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| Winter sports gaining popularity in Ladakh | | | M Ramzan Khan
EARLY TIMES REPORT
Leh, Dec 22: Thousands of tourists every year pay visit to Leh during June to September and enjoy the natural beauty of Ladakh in summer season only. But most of the tourists do not know the other face of Ladakh i.e. its winter season’s adventures. Although the life in Leh during winter becomes tough but the sporting adventures associated with it make the life in Leh more graceful and live able.
Ladakh which is more known for its natural beauty and different historical and spiritual places like monasteries and Stupas is now a days making a mark in the field of winter sport. The games associated with winter sports including Ice Hockey and Ice Skating which is played at local level with local equipments is now getting an international appearance.
The Ladakh Winter Sport Club in Leh is playing a pivotal role in promoting these game in Ladakh. It was in the year 1995 that few positive minded youth of Ladakh formed ‘Ladakh Winter Sport Club’ to promote the game of Ice Hockey and Ice Skating in Ladakh. As of now the Club has many national and international players. The club is also sponsoring hundreds of new talented youth from different parts of Ladakh and gets them trained from different reputed national and international institutions. Since 1995, the ‘Ladakh Winter Sport Club’ has organized numbers of tournaments in Leh and sent their players to several international events. The club has sent many youth to Finland, Malaysia, China, Taiwan and USA.
Recently two girls have been sent to Finland for Ice hockey coaching. Two others females were sent by the club to Malaysia to attend Ice Hockey training programme and Women Ice hockey development programme. Eight skaters consisting of five girls and three boys were also sent to Poland by the club in collaboration with Ice Skating Association of India, recently to seek training in long track speed skating. The club’s achievement could be gauged from the fact that its players have won many medals at national as well as international events which include eights Golds, ten Silver and nine Bronze medals since its formation in 1995.
Apart from winning medals, the club successfully made to recognize the game by Sports Council of India and for the first time an Indian Ice hockey team represented in the international tournament of ‘Asian Challenge Cup’ held at Abu Dhabi in 2008. Most of the players who represented the country at Abu Dhabi were from Ladakh and also in the coming 7th South Asian Federation Winter Games, which is going to be held from January 13 to February 6, 2011 at Kazakhstan, all the players are from Ladakh. So it is a very significant achievement for Ladakh that it is representing India solely in many international events.
Coming to home again the ‘Ladakh Winter Sport Club’ is organizing many tournaments and events in Leh itself which includes ‘Winter Tourism Promotion Cup’ in which this year approx. seventy Canadian players will take part in the tournament, Inter Club under 19 ice Hockey tournaments from January 23 to January 26. Apart from these tournaments the Club has organized ‘National Ice-hockey Championship’ thrice, CM cup five times which is now abandoned, CEC cup, inter-club cup and Indo-Canadian Cup. Unfortunately many cups has to be abandoned due to apathetic attitude of government authorities, but still the club is successfully organizing many tournaments and also running coaching camps for young players. “ we are getting number of invitations from various international organization for participation in different international levels camps /competition but unfortunately we are unable to sent the athletes in all those events regularly due to unavailability of sponsored from private as well as from government sources despite the fact we have best athletes as well as ice hockey players in these two categories of winter sports i.e. ice skating and ice hockey” general secretary of Club Bashir Banday said.
Well the History of Ice hockey in Ladakh dates back to the early 70’s when the Ladakh Scout’s battalion of the Indian army who were posted in the high border regions took up the game. The high Changthang Plateau with its frozen streams and high altitude lakes formed an ideal place to play ice hockey and since then the sport spread amongst the army and continued to be played by them. The games however gained popularity when they began to play exhibition matches in Leh in the winter.
Since then the game every year is being played in an irrigation pound in Karzoo Leh. With the passage of time the game began gaining popularity but due to the proper equipments and facilities the game could not attain the desired heights. Two Chinese brothers used to make ice skates blades in Shimla from where the local Ladakhi brought that blades and fixed them on Army boots. Those ice skates boots were still in use. As the game gained popularity, the localities and villages in Leh started forming clubs and new equipments were also brought from abroad. Distant regions like Kargil, the high Changthang Plateaus and others areas start taking part in the games.
With the flagging off of training session of winter sports which includes ice hockey and ice skating here today in Leh by the president of Ladakh Winter Sports Club, the three months hectic Ice hockey and ice skating sport session has begun.
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