The Hindu Business Line : On thinning ice

Ladakh can’t comprehend its mixed fortunes in ice hockey. In India, the game was first played in Shimla during the British times. But it fizzled out. Then in the 1980s, some say earlier, the Indian Army started playing ice hockey at its remote, cold postings in Ladakh. Ice hockey sticks were made from willow wood; the skates were locally fabricated and fixed to the soles of military issue shoes, tin cans were used for pucks. It soon spread to other parts; in Leh, th e game has been played for years on a frozen irrigation pond. The Ladakh Winter Sports Club (LWSC) was formed in 1985. It offered coaching and organised tournaments, slowly moving the game away from the army’s clutch and into civilian ownership.

Equipment was a huge hurdle to cross; it had to come from abroad and was required in good quantities if the sport was to penetrate the hinterlands. Talent among the region’s hardy people was never in doubt, access was. Luckily with ice hockey’s ascent, it caught the eye of diplomats and expatriates staying in Delhi and Mumbai. Among them were Canadians. Through them Ladakh got the first real sets of ice hockey gear and several more of used equipment for dispersal to the interiors. “Those days, it was difficult getting the gear cleared at the Customs. We lost one set,” recalled Chewang Motup Goba, Vice-President – LWSC, and founder of Rimo Club, national champions in the sport.

Ground reality

Today, ice hockey has regular State and national-level competitions with an administering body – Ice Hockey Association of India (IHAI) — based in Delhi. In March 2009, the national ice hockey team, wholly from Ladakh, made its debut at the international level. Shimla hadn’t been getting good ice for the past 3-4 years and that led to its players being left out.

When Tundup Namgial turned up at the Leh View Restaurant for a chat, he was absolutely different from the typical skipper of an Indian team. He spoke to the point with a reluctance that hinted he would rather play or be lost in the folds of his Ladakhi landscape. Some in Leh felt he should have spoken up at a certain press conference in Delhi when the national team was sent to Abu Dhabi to play in the Asia Challenge Cup. From the administrators of the sport, they got team T-shirts. That was all. The team had no doctor; equipment kits were pieced together from the inventories of the army, Rimo Club and J&K Tourism. Stay and accommodation was courtesy the organisers. Travel cost would have been entirely the team’s onus had not the Jammu & Kashmir Bank agreed to sponsor tickets, reportedly at the behest of the State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

At Abu Dhabi, the team featured in the tournament’s opening game and was routed. “Nobody plays competitive ice hockey these days on frozen ponds,” said Namgial. Abu Dhabi in the desert underscored it and the behaviour of puck on artificial rink ice was dramatically different from the way it slid on Leh’s frozen irrigation pond.

Yet the tough lads, probably playing the game at the highest altitude in the world, improved with each fixture and exited the tournament earning the respect of other national teams. UAE won the championship.

The IHAI attributed the limited support it gave the team to both the niche stature of the sport in India and its own early days as an association. It hopes to get funding from the International Ice Hockey Federation.

Both J&K Bank and Volvo, companies that sponsored the national team for Abu Dhabi, would be supporting for the next five years. “We are also getting a coach from the ice hockey school in Finland to visit India this winter,” said Akshay Kumar, Secretary, IHAI.

Need of the hour

Ladakhis know ice hockey; their women even fought for equality in the game. “Our youth have nothing to do in winter but play ice hockey,” said P.T. Kunzen, President, LWSC. A national team and aspirants for it must train year round. The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council is installing a second rink, a natural one again with an extended period of frozen existence as grace. That would increase the playing calendar by a month or two. But where is the artificial rink that Ladakh badly needs for all it has contributed to the sport?

An Uttarakhand initiative with central funding, a proper rink is coming up at Dehradun in time for the South Asian Federation Winter Games. Teams from Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Uttarakhand will find a rink close at hand. It is ironical that the artificial rink has gone many places, except where there is a ready-made culture for using it. Kunzen, Chewang Motup and Namgial were all at a loss to explain this situation. They were sure Ladakhi players would travel to Dehradun for practice.

Against the backdrop of 60 per cent central funding for State sporting proposals, the IHAI felt Ladakh can get its rink if the State pushed for it. But it may not be simple. Gulmarg in the Kashmir Valley is a favoured spot for the national winter games. Will the State risk Gulmarg’s fortunes for the sake of an artificial rink in Ladakh? The only other alternative is to encourage in-line hockey — similar to using roller blades — during the summer and keep Ladakh’s talent engaged. Chewang Motup saw one silver lining. He said that M.S. Gill, the Union Minister for Sports, was aware of Ladakh’s concerns.

Unlike for those administering sports, time runs out on the playing field. Namgial knows his time is up. “Another two or three years of playing, after that I plan to coach youngsters,” said the captain of the Indian team. Hopefully by then, Leh should have an artificial rink.

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