Slowly but surely Pak hockey is improving, says Khokhar

KARACHI: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) president Brig (retd) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar said that after strengthening the domestic hockey across the country and successful qualification to 2018 senior Hockey World Cup, the qualification of 2020 Olympics and successful organizing of Pakistan Hockey League next year are our main focus.

While talking to The News, on Wednesday, he said that during the last couple of years, PHF has successfully revived the national game as when we took over the charge of PHF management, Pakistan hockey team had failed to qualify for illustrious competitions, the World Cup and Olympics. More than 12 domestic hockey teams have been closed and our leading players were jobless. The younger generation, even the boys of hockey fraternity didn’t opt for playing hockey due to the disarray condition of the national game.

But, PHF did not lost hope, first we breathed life into the domestic structure, established at least new five to six new domestic hockey teams including Fauji Fertilizers, SNGPL, ZTPBL, OGDCL, POF Wah, and re-opened number of closed team, introduced four to six big hockey competitions with handsome amount of prize money, including COAS hockey championship, Nishan-e-Haider 9- a- side tournament, five- side hockey tournament and Chief of Naval Staff hockey championship, organised 1st National Under-16 School hockey championship in Khairpur, Tournament, president PHF said. He said that the most turning point of our national hockey as providing jobs to around 100 players who took part in the national training camps of Pakistan senior and junior hockey teams. Due to which younger generation got attracted because they saw the bright future in hockey.

With all this, we brought the game from the brink of isolation and invited International Hockey federation (FIH) and Asia Hockey Federation (AHF) high officials to Pakistan to show them that Pakistan is a safe country. He mentioned that due to the help of FIH and AHF, World Hockey X1, hockey stalwarts like Paul Litjents, Bovelandar, 11 foreign goal keepers from Argentine, Australia paid visit to Pakistan. It was first time I the history of Pakistan that 11 foreign players from such a giant hockey teams participated in our domestic hockey.

He stated that slowly but surely the game is coming on track and Insha-Allah, our focal focus will be to qualify for 2020 Olympics and next year to organize the Pakistan hockey League in the country. He said that due to the lack of international matches’ exposure, a big vacuum has been created between the Pakistan hockey team and other strong teams of world hockey. Due to which we hired the services of world most famous hockey coach Roelant Oltmans and other foreign experts.

The appointment of Oltmans, proved successful as in just twenty days of his training and coaching the Greenshirts were able to play outstanding in recently concluded Commonwealth Games in Australia, where we did not lose any match and came out undefeatable for the first time in last several years. But at the same time he admitted that a lot work has to be done to improve the ranking and restore the image of Pakistan hockey team.

He said that PHF secretary Shahbaz Ahmed played a historical role in all the developments of Pakistan hockey, his experience, international fame and contacts helped PHF, to bring international hockey and agreed to World X1, players, hockey legends, 11 foreign goal keepers to participate in our domestic hockey. And most importantly the appointment of Roelant Oltmans as a coach and Daniel Barry as instructor for reviving the national game.