India’s ice warriors

An ice skating rink at a Gurgaon mall, barely one-third the size of a standard one, is not where you would expect to see any national-level team practising for an international tournament. But this is the best venue India’s ice hockey team could find as it preps for the Asian Challenge Cup Division One, which kicks off in Kuwait today.

Adam Sherlip, the team’s American coach, is clearly the centre of attention. A motley bunch of 22 players listen to him in rapt attention. Barring two players — one from Uttarakhand and a staff member of the rink as the goaltender — the team is from Leh-Ladakh. That explains the presence of Abdul Haqim Giri, a temporary assistant to Sherlip, at the practice. He translates the coach’s instruction to Bhoti (a Tibetan dialect spoken in Ladakh) at mind-boggling speed.

The Asian Challenge Cup Division One is a few levels down the rung from the International Ice Hockey Federation’s marquee events, but a gateway to the premier level. “This tournament is especially for countries from the warmer parts of the world, where ice hockey is not a traditional sport,” says Akshay Kumar, director of the 13-year-old Ice Hockey Association of India and one of the brains behind the team’s marketing success in the last few weeks. “You could say it’s like the Ranji Trophy in cricket. It’s where the smaller guys find their feet,” says Kumar.

Notes from the past

“The first recorded ice hockey games in India were held in Shimla more than 100 years ago,” says Kumar. “More recently though the Indian Army, especially the Ladakh Scouts Regiment, took to the game and it is extremely popular in Ladakh now.” Frozen over for half the year, ice hockey is considered a major recreational activity in Ladakh.

Both locals and army men from Ladakh have made it to the national team. Tsewang Gyaltson, the 23-year-old spirited captain of this team, picked up the game after watching many tournaments in Ladakh. “Every year there are at least two or three tournaments apart from the senior and junior national tournaments,” says Gyaltson, who has taken leave from his BTech classes to be part of the team. “Ladakh Scouts is the best ice hockey team in the country. Scala Club and the Devil’s Hockey Club are quite good too. Every year, many expats from the Canadian embassy and a few other countries come to participate in the tournaments.”

India’s ice hockey squad has 45 competitive games to its credit, the highlight being a resounding 5-1 victory over Macau in 2012, the team’s only win so far. The single victory hasn’t deterred India from being a regular at the Challenge Cup and the team is taking small steps toward becoming a more professional outfit.

Odds stacked up

The other teams at the Challenge Cup include Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Singapore, Malaysia and Oman. “Kuwait took to ice hockey only three years ago. They are already making a lot of progress and are training in Sweden, which has one of the best teams in the world,” says Kumar. “So this is what we’re up against. It’s far from easy.”

In a game that requires as much equipment as commitment, the Indian team lacks any kind of institutional support. The cost of equipment is more than ₹30,000 per head. “Ice hockey is to Ladakh what gilli-danda is to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh,” says Vedank Singh, better known as @bhaiyyajispeaks . Singh used his twitter clout (23,000 followers and counting) to spread word about the team, helping it raise ₹3.5 lakh, the money it needs to travel to Kuwait, in just six days. “We can’t blame the government because it’s not just ice hockey. There are hundreds of sports that are crying for immediate attention. We want to use this platform to spread awareness, get more people from the rest of the country involved in the game,” says Singh, who is also the team’s digital media head. The biggest success stories of the twitter campaign were cricketer Gautam Gambhir donating ₹4 lakh and industrialist Anand Mahindra pledging support for the team. These would fund the team’s future expenses.

India’s only Olympic-size ice hockey rink at Dehradun has been shut since it hosted the 2012 Challenge Cup. “If the government provides incentives for maintaining infrastructure and makes it easier for federations like ours to get funding, it’ll help in taking the sport to the next level,” says Kumar.

As the players finish their day’s training, they pose for photographs to be shared in other crowd-funding campaigns. They might not look like world-beaters but they are not lacking in confidence. Most players in Sherlip’s team are already in their 20s, which makes it a bit late for them to become professionals. But Sherlip is full of hope. “The game is expanding beyond the region… I believe ice hockey is an Indian passion that is yet untapped. I see the potential for professional hockey players from the country,” he says.

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