Karnataka Lions (abbreviated as KL) was a professional

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

team based in

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

that played in the

World Series Hockey World Series Hockey (WSH) was a professional league for field hockey competition in India. It was organised by Indian Hockey Federation with the objective to reinvigorate hockey in India. It was contested among eight franchise-based teams cons ...

. The team was led by Indian hockey player

Arjun Halappa Arjun Halappa (born 13 December 1980) is a former Indian hockey player and former captain of Indian hockey team. Career Midfield maestro Arjun Halappa is the son of former East Bengal Club player B. K. Halappa, He hails from Kodagu (Coorg) ...

and coached by former Indian captain Jude Felix. The team was owned by Sporting Ace Pvt. Ltd. (Zentrum Group).

Bangalore Hockey Stadium Bangalore Hockey Stadium, also known as KSHA Hockey Stadium, is a field hockey stadium at Akkithimmanahalli, Bangalore, Karnataka, India. It is the home ground of the Karnataka Lions of the World Series Hockey. It has a seating capacity of 7 ...

was the home ground of Karnataka Lions. Karnataka Lions ended-up as the semi-finalists in the inaugural edition of WSH after being knocked out by

Sher-e-Punjab Ranjit Singh (13 November 1780 – 27 June 1839) was the founder and first maharaja of the Sikh Empire, in the northwest Indian subcontinent, ruling from 1801 until his death in 1839. Born to Maha Singh, the leader of the Sukerchakia Misl ...

in the

semi-final A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

. They finished third in the group stage. Team's penalty corner specialist

Len Aiyappa Len Aiyappa (born 31 March 1979) is an Indian field hockey player. He remained one of India's best drag-flickers until he retired from the national team following a fallout with the Indian Hockey Federation in 2006. He last played for India du ...

was the top scorer for the team and third overall in the season with 13 goals in 12 matches.

History

2012 season

Karnataka Lions had a bad start to the tournament with three consecutive defeats against

Delhi Wizards Delhi Wizards (DW) was an Indian professional field hockey team based in Delhi that played in World Series Hockey. Its captain was the Pakistani stryker Shakeel Abbasi. The team was owned by Wizcraft International and coached by Roelant Oltmans ...

, Sher-e-Punjab and

Bhopal Badshahs Bhopal Badshahs (BB) was an Indian professional field hockey team from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh that competed in the World Series Hockey championship. The captain of the team was Sameer Dad. Bhopal Badshahs was coached by Vasudevan Bhaskaran, wh ...

. Karnataka opened their account against

Chandigarh Comets Chandigarh Comets (CCO) was an Indian professional field hockey team based in Chandigarh that played in World Series Hockey. Pakistani striker Rehan Butt was the captain of the team and Harendra Singh was the coach. Sector 42 Stadium was the ...

with a 3–1 victory at home. Their next five matches fetched them just two victories and three defeats and were seemed to be out of the tournament as they lied at the bottom of the table. They won four in a row in a must win situation and qualified for the semi-finals. They played Chandigarh Comets in their last league match, where they had a big 6–1 defeat. Karnataka Lions faced Sher-e-Punjab at their home ground in the semi-final. Karnataka was defeated convincingly despite getting an earlier lead and hence brought their campaign in 2012's season of World Series Hockey to an end. They lost 4–1 from Punjab who went on to the final to become champions. Majority of the team's goals came through their penalty corner specialist Len Aiyappa, including two hat-tricks against Chandigarh Comets and Bhopal Badshahs.

Franchisee details

Ownership

Sporting Ace (a part of the Zentrum Group) owned the Karnataka Lions.

Theme song

Theme song for Karnataka Lions has been composed by

National award The National Film Awards are awards for artistic and technical merit given for "Excellence within the Indian film industry". Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian P ...

winning

music director A music director, musical director or director of music is a person responsible for the musical aspects of a performance, production, or organization. This would include the artistic director and usually chief conductor of an orchestra or concert ...

Vidyasagar Vidyasagar or Vidya Sagar may refer to: People *Acharya Vidyasagar (born 1946), prominent Digambar Jain Acharya (1946-) *Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820–1891), Bengali scholar *Vidyasagar (composer) (born 1963), South Indian music director * C ...

. Lyrics have been written mainly in

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

by Shabbir Ahmed.

Team composition

Fixtures and results

2012

Statistics

References

{{Reflist World Series Hockey teams 2011 establishments in Karnataka Field hockey in Karnataka