Karnataka Lions (abbreviated as KL) is a hockey team based in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

that plays 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 and Nimbus Sports with the objective to reinvigorate hockey in India. It was contested among eight franchise ...

. The team is led by Indian hockey player

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

and coached by former Indian captain Jude Felix. The team is 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 of the Karnataka Lions of the World Series Hockey. It has a seating capacity of 7,000 peop ...

in Bangalore is 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), popularly known as Sher-e-Punjab or "Lion of Punjab", was the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, which ruled the northwest Indian subcontinent in the early half of the 19th century. He s ...

in the

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

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

Len Aiyappa Len Aiyappa (born 31 March 1979) is an Indian professional 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 ...

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) is a hockey team based in Delhi that plays in the World Series Hockey. Its captain is the Pakistani stryker Shakeel Abbasi. The team is owned by Wizcraft International and coached by former coach of Dutch hockey team Roelant O ...

and

Bhopal Badshahs Bhopal Badshahs (BB) was hockey team from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh that competes in the World Series Hockey championship. The captain of the team is Sameer Dad, part of the Indian National Hockey Team. Bhopal Badshahs was coached by Vasudevan Bha ...

. Karnataka opened their account against

Chandigarh Comets Chandigarh Comets (CCO) is hockey team based in Chandigarh, which is one of the eight teams that plays in World Series Hockey. Pakistani striker Rehan Butt is the captain of the team and Harendra Singh is the coach. Sector 42 Stadium is the home ...

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 as a result qualified for the semi-finals with still one of their match remaining. They played

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 of 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 who scored 13 goals in 12 matches including two hat-tricks against

and Bhopal Badshahs.

Franchisee Details

Ownership

Sporting Ace (a part of the Zentrum Group) owns the Karnataka Lions franchisee. Sporting Ace Private Limited is a part of the rapidly growing Zentrum Group and has acclaimed Bollywood action hero

Suniel Shetty Suniel Shetty (born Sunil V. Shetty; 11 August 1961) is an Indian actor, film producer, television personality and entrepreneur who is predominantly active in Hindi films he has also worked in tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and kannada films. In a ca ...

as the Chief Mentor. Zentrum Group is a global player in the field of Energy, Chemicals, Education, Sports, Information Technology, Consulting, Media, & Outsourcing and work extensively with the world's leading corporate houses, governments, and institutions.

Sponsors and Partners

The Karnataka Lions have managed to rope in XAGE Mobile as their Title & Platinum Sponsor, Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd. (NICE) as the Gold Sponsor, Slazenger as their Kit & Equipment partner. Kyazoonga.com is the official ticketing partners and Radio City the radio partners. RVR16 is the Digital Partner who manages the Social Media Marketing, facebook, Twitter, official website and other Digital marketing forms. Fluid Media manages the creative duties for the team and Highlight advertising has been responsible for all on ground activations. Sporting Ace has in-house managed all the media marketing campaign.

Theme Song

Theme song for Karnataka Lions has been composed by National award winning

music director A music(al) director or director of music is the 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 band, the d ...

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 with a few words in English and Hindi by Shabbir Ahmed.

Team Composition

The team is captained by experienced Indian striker

and coached by Jude Felix.

Fixtures and Results

2012

Statistics

References

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