Mohali, June 27 : The Punjab Hockey League (PHL) will commence its inaugural season on Saturday (June 29) starting with the junior age group event. Six teams representing different teams in the state will participate in this edition of the league, which follows a home-and-away match format.

Organised by Roundglass in collaboration with Hockey Punjab, the league aims to offer valuable match experience to grassroots players, fostering their professional and personal growth.

Matches are scheduled to take place at prominent venues such as the Olympian Surjit Singh Hockey Stadium in Jalandhar, the Balbir Singh Sr. International Hockey Stadium in Mohali, Olympian Prithipal Singh Hockey Stadium in Ludhiana and Namdhari Hockey Stadium, Jiwan Nagar, with each match hosted by one of the participating teams.

The inaugural match of the league will be played at the Olympian Surjit Hockey Stadium in Jalandhar between Surjit Hockey Academy PIS, Jalandhar and Namdhari Sports Academy which will be followed by S.G.P.C Hockey Academy, Amritsar taking on PIS Mohali. PIS Ludhiana and Roundglass Hockey Academy are the other two teams participating in the league.

The matches will be played during the weekends and will run till August 25 with the final league match scheduled between Roundglass Hockey Academy and Surjit Hockey Academy PIS Jalandhar. Each team will have a pool of 25 players.

The League will carry a prize pool of Rs 5.5 lakh which is one of the highest for Junior Hockey Leagues.

Sharing his thoughts on the Punjab Hockey League, Dronacharya award winner, Olympic gold medalist and Technical Lead of Roundglass Hockey Academy, Rajinder Singh said, 'Exposure to competitive matches is very important for the development of youth players and the Junior Punjab Hockey League aims to do that for the participants. The league format will help coaches to experiment with different strategies as each team is assured of playing 10 matches each. We hope this league will be a landmark event in our efforts to promote hockey at the grassroots in Punjab.'

/IANS