National hockey c’ship starts today

The 14th Hockey India Junior Men National Championship will start from September 9 at Olympian Surjit Hockey Stadium in Jalandhar. Six matches will be played on the first day. The first match will start at 6.30 in the morning between Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand and the second match will be at 8.15am between Chandigarh and Puducherry.

The third match will be played between Maharashtra and Himachal. Rest of the matches will be played between Manipur and Goa, Bihar and Mizoram, and Punjab and Telangana, respectively.

Hockey Punjab is conducting a national championship for the first time. As many as 29 teams from several states and Union Territories of the country are participating in this championship.

All arrangements have been made and the necessary repair work of the stadium has been completed. The stadium has also been inspected by Hockey India. Best players will be selected for the Indian junior hockey team during this championship. In this regard, a selection committee is also being sent by Hockey India. Hockey India has appointed Bhopal’s Mohammad Faheem as the tournament director while international umpire Gurinder Singh Sangha of Punjab will be the umpire manager. Along with this, umpires and technical officials have been appointed from different states.