BHUBANESWAR: Cradle of hockey! Mines of hockey! Nursery of hockey! The tribal-dominated Sundargarh district has earned many sobriquets. These are no exaggerations. Since 1995, the backward and remote pockets of Sundargarh have been churning out to international players.
Hockey is a way of life and has deeply ingrained into the culture of Sundargarh tribals, who proudly proclaim that the sport remains in their mind, heart, blood and flesh. While the origin of hockey in Sundargarh has no recorded history, it is widely believed that it was introduced decades ago by Christian missionaries. Introduced as a means of entertainment and organising the tribal masses, the sport caught their fancy and the matches soon turned into rural festivals. Gradually, hockey evolved from a rag-tag assemblage playing barefoot with handmade sticks to organised teams and professional events.
“In my knowledge, the missionaries from Belgium brought the sport to the region. Around 80-90 years back they set their foot in the districts and set up schools and parishes at remote pockets. The priests introduced hockey with matches played after prayers as a means of communion, entertainment and building team spirit”, Sundargarh’s most famous son, three-time Olympian and former India skipper Padmashree Dilip Tirkey said.
Rural men and youth would play in the late afternoons with matches involving four and five hamlets being a regular feature. This laid the base for institutionalised rural hockey that is primarily responsible for the growth of professional hockey in the district, Dilip, who himself is a product of rural hockey, said. “We used to play with handmade sticks and balls, though I would sometimes lay my hands on the professional wooden stick of my father Vincent Tirkey who was in CRPF. Earlier, people used to boil plastic waste and mould them into balls,” he said.
Reminiscing his training days, Dilip said cork and leather balls had arrived but no Astro-turf or composite stick was available. Today, the scene has changed completely with all trainees getting modern composite carbon-fibre sticks and most rural players despite monetary constraints are owning them. This has been made possible by the focused hockey promotion by Odisha government and SAI from 1980s to tap big potentials of the region.
Panposh Sports Hostel coach-in-charge Milton Bilung has been involved as a player and trainer for over five decades now. He recollects the olden days when hockey sticks were made by processing bamboo and Kendu fruit trees. “Bent bamboo shoots and Kendu branches would be strengthened by heat treatment. The sticks would be hanged by cooking fire so that they harden and become unbreakable. The crude sticks were longer and difficult to handle but with no alternative, the show had to go on.”
While cricket may be a religion in the country, hockey commands the same passion in this part of the world. There are certain rituals which are to be followed religiously. Holding sticks on shoulders tantamount to disrespect, Bilung said. Interestingly, both rural and professional hockey in Sundargarh has above 80 per cent dominion of Christian tribals and rest are other tribals. Interest for hockey is conspicuously missing in Rourkela city or Sundargarh, Birmitrapur and Rajgangpur.
Sundargarh solely has produced 63 junior and senior international players including all nine male and female Olympians of Odisha. The Rourkela-based, state government-run Panposh Sports Hostel alone accounts for 54 of them and rest goes to three other training facilities.