Men's Hockey World Cup 2023, T-1 Day

 The trip towards this Hockey Men's World Cup have been interesting yet and exciting one. 

From the sudden change of Covid Policy by the Indian authority on 29th December 22 to list various Asean Countries as 'High Risk' entrants where passengers from Singapore were listed as part of it, to the uncertainties of what to expect at an unfamiliar place (Rourkela) to play Hockey in a newly built stadium. Anxiety and some form of anxiousness was definitely on a high since before taking off from home. To top everything off, work demands have been constant and trying to juggle everything all at once is definitely not something i was quite looking forward to. 

Trip from SGP to BBI was smooth (1 hour delay of DEL - BBI is not unexpected) and the best decision i made so far was to upgrade my seat in Air Vistara from Economy to Premium Economy at a $100-odd bucks top up. Good start to the tournament i must say! 

1 night snooze at a good hotel in Bhubaneswar, Lemon Tree Premier, and exchanging all the pleasantry with colleagues and friends whom we have not met for sometime now due to Covid or just not appointed together in the past couple of years, off we go on a propeller plane to a new city within Odisha (India's best kept secret)towards the new purpose built Hockey Facility, Birsa Munda International Hockey Stadium at Rourkela for some Hockey action for the next 16 days. 

The accommodation we are at are dormitories built right beside the mega stadium where it will be converted to become a High Performance Centre for Indian National Men's and Women's team was what we were told. The bus ride here from the main and only commercial airport was 2 hours with Police and Army escort all the way where we beat some traffic and avoided some cows through the journey. 

No TV and bed as tough as nails is where we will be putting up for the next 10 days at least was what we are told for the officiating team appointed here. Internet and hot water is still a hit and miss. Temperature changes with a blink of eye and the cold wind blows. 

For this world cup one thing was for sure was that anything can happen in India as we were told the mega structure was built within 15 months and the many steel production factories here in Rourkela will remain shut for the period of the tournament. Amazing and mind blowing to be honest. The investment from the local government as a whole is just massive and kind of unimaginable in the context of any other nation in the world. To think that commercial interests can be put on hold to host Sports is just beyond my personal imagination where we know by now, dollars and cents rule the world. Top line, bottom line makes the world goes round in today's economy.  

 A last meeting and chat shortly plus visiting the stadium once more after my afternoon run on the pitch will be us now, preparing and being almost ready for the games tomorrow where 4 nations will be playing for their own glory. 

Stay tuned as we navigate towards the wonders of the upcoming World Cup. It will be absolutely memorable to say the least. 

Rio Day 2 - Uniform Collection

As excited as we are to collect our gears for the games, never would we ever expect to wait 6 long hours to get pieces of clothing, bags, shoes and bottle from the organizer.

Yes you heard me right! 6 hours was the total wait to get our uniform and opening ceremony suit. But what can we do but wait patiently till our numbers are called and wait again as we go into the fitting room to get fitted into our sizes and queue again as we check out our items in the uniform hyper-mart.

So in between the wait we went for a wander around the neighborhood and after getting 2 wrong directions pointed out to us and 1 failed attempt to buy beer from a fast food stall (they weren't allowed to sell...sadly) we managed to find a 'roadside stall', okay truthfully was a man on bicycle, selling drinks including beers, of course, doing his business. So we got a few Antarctica (Local Brazilian Beer) from him and happy as a bird we can be...

Beside him was a huge space where groups of people gathered to play musical instruments for what sounded more like a celebration rather than a performance. With our beer in hand, we just 'trespassed' and stood around with our cameras in hands and became a real tourist for the 1st time.

As I was about to leave the compound a lady tapped me on my shoulder and asked if we can do a we-fie with her and her mates. Of course I obliged! How can i say no to such friendly people. Just a happy bunch of people doing what they love, willingly accepting strangers who walked in a friends.
How awesome is that......

This is the best part of our uniform collection! Got back to Vila Verde past midnight and another early day tomorrow.

Good night world.

Rio Day 2 - Pre-Tournament Briefing

Waking up from what would be the best snooze of the 2016, I was greeted by my housemates Nathan and Christian both whom are big names in the Umpiring Circuit with a lot of experience to rely on during the tournament.

We are allocated 1 room each in the Technical Official Village aka Military Officers' Accommodation. It even comes with a nice name - Vila Verde.

 I must be honest the rooms aren't bad, livable and comes with a 1980's AC unit. There is a TV in each room but none in the living room, just 2 work table and a router for our internet which is one of the best i ever had in an  overseas tournament i must say. The TV set in our room you can see is really just done up for this event with the hole being punched in the wall and wires falling everywhere.
Well at least there is something to watch in the room.
A queen sized bed and 2 fluffy pillow with a blanket suited for winter I must say accommodation we really cannot complain at all.

Our breakfast is in a huge makeshift food hall with 1 buffet line of hams, cheese, many type of bread, fruit cocktail, and coffee / tea... Oh not forgetting the trays scrambled eggs (more like fried eggs being scrambled which is frequently topped up from the kitchen. I am very sure this will be the same for the next 20 odd days so I am going slow on the selection i have in front of me.
Didn't manage to grab a photo of this, still feeling the effect of the long flight. Trust me, this breakfast does remind me of my army days back home.

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So off we go as 1 team of Technical Officials, Men and Women all in one bus... loads of hugs and kisses.. many "Hi" and " Hello" for those whom we met for the 1st time but mostly excitement of seeing old mates / friends / colleagues again in other previous tournament! We have now all arrived in our sport's biggest stage - The Olympic Games.

What more can I ask for but to just do my best and paint the town red! This will be a great learning experience... I can't wait to jump into it.

At the briefings we were broken up into teams of 6 (3 Men 3 Women Umpires) to come up with our aims for the tournament and I got this crazy people to do our 'assignment'.

(Front Row)  Joobs, Melisa, Nathan, Michele 

(Back Row) Christian

Major focus for this game is mainly what we always talk about.
1. Protecting Skills (Sliding tackles by defenders and/or attackers)
2. Elimination of Crowding
3. Intentional running into 5 meters area to breakdown on Aerial being played by the initial receiver

After the discussions, we had time to take a walk around our 'office' for the next 3 weeks and I must say with all the bad publicity surrounding the whole Olympic event, Hockey venue is pretty impressive.

Now let the games begin! Uniform collection in the afternoon and Opening Ceremony tomorrow....

Rio Olympics Day 1 - The Arrival

After enduring what may be the longest flight i ever experienced (late departure from Singapore, bad sleep to DBX and 5 hours lay-over at DBX) I finally made it to Sao Paulo Airport. Expecting to get priority movement to the counters for my transit but only to find that it's in a pretty quiet state...
Quiet being there were nothing much available.

Yes there were volunteer, notice the singular form and it's intended, and a "special lane" for athletes and officials transiting from Sao Paulo to Rio but there is absolutely no system in place to assist and speed up the process.

1. Once I touched down, there were armed 2 plain cloth officers standing just at the entrance after the aero-bridge checking passport of each passenger 1 by 1 and questioning them. As i was the last passenger (yes as i can see cleaners going in and out of the plane and no soul behind me) it took me 1 hour to clear the less than 50 meters walk way. Damn i was upset. And upon understanding that i was here for the Rio Games, they started to apologies and hurried me to catch my connecting flight.

2. Along the way as i was trying to get to the counter to get on my way for transit, i met another volunteer and with her limited English she pointed to where i should go and kept saying " Follow the blue line" So i did, of course!

3. Upon queuing on the supposed express lane, there were many more people in our queue than those normal queues for normal passengers. Only 4 counters were opened available to us and more than 10 for the rest of the passengers. Of course, the normal passengers queue went very much faster and in 20 minutes, there were no more queue in the other line and about 40 of us still waiting patiently at the express queue to get through ours. Luckily I met a few familiar faces joining the line and it all got better.

Myself, Deon (Floppy) & John Wright (Bongo)

Feeling a little crazy with Michelle Joubert (Joobs)

4. So we finally got through the counters after the wait and even though we have 4 hours of transit time, we are now left with 2 hours! So off to the Accreditation Counter and get those cards validated for our access to all the Olympic venues and our village. 

Getting out to the terminal (1) with our luggage, we are now informed (okay we found it out ourselves by asking and roaming around looking at signboards) that we must go to Terminal 3 to catch our connecting flight. What an adventure! 

Fingers crossed... hopefully Rio will be easier to outmaneuver and get to the village as quick as possible as I am floating on my feet with 4 hours sleep in total. 

Rio Olympics Day 0 - The Departure

My younger brother is sweet as usual and agreed to send me to the airport even though he has to be there 12 hours later where he is scheduled to fly ( he is an air steward ). Leaving my family behind is always not a good feeling but as always, they (try to) understand that this is my "pursue of happiness" in a form of my representation in the sport i love. Mikayla got extremely whiny as she knows that i would be away for awhile and of course my Mrs ain't as chirpy any more after dinner.

So here it starts... my 1st Olympics adventure. Before i left, many people wished me luck and also asked me what are my expectations for the games.

Honestly, i have none! It's my first ever Olympics games, why should i expect anything. When I get my 1st appointment, i will get on the pitch and do what i usually do and try to be better than my last one (champions trophy) and improve from there. So Rio get ready! I am coming to paint your city red.

SGP - DBX / DBX - GRU / GRU - GIG = This is going to hurt a bit.

Going to board now. Emirates please treat me well... Talk soon =)

"Passport" Rio De Janerio

After weeks of anticipation, the "passport" to officially enter the Olympic venues and my house away from home (aka Technical Official Village) for 3 weeks have finally arrive in a huge Fedex envelope!

There were many speculations on when this may (or would even) arrive but guess what? It did.

So for those who still doubt if Brazil will put up a good show, I am a firm believer that they will. Remember the press only want you to see and hear those negative side of story. It's normal... bad news sells and grab attention!

Unlike athletes, we tend to travel lighter without those gears and a ton of sponsored items from their beloved brand names back home and local sports council. For Rio2016, this is what we are given currently. Bulk of the Games uniform will be issued to us once we reach the Technical Official Village.

18 more days to go!

The most important ID during the Olympics 

Our new sponsor Adidas making sure we run in comfort

The 3 umpiring shirt color for the 2016 games 

Interesting Comments

So we all know, I for 1 know it all too well, that being an Official, Referee, Umpire is a thankless job but yes for many of us because for the passion and love of a certain sport we bite our tongue not to argue back and just carry on with what we do week in week out. No wonder many of our young colleagues are quitting the game like hotcakes flying out of a Macdonald Outlet on a Sunday morning brunch.

Now my main point is, I was told how badly i did after a lower division game this evening! Shocker! =) I wasn't waiting for a compliment anyhow. The losing team came and thanked me but the wining team came to me in disgust (Half of the team).  *Correction* 
The winning team thanked me (of course when you win the official did well) and the losing team came to me in disgust! Now this is even more not surprising.
Well... maybe i was really shite to you but like you said, guess what, I am going to Rio while you, again like you correctly pointed out, will be watching me on your TV set. So enjoy your experience.

At times, or many times, for a lot of you out there, who you think you are god's gift to a certain sport... please allow me for once break your heart... ( Wrecking Ball Chorus starts to play)




YOU AIN'T SHITE! So before we (as officials) start collectively criticize the sport team on how badly the players are performing or other stuff maybe you can look in the mirror (please buy a huge 2ft X 4ft mirror for your ego) and start looking at yourself and not tell those who actually know what they are doing, to do what you think should be done because frankly you are talking more crap even nonsense is losing you.  Ok that's as much publicity you are getting.

My advice to some people who think they are the world's greatest is please be at a certain level before you talk those talk. After those big talks please be sure you can walk the walk too.

Enjoy watching Rio! Thanks for the support.

#RoadtoRio / DDay -25

Days when i feel flat or lazy to train... got a few quotes to remind myself!

#RoadToRio / DDay -26

                                                                        Image: Rio2016

So...... 26 more days to Rio Olympics!

It's been an amazing journey so far since 2006 when i first got my badge, I swear i would never have thought that i will ever say that I will be going to an Olympic Games. Was already looking towards Tokyo 2020 until that very day when i received an email from FIH which i took a long 10 minutes to read it through 3 times before the news got to me.

Along the way you meet many interesting characters. Some stay, many left. Family, work, time, travels or just frastruated maybe. But those who stayed tend to stay on for a long while more and became good mates for a lifetime.
Many (Including my wife) asked how do i do it? To do this for so long with very little or close to no funding. To be away from your family and give up those personal leave from work where you could be spending more time at home, having a beer or even a family vacation?

I think i can summarize it with 2 simple words of "Believe" & "Passion".

Passion - 
Since i have taken up this sports at 12 years of age (yes i am late bloomer) I have loved every single minute of it. Well my dad has always wanted me to be a badminton player but i guess i never found my footing in that area.
From a player to an umpire was a very deliberate yet easy step for me even at a young age of 20 (something to share another time). And since then, i have never looked back.
Loving my umpiring career so far as a International Umpire or just as an Umpire as a whole. I see things now from a totally different viewpoint and this really makes me more level headed in many situations. Even in life, it does make me a little calmer and a lot clearer.
Body language, confidence, concentration are areas which i see improvements form the spillover of my umpiring experience. Embracing it as part of me, just short of being obsessed. A very fine line in between passion & obsessed. I am staying well within the other side of things.
Do i miss playing? Hell no... But i do enjoy the running up and down the pitch with my club mates and have a little poke myself at my fellow umpiring colleagues (very mild and i never swear at them cause i know the hard work they are putting in) and have a good laugh at all the silly things we do on the pitch.

Belief - 
Since the day i started i always believe that one day i will want to represent Singapore at the world biggest stage in this area. Crazy as it may sound on day 1, i think it doesn't sound that silly as of today as i count down towards Rio 2016.
That belief i have in my belly to always prove my doubters or haters wrong after a disappointing or flat tournament that I have that special something in me that he may not have seen in me during then. That believe in myself that I will only get better and i can only go further and bounce higher after each disappointment that pushes me further and further till today.
That believe that all good things will come to someone who tries his hardest and just refuses to give up!

It's really not how fast or how well you start but it is always about how great you end with that landing.

Last night the THC boys threw me a small quiet farewell and sent their well wishes. Always a good time catching up especially since everyone have settled down, being married, having (already have) kids and just life in general. Shout out to everyone who came for the dinner last evening again! Pleasure was mine and will really do my best at the games.