The uneasy silence inside the dusty Kalinga Sports Complex is abruptly broken by what appears to be a minor scuffle outside the rear entrance. A group of young college students have bunked their last lectures just to make it in time for India’s practice session. Along with a few other hockey aficionados, they are around 50 of them. But the security guards won’t let them in. It’s a closed practice session, not meant for the general public. But the students wouldn’t have any of it. They try to jump over the 10-foot high wall, just to catch a glimpse of the national team.

Looking at the excitement among the locals, it’s easy to understand why Hockey India has been keen to bring major tournaments to the smaller centres. In Delhi and other major cities, they’ve had trouble getting people for the main tournament, let alone practice sessions.

But as they learnt over the last few days, hosting a large-scale tournament at these centres comes with its own sets of challenges. Such are the logistical hurdles the organisers have had to face in the build up to the Champions Trophy, which begins here on Saturday, that Hockey India seems to have made up its mind to host the 2018 World Cup in three different cities instead of the original plan of conducting it only in Bhubaneswar.

While the stadium is fit to host international tournaments, lack of infrastructure has been the biggest deterrent. “The number of hotels here is less because the city is quite small. For this tournament, we have just eight teams but still we have had trouble finding the right kind of accommodation for them. Take into account the VIPs and the media, it further adds to the problem,” a Hockey India official said.

Apart from hotel rooms, transportation has been another logistical nightmare. The organisers had difficulty in procuring enough buses and cars for the eight teams. “If we are having such trouble for an eight-nation tournament, there is no way we can host a 16-team event in one city,” the official added.

While Hockey India had been mulling the three-city formula for quite some time, the Champions Trophy experience seems to have firmed up their mind. They have proposed the idea to the International Hockey Federation (FIH), who have been positive about it. Apart from Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh and New Delhi are the two other venues proposed.