Bhubaneswar: Hockey in Odisha, which is considered to be one of the nurseries of the sport in India, is set for a major boost ahead of next year’s World Cup in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela.
The state government will set up hockey clubs in at least one school in each of the 30 districts under the ‘Mo School Hockey Club’ programme. The aim is to identify and groom talents at the grassroot level.
Each club will have separate flags, with boys’ and girls’ wings.
“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,” informed Chairperson of Hockey Promotion Council of Odisha and former India captain Dilip Tirkey.
School flag and team flags will be unfurled before matches which will be organized every Saturday, when all students will cheer for the teams.
There will be incentives to do well as best-performing players and teams will be rewarded. Besides man-of-the match prize for every game, teams winning maximum number of matches and students with most man-of-the-match awards will be receive special awards on the annual sports day of the school.
“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,” Tirkey said.
An annual Mo School Hockey Club Championship will be conducted at the Kalinga Stadium astroturf, with prizes for the winners, runners-up, best club, best principal/headmaster, best physical education teacher, etc.
Every school where ‘Mo School Hockey Club’ is set up will be provided a non-recurring financial grant for purchase of hockey equipment.
Funds to make school playground fit for hockey and recurring grant for students’ refreshment, first-aid and documentation will also be provided to the school.
