MARGAO
Two Goan sub junior players who are part of the Goans Hockey Sub junior team which is leaving for Chandīgarh today to take part in the Hockey India National championship have got the full hockey kit from Olympian and former India coach Joaquim Carvalho.
The kit was handed to the two players Sahil Kanoji and Yatharth Gaonkar by Relly Rodrigues, proprietor of Star Light Restaurant Assolna on behalf of Carvalho.
Both of them are studying at Damodar English High School Gudi Paroda.
Besides Kanoji and Gaonkar, Ansh Gaonkar of the same school got a full hockey kit from the Olympian during the Ganesh Chaturthi week.
Ansh Gaonkar, it may be recalled, scored a superlative goal at the Hockey India Sub-Junior West Zone championship in Gujarat in July this year.
The Grade 8 student, who trains every day without fail, come rain or shine, on the dirt and pebble laden village ground close to his school and home every day, dribbled his way past seven players to score the only goal for Goa in the 11“1 loss to Chhattisgarh Hockey at the Hockey India West Zone championship in July this year.
All the three players have been playing their hockey under the watchful eyes of Physical Education Teachers Amit Dessai of School section and Laxman Prabudessai at Higher Secondary School.
The Assolna-origin Carvalho is on a mission to uplift hockey and give the national game a new direction in Goa. The former India captain has a few plans up his sleeve in the days and months ahead. The plan is to turn the struggling Goa team to a force to reckon with on the national scene.
What better way is to catch them young and teach them the basics of the game. As a first step to give the young hockey players in the state a boost, Carvalho is distributing hockey kits. So far, the former international has distributed three full hockey kits to three sub-junior players in the last week.
Carvalho said he has plans to distribute around 1000 hockey sticks to some of the schools in Goa and he said talks are on to shortlist the educational institutes.
“500 sticks to schools in North Goa and an equal number in South Goa will be distributed in the coming months,” he disclosed.
Carvalho does not want to stop his Goa hockey mission at just distributing sticks but take it to another level by conducting coaching clinics and referee clinics.
“We will be conducting coaching clinics and referee clinics in the months ahead,” he added.
