Canada and the drying up of Indian hockey fortunes
Errol D'Cruz
21 September 2010, 06:53 PM IST
An Indian origin hockey player, flag-bearer for Canada at the 2010 New
Delhi Commonwealth Games.
Astounding to the general public. Big news for sports fans but nothing
earth shattering for those who’ve been aware of the changing world of
field hockey.
Ken Pereira, 37, veteran of well over 300 Games for Canada, is just
one of scores of Indian-origin Canadians fighting the odds in a the
land of ice hockey to wear the Maple Leaf, and do so with a great deal
of pride. Even if it meant selling shirts to help fund a trip to the
World Cup which Pereira and his team-mates did before flying out to
New Delhi in February this year.
The recently retired Wayne Fernandes, Bubli Chouhan, Hari Kant and
celebrated coaches Shiv Jagdev and Louis Mendonca — Indian-origin
Canadians all — have contributed to a version of hockey obscure to
most of their countrymen brought up on a huge diet of the Stanley Cup
and Wayne Gretzky.
How Indian hockey die-hards have ever heard of them? Pereira’s
distinction in a kinky sort of way relives the nightmare of Indian
hockey’s fall from grace.
Who can ever shake off the memory of Montreal, Canada, way back in 1976?
Word Champions and then seven-time Olympic champions, India were
mauled by the Australians, humiliated by the Dutch and beaten into
submission by the Germans before finishing lowly seventh at the
Olympic Games.
So called experts on the other side of the world, shell-shocked by the
turn of events and labouring under the notion that India and Pakistan
had sole rights to hockey,couldn’t accept the new order that rendered
New Zealand the champions at Montreal after shocking their
trans-Tasman neighbours Australia in the final.
India’s newly acquired status of also-rans was greeted,
understandably, by a tsunami of indignity at home that sparked the now
sickeningly familiar call for ‘total overhaul’ but in all the fury
over the debacle nobody ever spared a thought to the progress made by
the other nations.
The Late AFS Talyarkhan, the legendary though firebrand media
personality, hit the nail on the head in his programme ‘Looking Back,
Looking Forward’ on Doordarshan the day after the Olympic final.
Have you and I seen the other teams play? he asked while referring
to the scorn poured over losing to nations who learned the game from
us.
No one paid heed, one would assume.
More poignancy. Less than two years later, India took the field at
Buenos Aires, Argentina, smarting from the Montreal debacle and keen
to set the record straight and retain the World Cup they won in 1975
at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
After struggling to a 1-0 win over Belgium in the opener, India played
Canada who started playing seriously at the international level only
after being awarded the Montreal Olympics.
Bleary-eyed die-hards tuned in to their transistors and radios at the
crack of dawn one March morning in 1978 to 70 minutes of horror. The
score at the end of it: India 1 Canada 3. No one lauded the babes of
international hockey and, amid the wave of despondency, the nightmare
kept unfolding — a 0-7 defeat to Germany, a 1-1 draw with England and
a 0-2 loss to Spain brought sixth position, the worst for India at the
World Cup at the time but ironically one that would do the country
proud today. How things have changed!
The erstwhile Soviet Union, South Korea and China were the ‘Canadas’
in the ensuing years, building their hockey teams on being awarded the
Olympics and/ or Continental Games.
They represented fresh minds, ready to soak up new ideas, techniques,
tactics and skills, especially on artificial surfaces. And bring in a
refreshment to the game that sadly India, buckling under a legacy of
eight gold medals and a World Cup triumph, has come nowhere close to
doing.
Back to Ken Pereira and Canada.
The playmaker, who switched to field hockey from version of ice at the
age of 17, was the hero of his country’s victory over Argentina in the
final of the Pan American Games at home in Winnipeg in 1999.
A picture on wires showed Pereira being chaired by his jubilant
team-mates in the background. In the foreground was a cute little Sikh
boy bounding across the pitch in unbridled ecstasy, waving the Maple
Leaf!
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spot-kick/entry/canada-and-the-drying-up-of-indian-hockey-fortunes
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PHOTO: Ken Pereira
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0g8c27O4qtfZY
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Ken-Pereira-will-attend-the-Commwealth-Games-opening-ceremony-despite-reports-the-Canadian-team-might-give-it-a-miss/photo/02102010/24/photo/photos-n-sports-ken-pereira-attend-commwealth-games-opening-ceremony-despite-reports.html
* * *
Canada field hockey veteran explores Indian roots
Sat Oct 2, 10:09 AM
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Like any other kid growing up in Canada, Ken Pereira
started off by playing hockey on skates.
It was only when he saw a field hockey game on television that he
