Patterson's Sports Page

World Series Hockey has a signed a host of international players from Canada and South Africa.

The signed players are Clive Terwin, Geowynne Kyle Gamiet, Lungile Tsolekile & Shanyl Balwanth from South Africa; Adam Froese, Antoni Kindler, Iain Smythe, Mark Pearson, Ken Pereira, Richard Hildred & Sukhwinder Singh Gabbar from Canada.

The line up from the African and North American regions includes a current international captain and a set of players who have played close to 800 international matches amongst them.

Chowgule College, Margao and St. Xavier’s College, Mapusa won the Goa University inter Collegiate Hockey Championship 2011-12 for men and women respectively. In the closely contested encounter the scores were goalless at half time . In the second half Kamal Minz’s field goal in the 38^th minute of the match gave Chowgule the Men Championship.

In the women section it was Rosary who played well in the first half to hold Xavier’s goalless till half time.

During my working days at Prudent Media (Goa), one thing I cherished the most was reporting the university sports tournaments. Some of the biggies in the field of journalism may laugh at me when I say this. But its true.

The Goa University's sports department headed by Mr. Milton Fernandes have been doing a great job in encouraging sports at the college level. Name a sport and they have a tournament in that discipline and what transcribes is a display of sheer talent, energy and zeal to win.

Backed by my sports editor Mr. Niraj Prabhu then, I always made it a point to cover the university tournaments. I use to be the only pressman there, witnessing the competitions first hand. The other media organizations depended on the press release sent by the university and yet some newspapers would not carry the news. Sad, but that was the situation. Now that I am in Mangalore, I am not aware of the situation at present.

All that the youth need is encouragement and motivation; something that can keep then going. As responsible members of the media, this has to be taken into account. Over a year now I have been constantly receiving press releases from the Goa University's sports department. Feeling helpless, I just wondered if I could be there and cover the sports events. But its not possible now. However, I still want to play my part. How?

Euphoria!!! Wow! What more can I say.

13 years since they began the journey and their songs still remain at the tip of the tongues of their fans. I was one among the fortunate 25,000 people to witness the exuberant band perform at the Mangala stadium in Mangalore. The Delhi-based band entertained the crowd right from the start to end.

I'm not born with a knack for music but I judge a musician based on the impact made on the audience. And what Euphoria did was bigger than a complicated word called 'impact.' The entire youth present at the venue couldn't resist tapping their feet.

Led by vocalist Dr. Palash Sen, Euphoria performed a thousand times better than the previous day's performers Colonial Cousins. I fully take the risk of making that statement.



Not only did the songs jump from Hindi to English but also Kannada, Tulu and even Konkani. That precisely shows that Euphoria had done its homework well. I pretty much expected the Kannada touch but I never knew that Konkani was coming. And when it came I couldn't stop from getting off my chair. The area for the press was full of youngsters dancing. The media persons to didn't mind shaking a leg.

Euphoria also gave us the opportunity to listen to the songs of their new album 'Item'. It promises to be a great one just like their show in Mangalore was.

Jan 14, 2012 will surely be remembered by Mangaloreans for the awesomely wonderful performance by Euphoria.