Daily Times

LAHORE: The Dar Hockey Academy has been serving as the never ending reservoir of talent for Pakistan`s national teams. Currently, two national junior camps are in progress. A physical fitness training camp for the upcoming Junior Asia Cup Hockey Tournament, scheduled in Dhaka, Bangladesh in January 2021, is being held at the Army Physical Fitness School, Abbottabad. Only outfield players are attending this fitness camp. For goalkeepers, there is a separate camp at the National Hockey Stadium, Lahore where eight young net minders are being trained by Olympian goal keeper Nasir Ali. As many as nine boys of the Dar Hockey Academy are part of the two camps. Seven players at the physical conditioning camp in Abbotabad are Aqeel Ahmed, Usman Hanif, Hammad Anjum, Adeel Latif, Ali Aziz, Murtaza Yaqoob and Abdul Rahman. Two boys at the goalkeepers camp in Lahore are Waqar Younis and Awais Rasheed.

A couple of them have been called for the national junior camp for the first time. Some attended the junior camps before as well including a few who have played for the Pakistan junior teams. The Lahore-based Dar Academy scouts talent from all over the country. Apart from the Lahore boys, the above list includes players from Khanewal, Hafizabad, Chichawatni and Kot Radha Kishan. In addition to coaching and competition in Pakistan, the Dar Hockey Academy has made training tours of major European hockey countries, Holland (six times), Belgium (thrice) and Germany (thrice) as well as India (once) and Malaysia (once). All the academy boys in the camp have benefited from the recent tours abroad. Eight of them were members of the Dar Academy team on its last tour of Holland and Belgium in 2019. The Academy`s polished talent attracts country`s departmental teams. Four of these boys play for WAPDA, three for MPCL (Mari Petroleum Company Limited) and one for SNGPL (Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited).