That the Indian men’s Hockey Team did not make it to the Olympics is old hat, this news item in Rediff, nearly brought tears to my eyes - the frustrated, you gotta be kidding me kind. We will send not 1, but 4 hockey coaches to ‘study’ the techniques of other teams at the Olympics and one of these ‘under-studies’ will be tipped to become the coach of the Olympic Hockey team to replace the legendary Ric Charlesworth. Quoting Rediff,

The Indian Olympic Association president and chairman of the ad-hoc committee for hockey, Suresh Kalmadi, informed that the ad-hoc committee had decided to send national women’s team coach M K Kaushik, junior men’s team coach A K Bansal, Harinder Singh and goalkeeping coach A B Subbiah to Beijing to observe the competing teams and report their findings to the committee.

“In a forward looking step, we have decided to send four top coaches of the country to Beijing. They will observe the strategy and style of other teams and compile individual reports on their findings which they will submit to the ad-hoc committee after they return home,” Kalmadi told reporters in Delhi [Images] on Thursday, briefing about the minutes of the committee’s first meeting with Olympians and technical experts.

“We are determined to revive Indian hockey. We have chalked out a lot of competitions at the national level,” he said.

Kaushik, who is seen as a frontrunner to take up the reigns of the men’s team, said he will utilise the opportunity to gather maximum knowledge about the playing style of the top hockey-playing nations.

“We lack in scientific knowledge. I feel scientific methods should be immediately imparted with the consultancy of the coaches. Our time in Beijing will help us to study the various strategies of the participating nations,” he added.

Seriously, we are going to send coaches to sit in the viewing stands and understand the techniques being employed, why can’t they just watch it on TV? And once he understands, these techniques are going to be directly adopted by the Indian senior hockey team without trialling it at any other level by a person whose only previous experience is that he watched it being employed by others. Oh and by the way, the frontrunner for this position of coach already feels “scientific methods should be immediately imparted with the consultancy of the coaches”. Wonder what his plans are and pray what does he mean by scientific methods?

Maybe I am just being cynical?

First Posted at Prem Panicker's on August 1, 2008.