybody, govt. sponsors even IHF was unfair to it. Everybody was running after Cricket. Its all MONEY GAME!! May god bless its soul. Let's pray!!
I am deeply saddened by the slow and painful death of Indian Hockey. I am lost for words for my disgust with the IHF officials, coaches, and players. They all share the blame for where Indian Hockey stands today. Shameful!!!
Individually, India may have the best of talents but it is not coming together as a team in the games. The lack of preparedness, fitness, biased team selections, coaces vs. players, players vs. players, officials vs. players. It all disgust me!
Something was not right for this team right from beginning -
1. The top drag-flicker of the team Sandeep Singh was not selected. Neither was Halappa. Why? 2. Rajpal Singh almost quit the tour? 3. Why was Rick Charlesworth not used to help the team? 4. Why was the best forward of the team Prabhjot sitting on the bench and Raghunath, a defender was playing as forward? 5. Why was injured Diwakar Ram not replaced by Sandeep Singh?
So where do we go now:
1. Fire KPS Gill and Jootikumaran straaightaway! 2. Bring in Rick Charlesworth a scoach with full powers. 3. Groom hockey among the 10-14 year olds now so that we have a good selections of upcoming players in 3-4 years time.
My head today salutes the all time greats such as Dhyanchand, Balbir singh Snr, Babu, Ajitpal Singh, Surjit Singh, Ashok Kumar, Govinda, Pargat Singh, and Dhanraj Pillai. Alas, we could not keep it up for too long ...
RE:Lost for words ...
by Duryodhan on Mar 10, 2008 07:44 PM
Why we are saddened by this because we failed to qualify. It is shame that we have forgotten the olympic spirit. It is more imoprtan that we competed and played well. The other teams in tournament are there to win too. I think too much emhasis is given to winning. There is nothing wrong with hockey or coaches. How many times in recent olympics USA has won gold medal. In fact they have not won any medal in last olympics. USA is the country who invented Basketball abd Baseball. Let us support the boys because they played their heart out and they also wanted to win as much as all the fans. Coaches did to their best of ability and were gracious enough they have already resigned. IHF officials are doing best that they can do for the game even though I do not think any other official instead of KPS and Jyoti would have done any better. Forget the past in this fast changing society we have to learn to take defeat with grace and celebrate win with grace.
cricket is ruining all other sports in india as we helplessly sit and watch. unfit guys play for four months in a year and walk away with billions at the expense of the junta.
and this is a game taken seriously by about 7 coutries in the world.
high time we stopped this madness called cricket and encourage other sports too.
RE:cricket is ruining everything else
by adi piran on Mar 10, 2008 08:01 PM
what do you want? divert the revenue generated by cricket into hockey? People should be made to watch hockey? That doesn't work. People have better things to do. You can't force people to watch stuff. Better solution is to produce results. May be market hockey. Have matches round the year and have professional leagues. Countries which don't care much for hockey produces better teams than India. Teams like South Africa, Malaysia, Argentina have been doing better than India.
RE:cricket is ruining everything else
by Kaushik Basu on Mar 10, 2008 05:51 PM
Do Australia or England or Pakistan do not play cricket? Are they not good in Hokey as well? Do not blame other sports for the incapability shown by our so called IHF.
I remember there was a time till late 80s when cricket and hokey were named in the same breath, then how come cricket has gained so much popularity while hokey is so far behind? This is fault of IHF that they could not market hockey as was done by BCCI. Do not blame failure of one to success of other.
RE:cricket is ruining everything else
by GXR on Mar 10, 2008 05:56 PM
You do not require rocket science to understand this.In Australia,England and Pakistan all games are given equal preference and provided with infrastructure.
RE:cricket is ruining everything else
by Kaushik Basu on Mar 10, 2008 06:09 PM
No sport is given equal rights anywhere. One has to earn its rights. Look how Football took over from cricket in England. The sport authorities has to take steps to promote their sports one can not just sit and crib that no one is looking after their sport. Hockey has all the ingrediants needed for success. It has speed, it has players who can compete at the highest level, it takes a very less time to finish. The only thing lacking is the wishfulness to scceed in the minds and hearts of the authorities.
RE:cricket is ruining everything else
by S Shrikanth on Mar 10, 2008 07:15 PM
Mass commercialization of Cricket and very strong Govt support for this game has made other sports in the country irrelevant. Almost every politician is sitting over cricket bodies because of money involved. The corporates go where politicians go, the have to get their files cleared. The public and media too are cricket crazy. The Prime Minister and Central ministers congratulate Indian cricket when they win a tournament, but ignore hockey team. The civil aviation ministers spares no time in announcing hefty awards for rich and wealthy cricketers, but waits till he draws a lot of flak from hockey fans for the team that won Asia Cup handsomely.
Whats the use of sweating to win hockey tournaments when there is no one to appreciate!Whats the use of winning when you have to cry for rewards!
Whats the use of playing a sport for your country when you are ignored by your Govt and public. Your motivation is lost. Who would like to become great hockey player like Dhanraj Pillai. He would like to become cricketer like Yuvraj who fails in 16 innings, yet a National hero. The overall atomosphere in India is very discouraging for the young children and boys to play hockey or any other sport other than Cricket.The death of Indian hockey and other sport is imminent due to lack of financial, media and most importantly public support for it.
Unfortunately, India has only one sport - Cricket. But it is not a sport, it is an entertainment, like a movie whose script has been written
RE:cricket is ruining everything else
by deepak on Mar 10, 2008 08:01 PM
Cricket didnt get backing from govt. It got backing from polititians but again no sport gets backing from polititians unless it becomes popular among the people. That popularity brings them fame and money. So its wrong to blame cricket for hockey debacle.
