Strange decisions being made for the National hockey team.

A national player is paid by NSC and he also receives his club salary. This would take a senior player to the RM $5000 range per month, which probably contributes to an acceptable quality of life. Both such salaries are paid so as the player is readily available to train and play for the country and the club. At least that is the hope.

Lately and very strangely 2 players were released from the final rounds of the national team training to play club hockey, one in New Zealand and the other at Austria. Mind you they are not playing for charity rather being paid by their respective foreign clubs. What irks me is that they are still on the national team payroll and given approved to skip crucial national training prior to World Cup qualifiers to earn more monies for themselves. I really cannot see the logic of this and i am surprise that both MHF and NSC seem to tolerate such matters.

What surprises me is that both these players seem have had the consent of the team manager, who i understand had the clearance of the national coaches. Is there something we should read into such decision making? Maybe they want the players to tell them more about their opponents for the World Cup qualifiers like Austria and New Zealand. If that is so then i believe whoever who came up with the idea must get their "upper faculties" properly checked. There is no proper justification for the players to be away in this crucial hours.

I do not blame the players as the more they earn the better it is for them. They have only a short window they can enjoy such opportunities but then they cannot go on a "rampage" for monies without appreciating their commitments. In this case they did the right thing and that is to get prior approval.

However this is where the team manager should not have given the approval and if he did, he should have then suspended their salaries as national players and also indicated that they would not be considered for selection for the qualifiers. This in a way would have put the players to make a choice. I wonder why this had skipped the minds of the team management of MHF and also that of NSC.

What MHF and NSC had done is yet again set a precedent, where in the future other players can claim the same privileges i e being paid as a national player they seek approval not to attend the crucial training so as to earn the extra income as a club player in a foreign land. Is that what MHF and NSC prepared to accept? If not, i recommend that both of them be ready with reasons why they made such an exception this time.