At the recent Malaysia Games (Sukma), Negeri Sembilan did not field a team in the men’s hockey competition, failing young talent.
The move has been met with anger by the hockey fraternity including former national and state players, who have called for an overhaul of a broken system.
Some have labelled the non-participation at Sukma as “disaster” for hockey in Negeri Sembilan where there isn’t even a state hockey league.
The decision not to send a team was apparently due to the slim chance of Negeri Sembilan winning a medal. The girls were sent but they weren’t on the podium.
The snub effectively blew away the primary aim of Sukma to elevate the quality of sports and the development of under-21 athletes.
It followed serious failings to develop hockey in the state that decades ago parcelled the whole package to remain a powerhouse.
Negeri Sembilan Hockey Association (NSHA) secretary Tamil Selvan Ponniah went silent when asked why the state was not represented in the men’s tournament at Sukma. His silence could imply embarrassment.
Was it the state sports council (MSN) or NSHA that decided not to field a men’s team for Sukma?
Perhaps, Tamil Selvan is embarrassed that the president of NSHA, Aminuddin Harun, who is the menteri besar, could do nothing about it or chose not to do anything.
This is a state that gives scant opportunities to the players who come through, while waving their wallets to likelier lads from other states.
At the national junior hockey league last June, the NSHA, desperate to win the division two men’s team title, had more than 10 paid players and a coach from outside the state.
That’s not development, that’s stooping low to win a title, which didn’t happen.
It’s not development if you can’t even run a state hockey league. The excuse that there is no pitch is pathetic because there are turfs at Seremban 2, Za’ba sports school in Kuala Pilah, Sendayan Air Force base and Epsom College in Nilai.
If there were development programmes and opportunities to play for the state, homegrown players wouldn’t have opted to play for rival teams in national competitions.
It’s not that there aren’t talented boys. There are players from the under 18, 16, 14 and 12 squads that performed well in national age group championships in recent years.
Then, there was Seremban’s community-funded Road to Success (R2S) hockey club that finished third overall in the national junior league division two after running teams off the park, playing with pride and a snarl on their face.
The dream of these youngsters is to feature at Sukma, go on to play for the senior team and to become a Speedy Tiger.
Medal chasers and apathy
Coming amid all the noise about growing sport at grassroots level and expanding community sporting provisions, the Sukma fiasco risks seeing Negeri Sembilan hockey facing abyss and causing broader concerns of the young becoming less active.
If you send your child to a school, you expect the school to give them every opportunity to develop their talent. It is their moral responsibility.
Sport also has that same responsibility. Lack of opportunity is a grave problem, which can affect the young long term, and is already affecting the senior Negeri Sembilan team.
To focus on Sukma just for the sake of medals is to miss the point. Why limit results to medals when you could also have safer, happier communities, more confident, successful young people and all-round better health?
The government is talking about how it wants to structure the curriculum in schools, but that’s not really going to work with kids who don’t get the opportunity to participate in events like Sukma when there’s a chance for a medal and to increase sporting achievement.
Do we only look for elite athletes and coaches and nothing more than that? Do we see it as more about collecting medals than looking out for where young people are going with their lives?
What is not tackled is the people who aren’t sporty, who aren’t active.
The situation is now so stark that there must be worry over whether the NSHA can rally demoralised young hockey players to the point where they can shine, or even play hockey again.
It is a case of a flawed system at its worst, and cries out for reform, from top to bottom.
Now you know why people are angry and laughing at Negeri Sembilan hockey. Now you know who has kicked it to near death.
NS has promising hockey players like these boys from Seremban’s community-funded R2S Hockey Club who finished third overall in the national junior league’s division two last June.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.