Most sports stories are about the players. This one is about the people who make the players possible — the coaches who run the drills and the officials who blow the whistle. From July 18 to 20, Jammu's MA Stadium hosted a three-day Hockey India state-level workshop on coaching and officiating, and for young hockey enthusiasts in the city it is a quiet but meaningful opening.
What happened at MA Stadium
The workshop was organised by Hockey Jammu and Kashmir and inaugurated by Bashir Ahmed, Divisional Sports Officer of the J&K Sports Council, who welcomed the initiative. Over three days, experts passed on technical knowledge to coaches, match officials and aspiring hockey professionals — the aim, in the organisers' words, being to "upgrade coaching and officiating standards through modern techniques and practical training."
The people leading the sessions gave it real weight. Coaching was handled by Piyush Kumar Dubey, a senior hockey coach with the Sports Authority of India who also serves as a High Performance Director with Hockey India. The officiating side was led by Manish Gaur, an officiating expert from Nagpur. Dr. Taran Singh, General Secretary of Hockey Jammu and Kashmir, welcomed the experts and stressed the importance of continuous technical development.
Why a coaching workshop is a youth story
It is easy to overlook an event like this because nobody wins a medal at the end of it. But for a young person in Jammu who loves the game, a workshop like this points to something important: you do not have to be a national-level player to build a life in sport.
Coaching and officiating are careers in their own right. A qualified coach can work with schools, academies and clubs; a trained umpire or technical official is needed at every tournament, from district meets to national championships. These are exactly the roles that a growing sports ecosystem runs short of — and they are far more accessible than a spot on the national team. Learning the modern methods now, early, is how a college student who plays for fun turns into a certified professional a few years down the line.
How the pathway actually works
Careers in coaching and officiating are built on certifications, not just talent. Sports bodies and federations run graded courses — entry-level and upward — that qualify you to coach or officiate at progressively higher levels, while institutions like the Sports Authority of India offer formal diploma routes for those who want to make it a full-time profession. A hands-on workshop like this one is often the first rung: it exposes you to current techniques, connects you with the people who run the sport locally, and shows you exactly what the next certification demands. For a teenager or college student in Jammu, that map is genuinely useful — it turns a vague love of the game into a concrete set of next steps. The best part is that you can start young: many officials and coaches begin by volunteering at local tournaments while they are still in college, quietly building experience and contacts long before they earn their first formal badge.
MA Stadium's steady rise
The venue matters too. MA Stadium has increasingly become the beating heart of organised sport in Jammu, hosting selection trials, championships and training camps across disciplines through the year. Each event held there does two things at once: it gives local athletes a stage, and it builds the everyday muscle — officials, volunteers, coaches, administrators — that any serious sporting city needs.
This comes at a time when Jammu and Kashmir is investing heavily in sport, with hundreds of sports-infrastructure projects at various stages across the Union Territory and a push to widen grassroots participation. Hockey in particular has deep roots in the region, and efforts to build a stronger talent pipeline have been gathering pace. But a pipeline needs more than talented teenagers with sticks; it needs adults who know how to train them properly and run their matches fairly. That is precisely the gap a workshop like this tries to close.
The takeaway for Jammu's players
If you play hockey in Jammu — or any sport, really — the lesson here is worth holding onto. The path in sport is not a single narrow road that ends the moment you stop competing. Coaching badges, officiating certifications and technical courses are real, respected routes that keep you in the game for the long haul, often while opening up steady work.
The three days at MA Stadium will not make headlines the way a tournament win would. But somewhere in that group of coaches and aspiring officials is the person who will train Jammu's next state-level player, or fairly officiate the match where a local teenager is first spotted — and that is a result worth celebrating, even without a medal ceremony to mark it.
Source: Daily Excelsior — Hockey India workshop begins in Jammu.
