Ludhiana: Government school hockey players to turn mentors for private schools

Taking inspiration from the best in the district, a few private schools have taken the initiative of starting the game of hockey in their respective schools and have approached the players of the girls’ hockey team of the Government Senior Secondary Smart School, Mundian Kalan, to provide training to the students of these institutions.
Manpreet Singh, hockey coach at GSSS, Mundian Kalan said, “The girls’ team of our school is best in the district and the pass-out students who are extraordinary players do visit a few of the schools on a weekly basis to train the students there.”
The Mundian School has its hockey nursery where at present, more than 65 girl students are trained. The school team has won various championships in U-12, U-14, U-17 and U-19 categories at district and state levels. One of their students, Sandhya Shastri was a part of the team who represented Punjab in the U-14 category at the National Hockey Championship at Gwalior in December last year, organised by the School Games Federation of India.
One of the schools that approached the team is The Preplife Convent School. Bharat Dua, the principal said, “We came to know about the outstanding team this school has, which is why our school wanted to have one of their current or pass-out student players as a trainer for our students as we want to start the game of hockey in our school soon.”
A sports teacher at the Nankana Sahib Public School expressed her desire to build one of the best teams in her school and for the fulfilment of this purpose, the school has requested the Mundian Kalan School to train their aspiring players.
Despite having an efficient team, coach Manpreet said that the lack of infrastructural facilities acts as a roadblock for the players. “To train them without turf is difficult and improper which is why we have to take our team to the Punjab Agricultural University or Jarkhar Hockey Academy once a week, which is not very economical. We requested MLA Hardeep Singh Mundian for the installation of turf at our school about a year ago but to no avail.”
Giving an unsatisfactory answer, MLA Mundian remarked, “Due to the model code of conduct in force ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, nothing could be done as of now but after the elections, we will try to do the needful as soon as possible.”