MIFA president T. Indran said they started by fielding a team in the last Junior Hockey League, and hope to play a bigger role in promoting hockey among the Indians in the country.
"We fielded MISCF-UFL in Division Two of the recent JHL with 18 Indian boys and even though the results were not encouraging, its a first step towards helping Indian players get back into the top level of hockey," said Indran.
The team, from Mentakab, finished seventh out of eight teams in Group B of the JHL
MIFA, with Malaysian Indian Sports Council, have a team in the FAM League are are currently second in Group A.
"Over the years Indian players, which include Punjabis, have slowly moved away from Soccer and hockey and if nothing is done, the community will be in the losing end," said Indran.
Currently, only Baljit Singh and S. Kumar are in the national seniors team, while no Indians are in the junior side.
"The players need to be given more chances to play, like we did in the JHL. Even though the team only won one and drew one in seven matches, they received invaluable exposure in the JHL," said Indran.
Towards that, MIFA will also work with Selangor to train an Under-18 team for the Sukan India Malaysia (Sukim) carnival in Negri Sembilan on July 14-17.
"Seven sports will be held during the Sukim in Negri, and we will be helping Selangor to form a hockey team. It is a small step, but hopefully in the long run, there will be more Indian players playing hockey for the country,' said Indran.
Selangor hockey held an open selection last weekend under coach K. Ravi, were 18 hopefuls were selected for Sukim.
