WOMEN’S KABADDI: World Cup team from Canada made up of soccer moms and their daughters

VANCOUVER DESI

In spite of its dismal showing in the just-completed 2012 Kabaddi World Cup, the women’s team from Canada earned a lot of new fans for a curious reason: The 12-member team includes three mother-daughter pairs.

According to an article in the Hindustan Times, the mothers – Narinder Kaur Gill, 48, Lakhbir Kaur Khangoora, 40, and Harpreet Kaur Randhawa, 40 – all played the sport in college.

They brought their daughters – Navreet Gill, 15, Gunvir Kaur Khangoora, 16, and Navleen Kaur Randhawa, 15, respectively, – into the sport from soccer, just for this World Cup hosted by the Punjab government in India.

Harpreet was also a former student of Narinder, when the latter taught physical education at the Lyallpur Khalsa College for Women in Jalandhar many years ago. Narinder represented Punjab in the 1994 national kabaddi championship.

“It was the first time when a women’s team from the state had played at that level,” she said.

All six women live in Brampton, Ont., and all three daughters play soccer.

“I am a coach at a sports academy that my husband runs in Canada,” said Narinder. “When we were asked to prepare a team for this big-ticket tournament, we didn’t have enough players who could learn the game in just two months. That’s how this combination (came about).”

The Canadians were knocked out of the tournament after losing to India and Denmark in the league phase.