A total of 29 teams will slug it out for the trophy at the 12th Hockey India Sub-junior Men National Championship 2022, which starts here on Wednesday. Eight days of pool matches will be followed by the quarterfinals on May 12, semifinals on May 14 and the medal matches on May 15. The participating teams have been divided into eight pools. Teams in Pool A will be Hockey Jharkhand, Hockey Gujarat and Hockey Uttarakhand, while Pool B features Hockey Haryana, Hockey Karnataka and Chhattisgarh Hockey. Pool C consists of Uttar Pradesh Hockey, Hockey unit of Tamil Nadu and Hockey Bengal, while Pool D features Manipur Hockey, Hockey Rajasthan, Hockey Himachal and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu Hockey.
Hockey Association of Odisha, Hockey Andhra Pradesh, Kerala Hockey and Hockey Mizoram are in Pool E, while Hockey Punjab, Delhi Hockey, Le Puducherry Hockey and Goans Hockey have been slotted in Pool F. The teams in Pool G are Hockey Bihar, Hockey Arunachal, Telangana Hockey and Hockey Jammu and Kashmir, while Pool H features Hockey Chandigarh, Hockey Maharashtra, Hockey Madhya Pradesh and Assam Hockey. Speaking about the prospect of defending the title, Hockey Jharkhand coach Anu Rahul Minj said, "We are confident of making it to the semifinals, and if things go well, we will hopefully repeat what we did last year. The team has a good mix of young and new players, who will be playing Nationals for the first time.
Players have trained hard and are ready to defend the title." The coach of the runners-up team (Hockey Haryana) in this tournament last year, Parveen Mor said, "The preparations for the tournament have been great. There are a lot of new players in the team. They are really excited to represent Haryana at the national level. We are confident of reaching final, but for that, we will have to go match-by-match and play good Hockey." Hockey Maharashtra coach Aniket More said, "This will be my first experience of coaching a sub-junior team, so personally I am very excited about the tournament. We've been training for 15 days, and are shaping up really well for the competition. The excitement is really high in the team; we hope to reach the semifinals."