Dhyan Chand popularly known as hockeys jadoogar.

Dhyan
Chand was born on 29th August, 1905 at Allahabad. His
father was in the British Indian army.
Memorable incident
He started playing Hockey with his friends who used to
themselves make Hockey sticks from tree branches and
balls from ragged clothes. At the age of 14 years he visited a
Hockey match with his father, where one team was down by
2 goals. He insisted his father to play from the losing side,
and when an Army Officer let him do so, Dhyan scored 4
goals for the team. Impressed by his skills, the Officer
offered him to join the army.
Turning point
Dhyanchand joined the army at the age of 16 in the year
1922 and took serious to hockey, this proved a turning point
of his carrier. Subedar-Major Bhole Tiwari of Brahmin
Regiment became Dhyans mentor inside the Army and
taught him the basics of the game. Pankaj Gupta was the
first Coach of Dhyan Singh who predicted that one day he
would shine like the Moon, called Chand in Hindi. Hence,
Dhyan Singh came to be known as Dhyan Chand. After that
Dhyanchand rose in the hockey field like a meteor. This
became an important milestone of his carrier. In the year
1926, he was selected for the Indian hockey team slated to
tour New Zealand.
As soon as Dhyan Chand joined the army, his tryst with
hockey began. After that there was no looking back for this
magician of Indian hockey, popularly known as hockeys
jadoogar. His exciting stick-work encouraged the army to
allow him to concentrate on the game. Dhyan Chand took
part in the inter-provincial hockey championship and made
an immediate impact on the national hockey scene. From
the very outset Dhyan Chand showed a lot of promise and
the day was not far away when he joined the ranks of the
Indian hockey.
Monumental role
In the year 1934, Dhyan Chand was appointed the captain
of the Indian hockey and subsequently captained the gold
winning team at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. At the Berlin
Olympics, Hitler was so impressed with his play that he
offered to make him colonel in the German army, if he
agreed to play for Germany. At the age of 43, he led the
hockey team to the tour of East Africa in 1947. In this tour
Dhyan Chand scored 61 goals in 21 matches that India
played. After an illustrious carrier of 30 years, Dhyan Chand
bid adieu to international hockey in 1949. He retired as
Major and was also the Chief Hockey Coach at the National
Institute of Sports. For his extraordinary achievements, the
Indian government awarded him the Padma Bhusan in
1956. Throughout his carrier, He scored over 1000 goals in
his career, from 1926 to 1948 .
Achievements
Players like Dhyanchand become a synonym of the game;
he is not a hero; he has become the parameter of hockey by
which other players caliber is measured. Dhyan Chand
helped India in winning gold medals in hockey in 3
successive Olympics games- Amsterdam Olympics (1928),
Los Angles Olympics (1932) and Berlin Olympics (1936). He
was the captain of the gold medal winner Indian Hockey
team in the historic 1936 Berlin Olympics. Dhyan Chand
scored 101 goals at the Olympic Games and 300 goals in
other international matches. Dhyan Chands birthday (Aug
29) is observed as the national sports day. The Indian Postal
Service issued a postage stamp in his memory, and the
Dhyan Chand National Stadium at New Delhi has been
named after him.
However, the last days of Dhyan Chand were not very
happy, as he was short of money and was badly ignored by
the nation. Once he went to a tournament in Ahmedabad
and they turned him away not knowing who he was. He
developed liver cancer, and was sent to a general ward at
the AIIMS, New Delhi. He died on the 3rd of December
1979.