KLHC get boost ahead of new season

DOUBLE champions Kuala Lumpur Hockey Club will have five new faces when they start the defence of their Malaysia Hockey League (MHL) titles when the tournament starts on Sept 17.
Nine teams will play in the Premier Division and Division One with five teams doing battle for honours and a single slot for the TNB Cup, which is the knockout stage.
The Premier Division teams are KL Hockey Club, Sapura, Tenaga Nasional,Maybank, UniKL, Yayasan Negri Sembilan, Nur Insafi Penang, Armed Forces and UiTM.
The five teams in Division One are Bukit Jalil Sports School, Ipoh City Council, SSTMI-Thunderbolt, Uniten and Unimap.
The league starts with a Charity Shield match between defending champions KLHC and TNB. All the Premier Division matches will be played at the refurbished National Hockey Stadium. It will be a single round league with Oct 9 the last day of league matches.
Teams in Division One will play home and away with matches in Alor Star, Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur.
The KLHC five players who have either quit playing or moved to other teams are Megat Azrafiq Megat Termizi (Sapura), Noor Faez (UniKL), Khairul Nizam (Sapura), Hairulnizam Maizan and Mohamed Suffian, who has been elevated to the post of assistant coach for KLHA.
And their replacements are Ahmad Kazamirul, who played for Sapura last season, Mohd Syamim (UniKL), Mohd Fitri Saari and Mohd Harfizi, who kept goal for Yayasan Negri Sembilan last year.
KLHC's current internationals are Shahrun Nabil, Fitri Saari, Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin, Azlan Misron, Nabil Fiqri, Roslan Jamaluddin, Shukri Mutalib and Kelvinder Singh.
And KLHC's ex-internationals, some who are still good enough to play in the current national side, are Chua Boon Huat, Ismail Abu, Harvinder Singh and Ahmad Kazamirul.
"Defending titles is always difficult as our opponents will always play a notch higher when up against us. But I am confident my charges will be able to withstand the pressure," said KLHC team manager George Koshy.

Malaysia 2 India 2

MALAYSIA blew a golden opportunity when they were held to a 2-2 draw by India in the Asian Champions Trophy in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, yesterday.
The draw put paid to their No 2 ranking in Asia, and now they will be struggling to play in the third-fourth bracket.
Their next opponent tomorrow is Japan, who have been impressive in this tournament, and yesterday they beat China 3-1 for seven points and are now No 3 on the standings.
In another match, Pakistan beat South Korea 3-2 to top the stndings on nine points.
Malaysia went down to a Ravi Pal field goal in the ninth minute, but a penalty corner deflection by Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin in the 24th minute drew the match level again.
And then Amin Rahim gave Malaysia the lead with a penalty corner flick in the 32nd minute and Malaysia went into the breather looking good.
The start also saw Malaysia domination as they won four consecurtive penalty corners but failed the increase the lead.
The last 20 minutes saw free flowing hockey and Danish Mujtaba masde it count in the 52nd minute and India remain unbeaten in this tournament and have eight points.
India's last match is against Pakistan tomorrow.
Malaysian team manager Stephan van Huizen said they were plain unlucky: "Two Malaysian goals were disallowed by the umpire in the second half, if not we could have collected full points and be in the running for the bronze playoff.
"We also missed the golden chance two minutes from time as Faizal Saari's attempt hit the post," said Stephen.
Malaysia played five friendly matches against Japan in Bukit Jalil last month and the series ended on level terms.
RESULTS: Malaysia 2 India 2, China 1 Japan 3, South Korea 2 Pakistan 3.
TODAY: REST DAY.
TOMORROW: India v Pakistan, South Korea v China, Japan v Malaysia.
P W D L F A PTS
PAKISTAN 4 3 0 1 11 8 9
INDIA 4 2 2 0 13 6 8
JAPAN 4 2 1 1 9 6 7
S KOREA 4 2 0 2 12 13 6
MALAYSIA 4 1 1 2 11 11 4
CHINA 4 0 0 4 4 16 0

Finally, Malaysia win three points..

MALAYSIA finally found their winning touch when they beat hosts China in the Asian Champions Trophy in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, yesterday.
Now, they will have to continue the momentum against India today and Japan in the final round-robbin match to finish among the top-three in the inaugural tournament.
Malaysia, who lost 3-2 to Pakistan and 4-3 to South Korea in the earlier matches, scored off Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin (seventh), Amin Rahim (23rd), Izwan Firdaus (53rd) and Faizal Saari (60th).
The China goals were scored by Liu Yi Xian in the 29th and 35th minutes.
In the other matches yesterday, Japan shocked Pakistan 3-1 while India beat South Korea 5-3 to open up the tournament.
Malaysian team managere Stephen van Huizen said: "There are no two ways about it now, we have to beat India tomorrow (today) to stay in the hunt to finish among the top-four. Against China, the team played much better and now they must put the two defeats behind them and look foward."
Japan are the revelation of the tournament, as they held India 1-1 and then beat Pakistan yesterday.
Meanwhile, the International Hockey Federation (FIH) confirmed yesterday that they have yanked the Champions Trophy from India because of internal conflicts involving two hockey bodies there.
"We regret that we have to move the Champions Trophy from India. It is difficult for the teams, the organisers and the fans. But we feel that this is the only way to maintain the integrity of our sport," said FIH President Leandro Negre.
It is believed that the Champions Challenge will now be held in New Zealand on Dec 3-1, as the FIH have offered India to play in the Champions Challenge I in South Africa on Nov 26 - Dec 4.
Currently, the teams in the Champions Challenge I are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Poland and South Africa.
RESULTS: China 2 Malaysia 4, Japan 3 Pakistan 1, India 5 South Korea 3.
TODAY: Malaysia v India, China v Japan, South Korea v Pakistan.

P W D L F A PTS
INDIA 3 2 1 0 11 4 7
PAKISTAN 3 2 0 1 8 6 6
S KOREA 3 2 0 1 10 10 6
JAPAN 3 1 1 1 6 5 4
MALAYSIA 3 1 0 2 9 9 3
CHINA 3 0 0 3 3 13 0

Pain in the plains of Inner Mongolia

COMMENT By Jugjet Singh

ORDOS, a city which once witnessed the might of Genghis Khan, is fast turning into a painful spectacle for hockey.
The inaugural men's and second women's Asian Champions Trophy is going on in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, as you read this column.
But if you are looking for instant results from the Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) website, www.asiahockey.org, don't bother.
The AHF, which finally came to its senses and organised a tournament which is 20 years overdue, might need another 20 years to realise that it needs to market the tournament and make results available on its comatose website.
The AHF website proudly proclaims with a screaming headline 'Spectacle in Ordos' and the first paragraph reads: "The city of Ordos is set to be the centre of Asian hockey for the next two weeks, when it hosts the 1st Men's and 2nd Women's Asian Champions Trophy. One of the 12 major subdivisions of Inner Mongolia China, the city is reputed to be the birthplace of hockey in China."
And at the end of the four-paragraph story, you can find the match schedule but it has not been updated since, even though two days of exciting hockey has been played.
Compare it with the efforts from European continent, who not only market their Euro Hockey League (EHL), and are becoming stronger by playing among themselves, but also get solid support from the International Hockey Federation (FIH) to spread the news via instant results and also prominent space on the FIH homepage.
And the tournament organised by their most important partner, Asia, does not even get a passing mention on the FIH mouthpiece, so forget about sourcing for results there.
Sadly, the only place one can get Malaysian and other match results in Ordos instantly is on some privately run blogs.
Asia has always received the raw end of the deal from FIH, as AHF president Sultan Azlan Shah and secretary general Tan Sri P. Alagendra struggle to promote the sport in the region.
Organising a tournament alone is not enough, but it needs to be milked to the maximum to attract sponsors, which in turn will beam the matches live to our living rooms, and money for AHF to further help their member countries.
India and Pakistan are Asia's drawcards as they lure huge crowds to the stadiums, and television rights are easy to sell when these two teams play in a tournament.
This fact is recognised by the FIH which gladly let India host the last world World Cup, and this year's Champions Trophy and one leg of the Olympic Qualifier as well as the Junior World Cup next year.
India also hosted the Commonwealth Games, where excellent hockey is played, and it was widely followed on the idiot box.
However, the FIH is regretting its decisions to milk the hockey market in India, as two rival bodies are at loggerheads and can't seem to come to a compromise.
The FIH has taken back the Champions Trophy and handed it to New Zealand, which will further deprive an Asian team of playing in a high level tournament.
But since the AHF is not bothered with the welfare or progress of its member countries, the FIH can't be bothered as well and so the inaugural men's Asian Champions Trophy does not offer any ranking points.
And with no proper marketing and publicity on its prized tournament, the AHF supremos are still living in an ancient era where informative websites, Facebook and Twitter were yet to be invented or designed.
Sadly, the Malaysian Hockey Federation also lives in the same era as AHF, as its website (http://www.malaysiahockey.com.my/) was last updated during the Razak Cup at the end of July.
The Malaysian team have found themselves a gazing stock in Ordos, having lost 3-2 to Pakistan and 4-3 to South Korea and more misery is in store as they face China, India and Japan in their remaining fixtures.

Malaysia 3 South Korea 4

ASIAN CHAMPIONS TROPHY -- DAY 2 RESULTS: Japan 1 India 1, South Korea 4 Malaysia 3, Pakistan 4 China 1.
TOMORROW: REST DAY.
TUESDAY: China v Malaysia, Japan v Pakistan, India v South Korea.

MALAYSIA went crashing to their second defeat in the Asian Champions Trophy when they lost 4-3 to South Korea in Ordos, inner Mongolia, yesterday.
After losing 3-2 to Pakistan in the opening match, it looks like the national players will be in for another torrid time when they play China on Tuesday.
Yesterday, Malaysia were tied 2-2 with the Koreans, when they decided to press hard, and let in two counter-attack goals instead.
The Malaysian scorers were Izwan Firdaus, two field goals, and Amin Rahim off a penalty corner attempt.
“It was level at 2-2 when we decided to go for broke and pressed hard. However, two quick goals off long balls killed our match,” said team manager Stephen van Huizen.
In another match, India were held 1-1 by Japan, to bring them down to earth after their thumping 5-0 win over China on Saturday.

P W D L F A PTS
PAKISTAN 2 2 0 0 7 3 6
S KOREA 2 2 0 0 7 5 6
INDIA 2 1 1 0 6 1 4
JAPAN 2 0 1 1 3 4 1
MALAYSIA 2 0 0 2 5 7 0
CHINA 2 0 0 2 1 9 0