Hockey in India Talking about hockey in India, the first hockey club came up in Calcutta in 1885-86 and soon

Bombay and Punjab followed suit. Making its Olympic debut at the 1928 Amsterdam Games, Indian hockey team cruised home to its first Olympic gold, without conceding a single goal. The hallmark of this ruthless domination was the wizardry of Indian hockey legend - Dhyan Chand, who mesmerized the Amsterdam crowd with his dazzling skills. From 1928 to 1956, the Indian hockey juggernaut won six straight Olympic gold medals, while winning 24 consecutive matches. During this time, India scored 178 goals conceding only 7 in the process. This was the golden era of Indian hockey, when India loomed large in world hockey and produced some of the finest players the game has ever seen. During this dominance, one name that clearly comes to mind is Balbir Singh. For almost three decades, Indian team had about five players with the same name. The first Balbir Singh played with the great Indian teams of 1948, 1952 and 1956. He reached the pinnacle of success at Helsinki in 1952 when he scored five goals in a 6-1 gold medal victory over the Netherlands. The four later Balbir Singhs played with the later Indian champions. The Indian stranglehold over the Olympic hockey gold came to an end, when Pakistan defeated India in the final of the 1960 Rome Olympics. However, the record created by India is likely to stand strong through ages, as no other country has ever managed to come close to it, leave about beating it. Talking about some of the legendary and outstanding players of Indian hockey, Dhyan Chand, K.D. Singh, Dhanraj Pillay and Dilip Tirkey are some names that come to mind instantly. Thanks to their exceptional gaming technique and enduring enthusiasm, the position of India in the field of hockey achieved new heights.

crickrt players are playing in crores but hockey players are hardly getting teir match fees on time.. cricketers are doing commercials but their are hardly some people in india who know the indian hockey players name..

SEPTEMBER 2007 will definitely go down in the history of Indian sports as an important month that gave India dual achievements of clinching Hockey Asia Cup

While in 7th Mens Hockey Asian Cup, the Indian hockey team showed superior performance right from the beginning of the tournament. Indian hockey team did not lose even a single match in the tournament and defeated the strongest team of the tournament; once in the league match and second time in the final. India defeated South Korea 7-2 in the final, which is one of the biggest margins in a final from the yardsticks of present day hockey matches. We scored total 56 goals and gave away just 5 goals in 7 matches that we played. We also scored 20 goals in a match against Sri Lanka and did not give away a single goal. This equaled the biggest margin of victory in Asia Cup record. We remained the lone team to keep our tally clean by not losing any matches among the 11 teams, and topped the tough six team pool B. This is a rare all win record in the pool stage. This was definitely a marvelous performance by our hockey players considering the fact that our neighbour Pakistan was not able get through even the semi finals of the tournament

India has declared Hockey as national game. The industries and business houses are interested in their business and therefore they would not chose to have players from other sports to be brand ambassadors. To that extent it is all right. But the hockey administration and govt. should have concern on hockey about poor state of affairs.

Also Former Hockey group official Gil added that hockey is being played in 100 nations rather hockey is in 8 or 10 nations only; Hockey is one of the Olympic Games but cricket is not and anyone can play cricket but only the well trained and physically fit player can alone play hockey.

We shld love our national game rather than Cricket Hockey and Cricket bot are popular game but Hockey could not get the attention of media as cricket have and on the other hand the matches of hockey are not frequently played at national or internation level like we have in cricket. One more thing cricket have many things to celebrate in a match like Boundry, Six, Run out, Out Win or loose etc. while Hockey have Goal or no goal, Win or loose etc.

IN 1998, after India won the Asiad hockey gold after a gap of 32 years, several top players were sacked. The IHF chief, K.P.S. Gill in an interview belittled the achievement. In 1995, during the SAF Games, P. T. Usha, India's greatest female athlete, was the standard bearer. But during the opening ceremony, some official snatched the flag from her in full public view. These two examples show that it is not cricket that is killing other sports, but those in charge of those sports who are doing the damage. There is absolutely no accountability or transparency in the running of most Indian sports. This is not to say that cricket is perfect. It has its share of such characters. That is probably why cricket hasn't gone to seed like others. Let the other sports get their act together before accusing the cricketers.