Ahead of World Cup 2023, Odisha to have hockey clubs in schools of all districts

The Odisha government is all set to start hockey clubs in at least one school in each of the 30 districts under a programme called ‘Mo School Hockey Club’. Men’s world cup hockey is scheduled to be held in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela in Odisha in 2023.

BHUBANESWAR: Ahead of World Cup hockey next year scheduled to be held in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, the Odisha government is all set to start hockey clubs in at least one school in each of the 30 districts under a programme called ‘Mo School Hockey Club’ to identify and groom talents in hockey.

The Odisha school hockey clubs will have boys’ and girls’ wings with each club having their separate flags. There will be 24 to 30 students in each wing of the club selected from the students from Class 6 onwards.

Chairperson of Hockey Promotion Council of Odisha and former skipper of Indian hockey team, Dilip Tirkey said the programme to be launched soon will have boys’ and girls’ wings with each club having their separate flags. “There will be 24 to 30 students in each wing of the club selected from the students from Class 6 onwards. The girls’ and boys’ wings will have two teams – Team A and Team B. The captain and vice-captain for each wing will be selected based on the leadership quality of the students,” said Tirkey.

In the hockey clubs, matches will be played every Saturday with unfurling of the school flag and the team flags. All the students of the school will watch the matches and cheer the players. At the end of the matches, man of the match prize will be given. Teams winning maximum number of matches and students who have adjudged man of the match for the maximum times will be awarded on the annual sports day of the school.

The proposed launch of Mo School Hockey clubs comes ahead of the men’s world cup hockey scheduled to be held in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela in 2023. The state government is building ‘Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium’ in Rourkela, which is supposed to be the biggest hockey stadium in the country with a seating capacity of 20,000 people.

Tirkey said ‘Mo School Hockey Club’ will be utilised as a platform for talent identification. “These clubs will be treated as grassroot centres in hockey and the emerging talents will be identified for advanced training and induction in sports hostels or Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Center run by the sports department. The Mo School Hockey Club will be a model for demonstration to all other schools of the district. Subsequently, a greater number of schools will be taken under the scheme. When a greater number of schools run ‘Mo School Hockey Club’, league matches will be conducted in a planned manner,” he said.

Annual ‘Mo School Hockey Club Championship will be conducted at Hockey AstroTurf in Kalinga Stadium and prizes to the winners, runners up, best club, best principal/headmaster, best physical education teacher will be given.

Each school where ‘Mo School Hockey Club’ is to be constituted, will be provided a non-recurring financial grant for purchase of sports equipment for hockey. Funds will be given to make the school playground fit for hockey matches. Recurring grant for refreshment for students, first-aid and documentation will be provided to the school.

To groom talents in hockey, the Odisha government in December 2019 started Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Center under which 14 grassroots centres have started in Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Dhenkanal and Nayagarh districts. The Odisha Naval Tata Hockey HPC has trained 30 grassroots coaches who will get coaching certifications from Hockey India. So far, 2,400 children have registered under the grassroots programme for getting hockey training at different centers.