Looking back at his hockey-playing days, Olympian Hasan Sardar has stories to tell that`ll quicken your pulse and make you want to hold your head high.

He has recently replaced Islahuddin Siddiqui as chief selector after a major Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) makeover occurred following the Beijing Olympics disaster. With four World Cups, three Olympic gold medals, an equal number of Champions Trophy titles and three Asia Cups, we were the hockey champions once.

With relations between Pakistan and India strained once again, after the Mumbai terror attacks, the greatest centre-forward Pakistan ever produced reflects on the 1982 Hockey World Cup that was hosted in Mumbai where his individual scored amounted to 11 goals.

The same year Pakistan beat India by 7-1 in the Asiad in New Delhi. “I remember us giving India the worst drubbing in front of a massive crowd, which also included their then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. When the score was 5-1, she got up and left,” laughs Hasan at the memory, reminiscing of a time when the neighbours took on each other on the field.

The highest scorer of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, where Pakistan last won the Olympic gold, has not yet lost all hope. “We`ll be top of the world again,” he says, “You`ll see ...”

“The future of Pakistan hockey is just like scoring off penalty corners. Let`s see how many opportunities we can covert to our advantage,” says Hasan Sardar.

But despite what he says, I see dilapidated stadiums, tired, bored-to-death players making halfhearted attempts in the ground ahead of me. The second semifinal in the Junior Hockey Cup was to begin soon and Hasan together with his entire selection committee was present on the ground like they were for each and every pool match in the hope of spotting fresh talent.

On my way out, I pass by a dark, lanky player who has remained in the junior Under-21 side for more years than Hasan`s entire professional career. I ask the legend to celebrate the guy`s birthday or something in order for him to realise that he is even older for the senior team, leave alone the junior one. And Hasan nods with a knowing smile.

Later that very player, a fullback in one of the departmental teams, easily converts a penalty corner. We need that. With hardly any fresh talent emerging from any corner of the country, we have no choice but to play with aging players in order to just preserve the teams.

The PHF says that it is just a matter of four or five years when the saplings being planted by them would grow into fruit-bearing trees. I have said it repeatedly in these columns that they are, no doubt, on the right path. But they really need support from their affiliated units  for some good to happen. The dormant units have all been given a nudge but that should not be just to shift the burden of blame. A lot of goodwill is needed here.

The PHF wants to inspire and motivate the young so that they take interest in the national sport and for that they had said that each and every junior and senior domestic and international match would now be televised, yet only two festival matches could be aired.

The recently-concluded Junior Cup was not televised. But then the fact about who would have wanted to watch it also remains.

Yes, playing for departments provides the players with incentives in the form of regular jobs etc, but does it generate excitement among the general public?

Regional tournaments would do much better here. But as seen in the matches where departmental teams thrashed regional teams by as many as a dozen goals, banks and airlines have far better players. The moment a regional team player makes his mark, he is picked up by a department. Sitting in the stands, I definitely don`t want to cheer for my bank or the airline I last travelled by. I would rather cheer for my city or province. So I don`t think that our youth would be inspired by inter-departmental tournaments. That is one mark stricken off departmental hockey.

Playing with other countries would have brought back some of the excitement but even that doesn`t happen so often now. And with us out of so many major international hockey events, including the Champions Trophy, there aren`t many tournaments left to feature in. Though there are the qualifiers of course.

The PHF will have to rely on their plan to set up hockey academies at school level to bring in fresh blood. For that the Dutch hockey consultant Wouter Tazelaar, who was in Pakistan recently to get an idea of the hockey scene here, has expressed interest in helping Pakistan hockey at the grassroots.

After signing a two-year contract with the PHF, binding him to spend 210 days of a year in Pakistan, the consultant is expected to come here again in the first week of January for a month-long visit initially to meet the coaches of our 11 hockey academies as well as visit the centres. So school and academy hockey is in safe hands for now.

Women`s hockey, which the former PHF president Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had pretty much forgotten about until the gutsy players came out on the roads to protest their continuously cancelled trips a few days before he stepped down, is being treated better too, if only to show that the current administration is better than the formal. The Pakistan women`s junior hockey team was allowed to participate in the 5th Junior Asia Cup this month.

Another major setback for hockey in the subcontinent happens to be the break in the Pakistan-India hockey series. The PHF tried to revive it by inviting the junior hockey team to Pakistan in November but we all know what happened to that tournament after India`s growing security concerns and that too at the 11th hour. Still, it is good to know that things said in anger at the time by the PHF`s top brass about never trusting their neighbours for anything ever again were all forgotten during the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Congress meeting in Los Angeles last month.

The PHF`s three-member delegation comprising President Qasim Zia, Secretary Asif Bajwa and member selection committee Rana Mujahid was able to hold positive talks with the Indian Hockey Federation`s (IHF) Aslam Sher Khan and Suresh Kalmadi. Both federations are in favour of carrying on with the game and Pakistan even has permission now from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to play in a four-nation tournament in Chandigarh and Jalandhar in Jan-Feb 2009. Maybe Im being too optimistic when I say this but hopefully things would blow over by then and we may actually play in India despite Bajwas outburst later on where he threatened to not send any team there for this or any other tournament. 

The PHF got the FIH`s approval for an eight-nation hockey tournament in memory of the slain former prime minister of Pakistan Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, which may be played within the country or at a neutral venue, depending on the situation at the time.

Still one of the best things for Pakistan hockey happened with the FIH getting a new president. Leandro Negre, who took charge from Els van Breda Vriesman after winning the election by a substantial margin, is a former European Hockey Federation president.

He has also represented his country, Spain, in the 1968 Olympics and while acknowledging our contribution to the world of hockey, Negre announced that he would make his first official tour to Pakistan. It is a 180-degrees stance from his predecessor, who had also raised doubts about security in Pakistan.

The FIH also assured of awarding world-level tournaments to Pakistan for which the PHF is organising the FIH Coaching and Umpiring Clinic from Dec 24.

So as one can see, it all seems to be going fine on the surface. The planning has been done and the opportunities are there. But the future of Pakistan hockey is just like scoring off penalty corners. Let`s see how many opportunities we can covert to our advantage.