5 min learnMumbaiAug 13, 2026 10:39 PM IST
“After we began, it wasn’t actually conceivable to play a World Cup at house. We didn’t have a hockey stadium or something.”
Alexander Hendrickx, one of many most interesting drag-flickers of this era, says it nearly matter-of-factly.
Now it’s internet hosting a World Cup.
The boys’s closing shall be performed on the Belfius Hockey Area in Wavre, Belgium’s brand-new nationwide hockey stadium. It was inaugurated solely in April, 5 years after the nation grew to become Olympic champions, eight years after they gained the World Cup, and barely a era after watching Belgium at a World Cup or Olympics was, for a lot of of its gamers, a distant dream.
That’s the unusual, barely sobering arc of Belgian hockey.
The gamers arrived earlier than the infrastructure did. The outcomes got here earlier than the popularity. And for a sport that after struggled to get on tv in Belgium, the nation is now making ready to place it on the world’s screens.
When Arthur Van Doren, the two-time FIH World Participant of the 12 months, was rising up, the nationwide crew didn’t really feel significantly near him. Belgium might qualify for the Olympics and World Cups, however it was hardly a daily presence on the sharp finish of worldwide hockey. The thought of watching his nation play on the most important phases felt distant. “After we have been very younger, it wasn’t one thing that felt near us,” Van Doren, who performs for Vedanta Kalinga Lancers within the Hockey India League, says. “However as a child, you dream of the not possible.”
He and his era ultimately turned that not possible into actuality. However the ecosystem round them was slower to catch up.
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On-line petition
In 2009, Belgian hockey gamers and supporters launched a web-based petition calling for extra protection from Flemish public broadcaster VRT. The nationwide crew had been to the Beijing Olympics, however hockey remained largely invisible exterior its personal membership and enjoying neighborhood. The timing is placing now. Lots of the youngsters rising up round then are the gamers who will stroll out at Wavre this month.
Belgium did have a considerable hockey base. By 2012, the federation stated membership had doubled over the earlier decade to 30,000. However the sport lacked the cultural footprint of a few of its neighbours, significantly the Netherlands. It additionally lacked the type of infrastructure that tends to accompany sporting success.
Van Doren, who additionally performed tennis, remembers that even selecting hockey might elevate eyebrows. “Lots of people stated I used to be loopy,” he says.
Tennis, he says, was much more established and understood. Hockey was much less seen, much less valued and, at the least then, more durable to think about as a severe sporting profession. Van Doren additionally felt Belgium lagged behind Germany and the Netherlands in recognising the position sport might play in youngsters’s training and improvement. He selected hockey anyway. He cherished the crew sport, the camaraderie and, merely, the sport.
Massive wins
Then got here the outcomes.
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Belgium completed fifth on the 2014 World Cup within the Netherlands. Received a silver in Rio in 2016. In 2018, the Purple Lions grew to become world champions for the primary time. Three years later, in Tokyo, they grew to become Olympic champions. The nation that after struggled to make the most important tournaments had develop into considered one of hockey’s defining groups.
And nonetheless, it didn’t have a correct nationwide hockey stadium. That modified in Wavre.
The previous Justin Peeters Stadium was rebuilt into the Belfius Hockey Area, with two pitches and a everlasting capability of 4,000. For the World Cup, momentary stands will improve that to 10,000. After the match, the stands will come down and the sector will return to its on a regular basis goal: a house for Belgian nationwide groups, youth improvement and native golf equipment.
The stadium itself can also be a neat metaphor for Belgian hockey itself. The game has spent years punching above the load of its infrastructure. Now the infrastructure is lastly catching up.
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Hendrickx, Van Doren’s teammate at Vedanta Kalinga Lancers, has spoken to among the older gamers who retired after the Paris Olympics. Their response to the brand new stadium and a house World Cup was revealing. “They have been like, ‘Oh my God, we simply stopped and so they’ve constructed a stadium and there’s a World Cup at house,’” he says. “They have been fairly jealous.”
They’ve purpose to be. The golden era of Belgian hockey — which delivered not like their soccer counterparts — has performed extra in Bhubaneswar than Belgium. They now have a spot they will name house.
And the World Cup presents Belgium one thing else it has hardly ever had: an opportunity to introduce hockey to individuals who have by no means actually paid consideration to it. Hendrickx expects household, pals and loads of individuals unfamiliar with the game to fill the stands.
“The media protection shall be good, and lots of people who don’t know hockey but will come and watch and help us,” he says. “Hopefully we can provide them a very good end result again.”
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If the final decade has taught Belgian hockey something, it’s that outcomes are inclined to handle themselves.
