Recent losses in hockey matches for Pakistan are really astonishing. We are a nation that declares hockey as its national sport. However, are we making enough efforts in this sport to make it a pride for our country? It looks more as if the problem for Pakistan lies in team selection and retaining rather than the coaching itself. Though many of the readers must have been familiar with the marvelous books written by the famous author Malcolm Gladwell, here I would like to discuss rather shortly for the masses what Malcolm describes as “accumulative advantage” that is so useful to become winners and stay as winners in any sports including hockey. The book “Outliers” has explained how selecting a cut-off date and training those who are born closest to the cut-off date most efficiently can ensure the availability of the most elite group of players for any sport.
Gladwell explained that all over the world pupils begin to play a sport at the “novice” level, before they are even in the pre-primary classes. Next, they go through leagues for every age class. At this level the most talented players are separated out and groomed for the next level which is often an elite league. From there the players go to the national teams. This is the way Europe and South America pick their future stars even for Olympics. Gladwell has further described how pupils are selected for a league. Gladwell observes in his book “Outliers” that an unbalanced number of best Canadian hockey players are born closest to first few months of a year. In Canada, the youth hockey leagues determine a pupil’s eligibility to play in the league if he is born on or after January 1; thus those that are born on December 31 and those after January 1 in the same year play in the same league.
Obviously pupils born near to the January 1 are more physically mature than those born towards November or December in the same year therefore they are often identified as better athletes. They get the extra time and effort of the coach and the chances are higher for them to be selected for national hockey leagues. Gladwell quotes Canadian psychologist Roger Barnsley that this is why among Canadian hockey’s elite players 40 percent have been born between January and March. Gladwell christen this phenomenon as “accumulative advantage”, while sociologist Robert K. Merton calls it “the Matthew Effect”, named after a biblical verse in the Gospel of Matthew. Gladwell asserts that success depends on the peculiarity of how the teams are selected and that talent is just as important as the athletes’ natural abilities.
What we can learn from this is that, if we want better hockey teams, we need to start early on. Since hockey is a national sport in Pakistan, it would be easier to convince and have school level leagues. Pupils should be selected in those leagues according to the phenomenon prevalent in team selection in sports such as hockey, baseball and soccer across the world: chose a cut-off date, select pupils accordingly and spend more time and effort on the physically mature of this lot eventually promoting them to the national level squad. Team selection, building and retaining require technical expertise. The disturbingly prevalent phenomenon of nepotism in team selection in Pakistan’s sport scene has to be rooted out. Pakistan Hockey Federation should look at how other countries are selecting, building and retaining teams. They should consider building a national hockey team for Pakistan a project that may not give results quickly but in the long run we might as well reach a “tipping point”.
M KHALID SHAIKH
Karachi
