ICCC-Sports Forum 2014

Hon. Bal Gosal, Minister of State for Sports,
ICCC Board sitting from LtoR: Tony Chawla, Naval Bajaj, Dharma P Jain, Sanjay Makkar and Jagdish Bajaj

The first of its kind Sports Forum organized by Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) was a great success highlighting the need to have more engagements of players in the decision making process to make the Canadian emerging sports most popular and at par with other international teams on the globe.

The theme for the forum was Emerging Sports: Cricket and other Popular National Sports. Sports representatives from International Cricket Council (ICC), Cricket Canada, NBA Canada, Tennis Canada, Rogers Media, Schulich School of Business - York University, Canadian national players, participated in the forum that explored the regulatory framework, the institutional avenues and support available to emerging sports in Canada. It was divided into two panel discussions.

Hon. Bal Gosal, federal minister of state for sports kicked off the proceedings with an exciting keynote address. The minister said that federal government is funding $ 200 million every year for the sports and an additional $500 million for creating sports infrastructure in Ontario for the upcoming Pan Am & Parapan American Games 2015.

Earlier ICCC president Mr. Dharma P Jain, in his welcome remarks said that ICCC sports forum is to explore how these emerging new games in the sector are formalized to have more international games in Canada. These emerging sports are significant because of the interest of the people in these games especially the South Asian Community’s love for Cricket.

Speakers of Panel-1 with ICCC board from LtoR: Naval Bajaj, Tony Chawla, Sanjay Makkar, Mukesh Narula, Dharma P Jain, Ben Kevenagh, Ingleton Liburd, Hardesh Marwaha, Monali Patel, Jagdish Bajaj and Binoy Thomas

Speakers of Panel-2 with ICCC President: From LtoR: Bobby Sahni, Rowan Barrett, Mark Healy, Dharma P Jain, Navaid Mansuri and Vijay Setlur

Moderated by Mukesh Narula, National Head Coach - Cricket Canada and with participation from sports sector that included Mr. Ben Kavenagh, Regional Development Manager- Americas, International Cricket Council, Mr. Ingleton Liburd, Cricket Canada, Ms. Monali Patel, Canadian National Cricket player, and Binoy Thomas, Editor Weekly Voice; the panel that discussed Emerging Sports: Cricket, highlighted the challenges faced by players and coaches of the Cricket and how the Cricket should be introduced at the school level to make it more popular like Ice Hockey. The panelists agreed that Cricket should get more funding for the promotion of the game and develop required infrastructure under a single transparent management to attract more new players into the game.

The second panel comprising Mr. Rowan Barrett, Executive Vice President/Assistant General Manager, Canada Basketball, Mr. Mark Healy, Chief Marketing Officer, Tennis Canada, Mr. Navaid Mansuri, Senior Vice President, Television and Broadcast Operations, Rogers Media, Mr. Vijay Setlur, Sports Marketing Instructor, Schulich School of Business - York University and moderated by Mr. Bobby Sahni, Partner, Co-Founder Ethnicity; discussed the other popular national sports and how these sports can be made popular among the South Asian Community. Panellist also agreed that south Asian sports should be encouraged to get them at the national level which will also help in integration of other popular Canadian national sports among the south Asian community. The panelists pointed out that there is old mindset among the South Asian community so they are not coming forward to put their kids into popular sports and pushing them into the academic activities only.

Participants at the sports forum

Participants at the sports forum

This forum was first of its kind hosted by Chamber aimed to start a dialogue and finding ways for integrating and connecting emerging sports and other national sports.