HOCKEY -- 4 :: 

FORMER HOCKEY PLAYER AYYAPPAN MOTIVATES STUDENTS

BY P S SUNDAR

The budding hockey players of Gurukulam Matriculation School in Agalar village of Nilgiris benefited from a closer interaction with the former Indian National Hockey Player Lenn Ayyappan who visited the school. 

"Besides helping players with useful tips, he motivated more students to take up hockey as profession”, school Correspondent N Arjjunan told me.

Sharing his experience of playing for India in 2010 Asian Games and the many coaching thereafter, Ayyappan demonstrated on the best ways of wielding hockey stick for various functions like defence, penalty stroke, passing the ball and spinning.

“He witnessed our girls on play and appreciated their stick movement.   He has assured to visit again for direct field coaching.  This will be highly useful to our boys’ and girls’ teams as we are into hockey just for a year now.  We are keen on imparting professional training”, school Principal B Sureshkumar said.

“Ayyappan has honoured the school with a T-shirt bearing his autograph and message ‘Love Hockey’.  He has also motivated our students by signing on T-shirts for them”, Hockey coach Siva Sankar added.

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