We run the rule over the lucrative Hockey India League as the first dual gender tournament ends in Rourkela
Birsa Munda stadium still stands apart
It is still mind boggling how a city of 500,000 in a little known hockey outpost could build the world’s biggest – and best – hockey stadium. It took $31m to build the 21,000 capacity venue for the 2023 World Cup. But that’s the Odisha monopoly for you, with the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar also in its state armoury. After hosting the men’s HIL games and seeing a full house for the finals, Rourkela will do everything it can to keep the city as a venue if the competition does move across India.
Appeasing federations
The mass foreigner withdrawals after the HIL auction put an initial spanner in the works for several franchises, who frantically tried to patch up their squads. Some of the pull outs were down to players going for less than they hoped — franchise auction purses were limited hence some of the oddly fluctuating prices — while franchises have come up against club first, no nonsense Dutch and German federations as the biggest stumbling block.
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