STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Rail Coach Factory Kapurthala defeated Punjab Police by 3-1 goals via plenty shootout in the final and lifted the trophy of Sarbat Da Bhalla National level Invitational Hockey Tournament organized by Sikh Progressive Front at K.K Hakku Stadium, here.
The tournament was dedicated to the 555th Birth Anniversary of Sri Guru Nanak Dev.
In the final, both teams played very attractive hockey with excellent skills and well organised moves. In the most thrilling encounter RCF and Punjab Police scored three goals each in the full time of the match and the match was decided via shoot out where RCF scored three goals against solitary goal by the Punjab Police.
Sanjay Kumar of RCF played excellently and was adjudged as Man of the Match whereas Ramandeep Singh, Olympian of Punjab Police declared Player of the Tournament .
Bhupinder Kumar, Secretary to Government PWD, was the Chief Guest while Sekar Manoharan, Treasurer of Hockey India was the Special Guest of the event and Ansuya Jamwal Additional DC (Law and Order) along Mohd Ashraf JKAS were the Guests of Honour.
Bhupinder Kumar, while addressing the gathering, appreciated the efforts of Sikh Progressive Front for organising such a mega event involving international/Olympions and top most teams of the country.
He also stressed upon the organisers to make it a regular process organizing out door sport events with the active involvement of government authorities.
Sekar Manoharan also lauded the role of SPF for conducting such a memorable tournament and assured the full cooperation from their side for the promotion of Hockey at gross root level.
Ansuya Jamwal called upon the budding players to come in the field and leave bad habit of video games.
The tournament was supervised by the official of hockey India and assisted by Satvir Singh Satti Vetran Hockey Player, Anjali coach of KIC, Baljit Coach, Soniya and Jagjit Singh and D Singh Hockey Coach, Coach Sports Council.
Balvinder Singh, President SPF thanked the dignitaries and all others including hockey lovers/spectators, participating Teams, Officials of Hockey India, above all J&K Sports Council for extending unimaginable support for the smooth conduct of the tournament.
He assured the public that SPF will make every effort to organize such event in the future also for the revival of hockey in JKUT.
Manjit Singh, Organizing Secretary and Rajinder Singh Soodan jointly welcomed the Chief Guest and Guests of Honour. They also thanked Satnam Singh of IK Bani Channel, Beant Singh of Hond Digital Media and Nav Bharat and others for the regular cooperation in telecasting live coverage of matches. P.P Singh played the role of commentator throughout the tournament.
In the closing ceremony the Chief Guest gave away the prizes to the winning team with an award of Rs 51000 cash prize for winner and Rs 31000 to the runners up, besides the individual prizes to the players of the participating teams, Umpires. Cash prize money of Rs 51000 for winning team was sponsored by Pawaljeet Singh MD of P&R Construction, and Rs 31000 for runners up by Jarnail Singh MD Peaks auto Ltd.
