LIVE AT THE HOSERDOME, FIELD HOCKEY STYLE

by Neate Sager, Out Of Left Field

Dhyan Chand must be spinning in his grave.

God only knows why this is so fascinating at this time of year, at this time of the evening, in this part of the world, but but India, which gave the world field hockey, failed to qualify for Beijing Summer Olympics, meaning they'll miss the Olympics for the first time in history.

This is what happens to a man when (a) he has way too much time on his hands and (b) becomes so obsessive over trying to cross-reference everything in existence. Field hockey is not normally on the radar screen. It's way out on the outer reaches of my very North American sporting consciousness, an obscure game played at suburban nouveau-riche high schools and upper-crust private schools by girls with names like Bronwyn and Fiona -- your basic Most Likely To Shun Sager types.

It actually seems like India's long slide down in field hockey it does parallel Canada's fall from grace in the other hockey a few decades ago. India's style of play, like Canadian hockey up until about the 1970s, emphasized individual play, stickhandling and ball control and outwitting your opponents. For a long time, we stubbornly refused to change and got our ass kicked for it by the Soviet Union.

In both cases, the damn Europeans came up with a a game "with emphasis on speed and combining with each other rather than play based on individual brilliance."

Chand, who's basically considered the best player ever when he led India to three Olympic golds in the 1920s and '30s (there might have been more if not for this thing calle d World War II), was also described as a "lightly-built hockey genius was a giant among players." Sound anything like Wayne Gretzky?

The similarities are odd, but not as odd as the guy who writes a post about a sport he's never a seen and a country he'll likely never visit. Still, it's good to know that sports hubris translates easily from one world to the other.

Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.