Nimal - involved in hockey administration for half a century!

by Upananda JAYASUNDERA - Kandy Sports Special Corr.

HOCKEY: Talk about a dedicated person toward a sport, it will be difficult to beat this one.

Her name is Nimal Jayasuriya Ettipola. She has been such a devoted person towards hockey that she has been involved with the sport from the inception of Hockey Nationals, i.e. 54 years ago. (This is the 52nd Hockey Nationals, as the Nationals were not held for 2 years).

One may well ask as to who this girl is? Well, one needn’t look back very deep into history - she is the daughter of that household name in hockey - Waltter Jayasuriya, very aptly named as the father of hockey in Sri Lanka.

To start from the beginning, Nimal as a schoolgirl, was involved in the unaugural Hockey Nationals 54 years ago and she had the honour of receiving the then Governor General of Ceylon (as we were then known), Sir Oliver Goonetilleke at the Army Grounds, Galle Face.

As a player, she started her school career at Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo in 1962 and never looked back on the game. It was hockey all the way and her family backing enabled her to go places.

After playing for Visakha Vidyalaya from 1962 to 1970, she started coaching Visakha and then introduced the game to Sujatha Vidyalaya, Nugegoda in the year 1972.

Before really going into Sujatha Vidyalaya she was selected for the National team in 1970 and played till the late nineteens as fullback. Before going into full-time coaching, Nimal toured Singapore, Malaysia and India with the Sri Lanka women’s hockey team. But before getting into the Sri Lanka team, she was in the Combined Schools team and had the distinction of captaining the President’s XI team at the Mini Asian Tournament held in Sri Lanka.

It has been hockey, hockey and more hockey from her young days. She had such a love and dedication for the game of hockey that she has also played for the BRC and Ceylonese Ladies Hockey Club and even followed coaching courses on the game in Malaysia and Singapore. She put all her experience knowledge gained from the game to good use to coaching and was one time a National Coach and a hockey umpire too.Nimal Jayasuriya Ettipola was also involved in the administration side of the sport and was the Secretary of the Sri Lanka Schools Hockey Association as well as Sri Lanka Hockey Federation.As a Vice-President of the present Hockey Federation, she is happy that the Federation is actively interested in taking the game forward and organising many tournaments in order to find the talent in the rural players under the present President of the Hockey Federation - Sumith Edirisinghe - Senior Superintendent of Police.