By Alex Quevillon
About to embark on the biggest game of his career, it was impossible for Rohan Chopra to ignore the weight of the moment. There he was in India, the field hockey-mad nation his grandparents had left 60 years earlier before they laid the sport’s roots in Ottawa, set to make his Junior World Cup debut.
His parents – former national team athletes themselves – were in the stands, part of a massive Lucknow crowd primed for the tournament’s opening match as the host Indians were set to take on Chopra’s Team Canada.
“I just looked down five minutes before the game, Canada over my heart, and I looked across at their guys, wearing India’s uniform,” Chopra recounts. “And I realized we’re both just doing the same thing, we’re just regular guys trying to represent our country well.”
Chopra’s family, including father Sandeep and mother Maureen, are the founders of the Nepean Nighthawks Field Hockey Club, and the driving forces behind the sport’s growth locally.
“When you wear that name, you just know that those who have worn it before you are watching you carry on that legacy,” Chopra adds. “It’s something special.”
From the time Chopra joined the Vancouver-based under-21 national men’s program leading right up to the World Cup, there was a sense of excitement, but also the daunting reality of taking on some powerhouse nations.
“It’s like nothing I’d ever experienced,” explains the John McCrae Secondary School grad. “It was the highest level ever for me, the big buildup, news articles, hearing about some of the really great teams from Europe, Asia, the Oceanic countries.”
The hype for the teams overseas wasn’t unfounded, and they gave a Canadian squad that was the youngest in the tournament all they could handle.
Canada was shutout by India and England, and held their round-robin matchup with South Africa close, before dropping a pair of 2-1 decisions to South Korea and Egypt in placement contests to finish 16th.
Chopra did manage to get on the scoreboard, opening the scoring for Canada against Egypt and contributed to several other Canadian goals.
An Ontario Summer Games-champion coach this past season, Chopra says he’d like to bring the eye-opening experience of playing in a Junior World Cup in India back home to share with younger local players.
“Seeing the club level in India, it’s so different. It’s like ice hockey here. The atmosphere is like going to an Ottawa Senators game,” details the athlete who helped Canada win its World Cup berth at last year’s Pan American qualification tournament in Toronto. “Whether it’s in Ottawa or in Vancouver, field hockey numbers are getting higher. There’s a lot of new players getting involved.”