A Phone, Some Dirt, and a Dream: How Gen Z is Reviving Hockey in Pakistan

PART 1: THE SCENE - MARDAN, 6PM [∼400 words]
Last Tuesday I was passing through Haji Baba Road in Mardan. The maghrib azan was about to start.

There was an empty plot. Maybe 40x40 feet. Brick walls on all sides. No grass. No lines. No net.
Just hard dirt. And on that dirt, 5 boys.

The youngest looked 13 or 14. Thin. Shalwar kameez. Bare feet.
One hand holding a wooden stick. The other holding an old Samsung phone.

The other 4 boys stood around him in a circle. Like it was a class.

I stopped. The rickshaw driver asked: "Baji, what happened?"
I said: "Just watching."

The boy was showing everyone his phone screen. A video was playing in slow motion.
An Indian player picked up the ball, spun it, and scored.
The boy paused it. Rewound it. Watched it again.

Then he stood up. Picked up his wooden stick. And tried the same move on the dirt.
First time he fell. Knee got scraped.
Second time he fell. Third time the ball lifted a little.

The other boys clapped.

I asked: "Beta, where is your coach?"
He looked down and said: "Aunty, this is my coach" - and held the phone up.

His name is Hamza...

PART 2: HAMZA’S STORY [∼500 words]
Hamza’s father drives a rickshaw. He makes 800 to 1000 rupees a day.
There are 6 people at home. A real hockey stick costs 4000 rupees.

"Aunty, I asked my dad 3 times. He said, son focus on your studies" - he said, and laughed.

So Hamza found another way.
He bought a 200 rupee monthly Jazz internet package.
YouTube eats data too fast. On TikTok he can watch 20 videos in one hour.

Every night after 10pm. When everyone at home is asleep.
He goes to the roof. The signal is better there.
And he searches: #HockeySkills #DragFlick #GoalkeeperDrills

"Aunty, do you know how Australian goalkeepers dive? I’ve watched it 50 times."

He has no kit. No shoes. No ground.
But he has 127 videos saved. All hockey.

PART 3: IT’S NOT JUST HAMZA [∼600 words]
Over the next 3 days I went to Swat, Peshawar, and DI Khan.

Everywhere it was the same scene.

In Swat, there’s Usman. He’s 16. He makes his own TikToks.
No stick? He uses a broom handle. 12k followers. Bio says: Future Olympian InshaAllah

In DI Khan there’s a group called "HockeyTok DIK". 8 boys. They meet every Friday.
1 phone, 1 tripod, and 2 sacks as goal posts.
Then they film. In the comments, kids from India and Malaysia write: Bro keep going

The Peshawar Sports Complex is locked. Empty.
But 2 km away, in an internet cafe, 4 boys pay 50 rupees for 1 hour to watch hockey videos.

This is Pakistan in 2026.

The government forgot hockey. TV forgot hockey.
But the kids didn’t.

PART 4: THE DATA + THE PROBLEM [∼500 words]
Pakistan last won the Hockey World Cup in 1994.
PHF is in 2 billion rupees of debt.
In the last 5 years, the government spent 3 crore on hockey. On cricket: 300 crore.

During PSL, hockey doesn’t even get a 30 second ad on TV.

So where do the kids go?
Academy fee: 15,000 per month.
Coach: 5000 per session.
Ground: You need connections to book it.

But TikTok: Free.
Internet: 200 rupees.

That’s why #PakistanHockey has 4.2 million views on TikTok.
#HockeyDrills has 18 million.

Numbers don’t lie.

PART 5: HOPE [∼600 words]
Is this enough? No.
You can’t win a World Cup with a phone. You need grounds. Coaches. Money.

But is this a start? Yes.

Because as long as one kid is falling and getting up on the dirt,
as long as he’s secretly learning at night,
as long as he’s uploading a video with "Pakistan Zindabad" in the caption,

Hockey in Pakistan is still breathing.

On my way back I met Hamza again.
He asked: "Aunty, will you put my name in the article?"
I said: "Why?"
He said: "So my dad reads it. And knows I’m not wasting time."

That’s it. That’s the whole story.

We keep waiting for stadiums to fill. For sponsors to come. For TV to care.
But while we wait, a generation is teaching itself on 6-inch screens.

Maybe they won’t win gold.
Maybe the grounds won’t be built in time.

But if one kid picks up a stick because of a TikTok video,
then hockey didn’t die.

And things that are alive... don’t die easily.

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By Hafsa NA | Writer from Mardan
I write about people, not just scores. For work: DM