Champions of Hockey India league’s (HIl) inaugural edition, Ranchi Rhinos’ decision to pull out from the league on Thursday due to financial loss has disappointed denizens of Ranchi. As a result, the league which witnessed the maximum crowd here among all the venues till the second HIl held this year will no more count Ranchi as a venue.
“None of the franchisee owners have contacted me personally before announcing the news. I was shocked to learn about the matter in today’s newspaper. It would certainly a loss for the lovers of hockey since our city was somewhere helping in promoting the game,” Hockey Jharkhand Secretary General Savitry Purty told The Pioneer on Friday.
Mrinal Maheep, a student of St Xavier’s College who had seen the most of the matches of HIl in 2013 as well as 2014 said, “The excitement to watch foreign and Indian players playing our national game as a team in our hometown was worth watching. We will definitely miss that moment.”
Similarly, Sports Authority of India (SAI) Ranchi centre players expressed their disappointment. “The Astro-Turf stadium is near to our centre. We all used to encourage our hockey hostel mates who would learn different techniques of the game,” said SAI Ranchi athlete Ashok Kumar.
Notably, HIl is always conducted between the months of January and February when the season of winter is at its peak.
Rhinos team is jointly owned by Patel-Uniexcel group. When contacted, Co-Owner of the Team Saurav Dugar maintained that they had given a letter to Hockey India for the ‘pull-off’. “We were suffering huge financial loses,” he said.
Sources related to the team said that co-owners of the team have suffered a loss of around Rs10 to 15 crore. “It was difficult to make up the losses,” confirmed sources.
Notably, Mumbai Magicians had declared to withdraw from the league a month back. According to sources, though two teams have withdrew but Hockey India is mulling to start new two teams from Pune and Mumbai besides the four reaming teams in the league.