{"id":254,"date":"2016-06-13T16:21:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T16:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=254"},"modified":"2016-06-13T16:21:08","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T16:21:08","slug":"whats-a-hockey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=254","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s a Hockey?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>wo years ago, the Indian team made it to the finals of the Champions Trophy for the first time in 36 years, and then they lost to Australia.\n\nIdeally, the sentence above would have drawn the ire of every Indian on social media, sparked off a Newshour debate and made Anushka Sharma trend. It did not, because this Indian team didn\u2019t have Virat, Dhoni, or Yuvraj. Instead it had Sardar Singh, Raghunath, and gang.\n\nThe poor guys had thought making it to the finals of the Champions Trophy after 36 years could get the country to give a shit about hockey. But it didn\u2019t. So they decided losing to Australia in the finals would definitely put the sport in the limelight. But that didn\u2019t work either. Then they thought that <\/p><em>Soorma<\/em>, Shaad Ali&#8217;s biopic on former captain, Sandeep Singh would get people excited about hockey. No prizes for guessing how that didn&#8217;t work out \u2013 the film had no chance without Kabir Khan. At this point, if someone had broken their windowpanes back home, and held the hockey team responsible for the loss, the boys would have really felt special. But, sadly, all windows remained intact.\n\nThe Champions Trophy also marked my debut as an international hockey viewer on TV. I discovered hockey is a combination of outstanding speed and skill, edge-of-the-seat sporting action, powerful drag-flicks, quick passes and last minute goals. It\u2019s like any other fixed T-20 cricket match, except there\u2019s no fixing here. Still, this game is given this Chandrachur Singh-esque treatment in our country. Chandrachur who? My point, exactly.\n\nThe scene is so bad that the only thing you watch during a hockey match is, well, hockey. There are no cheerleaders. No sponsored segments. There isn\u2019t a \u201cDurex Drag-Flick\u201d, \u201cGluconD Golden Save\u201d or \u201cKarbonn Kamaal Goal\u201d. The TV production is so low budget that it looks like the whole match is shot on one camera mounted on one side of the ground. If you think that isn\u2019t grossly unfair, remember that in cricket you have a sky-cam, stump cam, fan cam and in case you miss out on some extra action there\u2019s also a GoPro thrown in for good measure up the umpire\u2019s ass.\n\nUnlike in cricket, where live ECG reports of the cricketers are shown on the screen every time someone takes a catch, in hockey there are no fancy graphics or pie charts. The most advanced VFX that pops up during the match is: \u201cWho do you think will win this season of Jhalak Dhikhla Jaa? a) Failed Cricketer b) Failed Actor c) Failed Businessman d) Failed Author\u201d.\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\">Imagine what it would do to the sport to hear a rumour like, \u201cHockey Sensation S K Uthappa spotted getting cozy with Priyanka Chopra in nightclub\u201d.<\/blockquote>\nAt half time, there\u2019re no former hockey players providing insightful, hard-hitting analysis, like \u201call three results are possible\u201d or \u201canything can happen from here\u201d. You don\u2019t see former greats like Dhanraj Pillai giving his commentary and taking home the bucks. The \u201cformer hockey player\u201d tag is about as bankable as Uday Chopra\u2019s box office openings but there\u2019s so much money in the \u201cformer cricketer\u201d tag that guys like Saba Karim took up cricket to become a successful former cricketer. Look at Sunil Gavaskar, for instance. He spent the first 38 years of his life playing the game and the following 29 years analysing it. You don\u2019t see that happening in hockey. Because if you didn\u2019t make much money as a player, you wouldn\u2019t be sitting around and discussing the game after you\u2019ve hung up your boots. Instead you would be going out and making money off something lucrative, like launching a dating app or food start-up.\n\nAnyway, it was a pleasure to have watched the eleven best hockey players in the country represent India with such passion and dedication. And honestly, for somebody who usually watches cricket, the team\u2019s attitude did come as a little bit of a shock. I am used to a Kohli braving an injured wrist, scoring a century, and steering his franchise to a famous win, but then \u201cresting\u201d when India plays Zimbabwe. That never happens in hockey.\n\nPlayers are just desperate for gigs and are on the lookout for any opportunity that presents itself to play the sport. They\u2019re like Sonu Nigam \u2013 ready to play anywhere. Even on the streets disguised as unknown, poor people. (Actually, they don\u2019t have to disguise themselves much.) I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if every hockey player\u2019s big dream is to have a son who will one day play cricket for India.\n\nRight now, Hockey needs a Virat-Anushka movement to up its game. Unfortunately, no A-list actor in her right mind would go out with a hockey player. Imagine what it would do to the sport to hear a rumour like, \u201cHockey Sensation S K Uthappa spotted getting cozy with Priyanka Chopra in nightclub\u201d. Just imagine. If Katrina Kaif could sell Slice by seducing a mango, surely she could sell a whole sport to our country by seducing a hockey stick.\n\nThe future of the sport depends on you, dear Bollywood starlet, who I hope is reading this piece. It rests on your shoulders. The sport needs you. The country needs you. Stand up for what is right and swipe right on a hockey player soon.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Indian hockey team thought getting Shaad Ali to make a biopic on former captain, Sandeep Singh would definitely get them some attention. Boy, were they wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[62,63,64,65,66,67,449,450,451,452,353,71,72],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-arre","tag-arre-digital-platform","tag-arre-originals","tag-arre-reads","tag-arre-text-articles","tag-arre-website","tag-cricket","tag-hockey","tag-kohli","tag-sonu-nigam","tag-sports","tag-web-series","tag-web-shows"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What\u2019s a Hockey?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Indian hockey team thought getting Shaad Ali to make a biopic on former captain, Sandeep Singh would definitely get them some attention. 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