LAHORE, Jan 10: The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has revised the format of the 56th National Hockey Championship while also rescheduling the event dates.

The championship will now be held from Jan 21 to Feb 8 at the National Hockey Stadium, Lahore. The preliminary round will be played from Jan 21 to 25, while the final round will be held at the same venue from Jan 26 to Feb 8.

The 22 participating teams will be divided into five pools. According to the new format, two top teams from each pool will qualify for the final round while the rest will be playing a tray championship. The final round and tray championship will be played simultaneously.

The 10 teams in the final round, playing on league basis will be playing classification matches at the conclusion of the league. Two teams at the bottom (9th and 10th) will be placed in the group of tray teams for the next championship. The two top teams of the tray championship will directly qualify for the final round in the next championship.

Pool ‘A’ comprises PIA, Sui Southern Gas Company, Balochistan, Customs and PTV. Pool ‘B’ comprises NBP, NWFP, KESC and Railways. Pool ‘C’ is made up of Army, HBL, PAF and HEC. Pool ‘D’ has Wapda, Pakistan Steel Mills, Sindh, Navy and POF while Pool ‘E’ boasts of Police, Port Qasim Authority, Punjab and Federal Territory. The Federal Territory comprises players from AJ&K, Islamabad, Fata and the Northern Areas.

The PHF have also announced the technical officials for the championship. Olympian Khalid Bashir will be the tournament director while Mohammad Akhlaq will assist him as assistant tournament director. Rana Mujahid Ali will be the organising secretary and Khalid Rasool will act as assistant tournament secretary.

Anjum Saeed, Zahid Iqbal and Arif Hayat are the tournament officers; Rashad Mahmood Butt the umpires’ manager; Rashid Ali Khan, Syed Naeem Akhtar, the assistant tournament managers; Allahdad, Rana Mohammad Afzal, Mirza Javed, Haroon Saeed, Munawar Hussain Azad and Faizan are the judges. Meanwhile, Syed Zulfiqar Haider Shah, Rana Mohammad Liaqat, Anwaar Hussain, Kamran Hussain, M. Asif Khan, Mohsin Ali Khan, Zulfiqar Hussain, Munawar Hussain, Ihsan-ul-Haq Babar, Mohammad Mushtaq, Mohammad Parvez, Haq Nawaz, Raja Anwar Kamal and Haider Rasool will serve as umpires.—Agencies