Men's National hockey Championship to kick off tomorrow

Pune - The third edition of the Hockey India (HI) Senior Men’s National Championship will be played here from May 28 to June 10.

As many as 38 teams will participate in the championship which will be played on a league-cum-knockout basis at the Major Dhyan Chand Polygrass Hockey Stadium in Pimpri and Shiv Chhatrapati Shivaji Sports Complex in Balewadi.

This edition will see four new teams including the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the Sports Authority of India (SAI), the Mumbai Hockey Association Limited and Namdhari XI.

The inaugural match shall be played May 28 between Madhya Pradesh and Tripura in Pool B.

All teams are divided in eight pools. Defending champions Punjab have been drawn in Pool A with Delhi, Association of Indian Universities, Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh.

HI selectors and a Government Observer will be watching the performance of all the players to select the probables for future camps.

HI will provide hosts Hockey Maharashtra a grant of Rs.20 lakh for organising the championship.

The Pools:

Pool A: Punjab, Delhi, Association of Indian Universities, Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh.

Pool B: Air India, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Tripura and Chhattisgarh.

Pool C: Karnataka, Services Sports Control Board, Bihar, Goa and SAI.

Pool D: Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andaman and Nicobar and Mumbai.

Pool E: Jharkhand, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Bengal and CAG.

Pool F: Railways, Bhopal, Sashastra Seema Bal, Jammu and Kashmir and Namdhari XI.

Pool G: Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Kerala.

Pool H: Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh, Assam and Rajasthan.