ICE HOCKEY IN LADAKH
THEN & NOW

Ice Hockey is considered to be amongst the fastest, most adventurous and extremely competitive sports in the world. The game is believed to have first evolved in the late 18th or early 19th centuries in Britain and Canada, with professional ice hockey established by 1900. It evolved from simple stick and ball games, known as bandy, hurling and shinty. The sport was also influenced by both hockey and lacrosse.

The game came to India via the British. It is said that sometime in the 1920s, Lord Blessington woke up one winter morning in Shimla to find his tennis court had frozen over! And so, the story goes, ice skating began in Shimla. Years later, the court became a parking lot, but in summer it continued to be used as an ice rink.

In the years since, there has been an interest in ice sports across many parts of the country’s
northern states where high altitude, cold weather, and a few pioneering hockey enthusiasts
have come together to create a hockey culture that is growing from season to season.
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In Ladakh, when temperatures plunge to minus 20 degrees centigrade or more and water freezes in the ponds, lakes and rivers, people take out their ice skates.

Each winter people in Ladakh remove two things from their storeroom. The first
is the traditional ‘Bukhari’ [stove] to stay warm and the other is a pair of ice
skates to use on frozen ponds and lakes (Stawa 2020).

It is not known exactly when ice skating developed in Ladakh, but oral accounts narrate that it was introduced by officers of the Indian Army. The first ice hockey tournament is said to have taken place soon after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, when an Indian Army border patrol had its headquarters in Tangtse-Durbuk. The regiment posted here formed two teams and played their first game, and while some of the players had skates fixed to their boots or blades fashioned out of available metal, others did not. It was not until the 1970s, that army officers stationed in Ladakh came up with the idea of using the frozen waters of the Karzoo pond, located next to Alpha Mess, as an ice-skating rink. Soon, Ladakhis, with a metal blade fixed to the sole of their army ‘Junglee’ boots, began gliding on ice and playing a game locally known as taku-polo (stick-ball), with round boot polish tins, filled with sand, used as pucks.

Soon local teams began forming, and individual players began to stand out for their winning performances. Over time, annual championships were held under the banner of the ‘Ladakh Winter Sports Club’. Equipment was still fairly rudimentary and protective gear was not known, but that changed after the first national ice hockey tournament was held in Gulmarg in 1998. Another turning point in the sports history in Ladakh was the visit by the Canadian Embassy’s Ice Hocky team in 2001. Till then, the sport was largely male dominated and though women skated and played, they were not included in the competitive games. The
Canadians began training a women’s ice hockey team, and soon they were participating in matches in Ladakh and other parts of the world.

While veteran players have moved on and many of them are now coaching a younger generation, the sport of ice-skating in Ladakh has changed tremendously. By 2002, ice hockey was recognized as a national sport. The aspirations of players have grown and many are eager to chart new ground and have Ladakh firmly recognized for its excellence in ice hockey. The construction of the Nawang Dorjay Stobdan Sports Complex Ice Rink is one step in that direction, as it will allow for all-season training for aspiring professional players.
The other is the establishment of the Royal Enfield Ice Hockey League in 2024, and a blue- print that will lead the way for the launch of a National League by 2040. There is much to look forward to in the future of ice hockey in Ladakh.
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This exhibition brought together six decades of ice hockey in Ladakh through the voices of veteran players, coaches, and a younger generation full of anticipation. It explored the struggles and challenges of learning to play the game and procuring equipment in the early days, as well as the growth of competitive matches around Karzoo Pond in Leh, first for men and later for women. Over the years, the contributions of the local government, the Canadian Embassy in New Delhi, Hockey Without Borders, and more recently Royal Enfield, helped take the game from its humble beginnings to create a strong presence in Ladakh today.

The exhibition attempted to tell a part of that story while celebrating the sport and its legacy in Ladakh. It was showcased at several venues, including Royal Enfield’s 'Journeying Across the Himalayas' festival at Travancore House, New Delhi; during the 'Khelo India Winter Games at the Ice Hockey Rink, Nawang Dorjay Stobdan Sports Complex, Leh; at the Royal Enfield Pitstop in Kharu; and at LAMO.


Special Thanks:
Ladakh Ice Hockey Association, Ladakh Women Ice Hockey Foundation, Ladakh Winter Sports Club, Skara Sports Club, Hockey without Borders, Skarma Phuntsok Wangchuk, Cynthia Hunt, Ron Perowne, Tony Kretzschmar, Sunetro Ghosal, Wasim Inshaq Malik

Special Thanks to the Interviewees:
Gyal Wangyal, Abdul Hakim, Chhering Mutup, Diskit C Angmo, Ghulam Mustafa, Moses Kunzang, Noor Jahan, Stanzin Dolkar, Stanzin Lotus, Tonzang Manepa, Tsering Norphel, Tundup Namgail, Chamba Tsetan, Abdul Haq