Minister for Forest, Environment and Ecology, Lal Singh, today described sports as key to channelize youth potential towards building a strong nation as the onus of creating a better world to live lies on this young force of the society.The Minister was speaking at the finals of JK Young Heroes Memorial Hockey Tournament organized at Hiranagar Mini stadium in which the Hiranagar Hockey Club Senior clinched the trophy by outplaying Simbal Camp Hockey Club by two goals to nil in a close contest.Legislator Kuldeep Raj, General Secretary JK Hockey Association Gurjeet Singh, SDPO Border and Coach Narinder Sharma were also present.Earlier, during the first half of the summit clash, no team was able to score a goal but in the second half Digvijay Singh of Hiranagar scored a goal followed by a goal from his teammate Rajinder Singh, which gave Hiranagar a decent lead to claim the final trophy.While distributing prizes among the winner team, Ch Lal Singh appreciated the players for their unique talent and encouraged them to further improve their sports skills so as to bring laurels for their area and the state as well. He said that playing sports keeps the mind and body fit besides promoting mutual harmony and brotherhood. “Sports are a potent tool in channelizing the energies of youth towards a right perspective besides saving them from being swayed towards certain social ills like drug menace”, he asserted.Spelling out government’s initiative towards promoting sports in the state, the Minister said that a number of measures have been taken up to strengthen and upgrade the existing infrastructure besides providing requisite facilities to players to further harness and improve their potential in specific fields of sports.