President Dilip Tirkey's Hockey India attracted a fair share of criticism for the departure of India's Tokyo Olympics bronze medal-winning coach Graham Reid immediately after the FIH World Cup earlier this year. However, just like in his playing days when the sturdy defender was known to re-tackle hard to retrieve a lost ball, Tirkey seems to have regained praise with the initiation of the franchise-based Hockey India League (HIL).

The HIL was played across five seasons—2013 to 2017—before it abruptly ended due to financial issues. It is due to this reason that Hockey India have roped in a commercial partner this time round—Big Bang Media Ventures Pvt Ltd. The league is being planned for early next year and the timing couldn't have been better, considering it is an Olympic year. India's domestic players have benefitted immensely from previous HIL editions, having shared the dressing room with some of the stalwarts of world hockey like veteran Dutch goalkeeper Jaap Stockman, Germany's creative forward Florion Fuchs and England's star drag flicker Ashley Jackson, to name a few. With the Paris Olympics not too far away (July 26 to August 11, 2024), once again India's young hockey players can have their confidence boosted when they rub shoulders with world hockey's leading lights at the HIL next year.