Junior hockey championship begins April 14

Vijayawada, Apr 11 (UNI) The nine-day Junior (U-18) National Hockey Championship would be held from April 14 at Acharya Nagarjuna University (ANU) campus in Guntur.

Andhra Hockey Association (AHA) Secretary Niranjan Reddy told UNI today that the tournament would be played on league-cum-knock out basis, in which 36 teams would participating.

Mr Reddy said two new hockey fields were laid in the university campus for the championship and the teams would arrive on April 13.

Though there was a permanent gallary to accomodate 5,000 spectators, the AHA officials were coming up with temporary gallaries to accomodate around 3,000 more spectators. A medical team would be stationed at the venue to conduct medical tests on the players on suspicion of using drugs, he added.

He said a five-member selection committee comprising olympians Michael Kindo, Balwinder Singh Sami, N Mukesh Kumar of Indian Airlines, K R K Pandian and Ramesh Kolapa would be present there to probables for coaching camp to the Junior (U-18) Indain team, to be held in the next month.

UNI