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Adopting dogs to making rotis, how hockey stars are unwinding in Rourkela | Hockey News

Adopting stray dogs, jet-setting to Bengaluru for a few rounds of golf, organising watch-parties of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, trying panipuris at a local market, learning to make rotis, or simply whiling away time at a near mall.Even as they lit up the Hockey India League (HIL) – from December 28 to February 1 — with their supreme skills, some of the world’s best players resorted to novel ways to break the monotony, beat the boredom and remain fresh for matches during their over-a-month-long stay in the sleepy city of Rourkela.
The league — responsible for turning around the fortunes of the Indian hockey team — was restarted in December after a seven-year hiatus. And while its relaunch was welcomed in the hockey world, the decision to hold it in just one city had a mixed response.
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Rourkela, though hockey-crazy, offers limited recreation options. For the players, it meant that their lives for the last five weeks were largely restricted to the magnificent Birsa Munda Stadium, the adjoining training pitch and gym, and the on-site hotel.
And so, they found ways to unwind and take their minds off hockey.

In a social media post, former World Cup and Olympic champion from Belgium, Victor Wegnez, led 10 different things he had done during his time in Rourkela. Among these was how his teammates at the Soorma Hockey Club had adopted stray puppies near the team hotel.
“There’s a litter of puppies on the way from the hotel to the stadium, and the team has adopted this lot — taking turns to feed the litter. Sardar Singh (former India captain and Soorma mentor) and Wegnez, in particular, have gone above and beyond to look after them,” Kunaal Majgaonkar, who heads Soorma’s media team, said. “Sardar has got them little beds, clothes and food. There isn’t much to do around Rourkela and these puppies have become the best possible draction for the team,” he said.Story continues below this ad
Wegnez, in one of his posts, thanked Sardar for adopting one of the puppies. “My little boy will grow in a lovely family thanks to Sardar,” he wrote in the post, which also included a video of Australia’s Jeremy Hayward trying out panipuri — and seemingly finding it not too spicy.
The players at Soorma also watched the Border Gavaskar Trophy together. “The boys were following the India-Australia Tests, and there were a few Europeans who had no idea about the game. They were constantly asking the Indian players about the rules, and they found it very intriguing. So, on their off-day, they all got together and played cricket,” Majgaonkar said.
A video of a cricket match on Soorma’s Instagram shows captain Harmanpreet Singh teasing a teammate about his bowling, and the team’s head coach Jeroen Baart from the Netherlands trying to play a hook shot, among other such moments.
Cricket is also a big part of the off-day activities for Hyderabad Toofans, one of the teams that will compete in Friday’s semifinals, team director Siddharth Pandey said. “Every 10 days, we looked at doing something fun,” Pandey said. “Our first was a Chrmas party where we asked the players to play some games. On December 31st night, we had a New Year’s party where we had games again. On January 6, we booked a cricket ground and took the whole team there to play a match,” he said.

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They took it a step further a week later. After the Toofans played the Kalinga Lancers, the team was given three days off. “So, the foreign players went to play golf in Bengaluru. Some of the Indians went to Puri, to the Jagannath temple, while some went to Ranchi; I went bowling,” Pandey said.
Toofans’ defender Arthur de Sloover even tried his hand at making rotis. “The Belgians have immersed themselves. Not just Arthur in our team, but even Victor and Vincent Vanasch from Soorma HC. They have got along so well with everyone here,” Pandey said.
The Tamil Nadu Dragons, which has also reached the semifinals, made the short trip to Ranchi — the venue for women’s HIL, where the men’s franchises played a match each — and took time off to visit the hockey academy in Simdega. The drict is home to some of India’s top women players, including Sangita Kumari, Beauty Dungdung and captain Salima Tete.
A B Subbaiah, former India goalkeeper and Kalinga Lancers team manager, said Hockey India could consider adding more venues from next season so that players can unwind in larger cities.Story continues below this ad
“We played some cricket and football outside the hotel as team-building activities. The city is small, so options were limited,” Subbaiah told The Indian Express. “There are two malls where we occasionally went out with Indian players, but bigger cities offer more activities like bowling or golf. Holding the league in one place for such a long time felt a bit tiresome.”
Subbaiah said while the players tried to make the best out of the situation, playing cards the pool at the team hotel, video games and so on, there was feedback that the league could be condensed a bit because there were too many breaks between matches.
While playing a five-week league in Rourkela may not have been ideal, as Wegnez put it, some of the overseas players lived “the Indian experience 100 per cent”.

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