By Harmanpreet Singh, Jersey No.1

The mercury has begun to soar in Bengaluru, which otherwise offers great weather round-the-year making the Sports Authority of India Campus here a perfect haven for hockey training. With most of the National Camps organized here, Bengaluru has become our second home. About 10 kms away from the heart of the city — MG Road, we are at a safe distance from the ‘attractions’ or call them ‘distractions’ with our greatest means of entertainment being the Play Station.

Hockey is our mainstay but you haven’t seen us play football on our PS4. We can kick some serious butt and often it is Korean a.k.a Manpreet Singh at the receiving end. But there’s another sport I enjoy a great deal – playing Pool on our off days. There’s a Mall near-by where Lalli (Mandeep Singh), Pindi (Parvinder Singh) and I play a few rounds of Pool/ Snooker. The rule is simple – the one who loses pays for the next round and needless-to-say, I almost always play for free.

While these musings are for days we are not training, with the Team now announced for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games the focus and energy every training session demands have intensified. With the Chief Coach back from the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup the sessions have gotten harder. Tuesday morning was one such session where we had to give it all. It was quite a grind and we were left half dead by the end of it. Evening session was relatively easy as we hit the gym, with some of my favourite numbers playing at the back – it’s always relaxing even though Robin Arkell (our Scientific Advisor is keeping a count on reps and pushing us hard to go for that one extra dead lift).

It is pretty awesome to have Chris Ciriello in the camp with us. Yes, he brings tons of awe-inspiring experience with him as well as that Aussie-aggression which emphasizes on bringing energy to everything we do. Sjoerd is a lot like that too, so it makes it two of them constantly pushing us to get the best out of us. There’s, however, something else that Chris brings to the team — insane punishment ideas for those who lose on that ‘particular day’ when we play matches. Pushups, side-rolls …. are just teasers. What we had to do as the losing team today was worse — after 20 push-ups, we had to walk on our hands (with the help of our teammate, of course) followed by each of us carrying our teammates for a couple of metres! (You can see in the photos). This drills make me hate losing more than ever.

Camps are not always this gruelling. Last week we got to attend Sunil bhai’s wedding reception in Coorg. Though I don’t like being on the road for long-hours, the scenic drive up to Coorg (which is five hours from Bengaluru) along with teammates was fun. We got to relish authentic Coorg cuisine, learnt the traditional Coorgi dance while we taught the rest of the guests how to bhangra – it was a complete blast. It was more like a team bonding activity. Since this was in Coorg – there was plenty of hockey-talk too (the Coorgs absolutely love hockey and they love the Indian Hockey Team too). It is always encouraging to meet people who follow our game.

A week since that joyful occasion, we are back to business, focused on our mission – Commonwealth Games. We have chalked out a plan with each of us knowing exactly what we need to execute as per our role demands. We have a great team of support staff and they are working on individual players to address certain areas that we can each improve. For me, it is my first Commonwealth Games and I certainly want to make it special. To stand on the podium and hear the national anthem play has been a childhood dream but to make that possible, we have Pakistan, Wales, England and Malaysia to beat in the Pool Stage first and the make the Semis. Like Chief Coach says, ‘focus on yourself first and not the opponent’ we are prepared for the first of many challenges in 2018!

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