The Great Hockey Drama

For the past few days all that I can see around me is this great hullabaloo raised by the media and the common public in unison because the Indian Hockey team faltered at the final hurdle..the finals of the qualifying tournament for the Beijing Olympics 2008...The news anchors have been shouting themselves hoarse at the great "ignominy" of not being able to compete in the Olympics.I have been enlightened on the national "shame" and the great damage this "deplorable" loss has caused to the "Indian national pride".

People have been baying for blood....The hockey player's blood that is!I heard one senior journalist say that the golden era of hockey was just a matter of the past....Its time to move on and crown cricket as our national game.The popular mood seems to soundly propound this view too.The S.M.S polls resonated with general indignation at the pathetic performance of our team...especially at a time when the the cricket team has made the nation proud with its "epoch making feats".

Don't get me wrong.I'm no connoisseur of hockey.In fact,I have never ever seen a game of hockey in my life.But I still get the feeling that the mood resonated across the nation reeks of dichotomy and blatant hypocrisy.Its tough being a sportsman in this country if you're not a cricketer...Ishant Sharma gets more news coverage about his atrocious hair than the master Vishwanathan Anand...News people regularly raise a hue and cry about the burgeoning burden of expectations on the shoulders of cricketers;not a word about the apathy meted out to other sports.
We slander the team for losing in the finals...did we ever care when they thrashed other teams en-route to the finals?Did we ever cheer for them?Did the government care?
When India loses a cricket match...we say people are being unreasonable and the team played well nonetheless...we are lectured on how a team can't win every time!But heaven forbid if that same reasoning is applied to hockey.NO NO!They have to keep winning...don't bother to provide sponsorship,proper coaching,a transparent governing body or international exposure!Whenever a bunch of underfed,unnoticed,uncelebrated youngsters go out on the international arena,they have to perform like Dhyan Chand.Never mind that we are looking the other way most of the time!

I am sure the players are themselves downcast about their performance...and surely it is a sign of the downward spiral or the tailspin in which Indian hockey has entwined itself.But should we not have cried foul when the government slashed their funds?Or when a certain Sikh was declared president of the IHF for life?Should we not fret about the complete lack of transparency in the governing body????
We choose to take the easy way out.Blame the players,they are unprivileged and illiterate anyway,take our ire out on them.Glorify cricket,a sport that more than half of the globe has not even heard about!We cheer when the cricket team wins 3 matches against the same opposition,in a game that doesn't matter to 3/4 Th's of the world.We choose to compete in a sport that doesn't even have enough teams to organize a decent tournament.We beat 2 nations in Australia and went gaga over it.Does anyone even care to know how many nations we beat at the qualifying round of the Olympics?

We regularly complain that India performs terribly at international sporting arenas...But it is to be expected.After all,Dhoni's boys get 10 million every time they win against a crappy team...while the allowance we provide to Indians who play in truly International sports wouldn't buy me a bag of chips.And we expect Olympic gold.

In a way I think the sports journalist was right.Maybe cricket should be crowned the national game.We don't deserve better.We don't deserve to succeed in international sports...Making cricket the national passion has a great plus side too...We wouldn't have to worry about Olympic qualification anymore...There simply aren't enough countries~~!!