Graham Reid and Dave Smolenaars were officially confirmed as chief coaches of the men’s and women’s teams, respectively, by SG Pipers, the Delhi-based franchise in the Hockey India League, on Friday.
With former India goalkeeper PR Sreejesh as the mentor and Director of Hockey, SG Pipers has put together an impressive roster of staff on a day that also saw the HIL announce the complete list of teams for the men’s and women’s competition.
Besides former India chief coach Reid, the men’s team will also have Shivendra Singh in the dugout, while Dutchman Smolenaars, currently the analytical coach with the national women’s team, will have BS Ankitha and Tushar Khandker assisting him.
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“We see China winning 100s of medals at the Olympics while we desperately scroll the results every day, trying to see if we have won any. Yes, cricket is the most popular sport, but you can have a maximum of 4000-5000 players there. I feel both corporates and citizens have a responsibility to create options and develop support for other sports as well.
“Cricket doesn’t need any promotion, we need to go towards others also,” team owner Sanjay Gupta explained the reason behind joining the league, adding that the team was looking at long-term involvement with the sport, creating a feeder system at the grassroots to develop local talent.
SGSE CEO and tennis legend Mahesh Bhupathi termed the decision to bring Sreejesh on board as one of the best by the team. “While most other sporting leagues are short-term events, the scale of hockey is much larger. We wanted to build a full-time franchise. I was in Paris for the bronze medal match, and there was a lot of talk about HIL. Everyone knew Sreejesh would be in demand, and not everyone gets to end on a high of back-to-back Olympic medals. It didn’t take much effort to convince him to join us as team director,” he quipped.
“Honestly, for us, the women’s team was a priority. Women’s sports in India has been on an upward curve in the last few years and it will continue to be so in the coming years, so that was the first thing we decided on before adding the men’s team,” he added, explaining the reason behind owning both men and women teams.
