Street Hockey Report for Monday 1st February 2010

1. Sunday Hockey (by Dave Gutteridge)

With awesome weather, enough players for 3 teams, and full court for the entire day, the TSHA had another in a series of fantastic hockey days. Oh, and oranges, provided by Natsuko.

For me personally the day was a little rough. I slipped on a cigarette butt in the corner and nearly twisted my ankle. Then, not long after, I took a blade to the same ankle from Michel "The Effect" Van Ackre, and had to be carried off the ice. However, I was lucky that neither injury was a game ender, just cause to be very careful. Which was good, because I didn't want to miss out the big action.

Rich "Bloody Socks" Fogarty brought some long thin sticks of plexiglass to put at the bottom of the nets to prevent goals from going under the canvas shooting targets. Which worked somewhat. Most of the shots that might otherwise roll into the net were stopped. But it was still possible to push the ball in if you were grinding in front of the net. Also, the glass could not withstand some of the harder shots, breaking and cracking as the day wore on. Another solution is being researched.

Brandon "Way Below Median Age" Goodfliesh tried out a few new moves, which sometimes worked out for him. The one where he tried to bounce the ball off his blade and keep it airborne while moving to the net didn't work out so well. But otherwise he was more in motion than usual, coming up from the defense to rush the net more often.

Colin "I Need A Lint Brush" Kozik was surprisingly quiet, both in voice and in number of goals, though he did hit top shelf when needed. For the most part he was finding wide open spaces to receive the pass, but without team mates who knew to pass there. Or maybe fate was punishing him for some past injustice, as Colin's personal purgatory is to spend eternity being wide open and not get the pass.

Paul "It's All About The Money" Robertson finished the day with a reminder that the old timers have a thing or two they can teach you, as he stick handled his way past Brandon, one on one, to get the winning goal of the big game.

There was also that other guy who played... I don't remember his name, and I asked him, and he wouldn't tell me. But he did stuff too. And he was alright at it.

We hit the usual izakaya afterwards and we were lucky that they could accommodate 13 of us around one big table. We waited endlessly for the salmon rice to be cooked while some drank copious amounts of beer and other maintained a healthy pre-Thailand tournament diet.

We learned that newcomer Ken might have the record for the longest commute to come play hockey, at 2.5 hours from Ibaraki, that Chad "Whipped" Goble is planning to miss one hockey Sunday a month by "choice", and that Richard knows surprisingly a lot about the sport of "bandy".

2. "Olympic Celebration" 3 on 3 Ball Hockey Tournament (by John La Cara)

Team Italy, Team UK, and Team USA seem to be set for battle. Team Ukraine is in the process of building. Where is Canada and Japan? For this tournament and other ball hockey events, visit www.tokyobhl.com

3. Men's Olympic Ice Hockey Final at Paul's (by Paul Robertson)

Paul will be hosting a continental breakfast and men's olympic ice hockey final get together at his place in the early morning of Monday, March 1st. Continental breakfast will be served. There is only room for 15 people or so so make sure to RSVP as soon as possible to secure a spot. RSVP to [removed from web for privacy] and he will save you a spot on a first come first served basis.

The game begins at 5.15AM so please be at Paul's house by 5:00AM. Note that once the game is over Paul (and many other guests :-) will need to get out and go to work. Paul's house is in [removed from web for privacy] The trains will not be running at this early hour so you will need to make other arrangements - car, taxi, bicycle etc.

If you have any questions about the event email Paul at [removed from web for privacy]

4. Official Yamato Cup Report (by Paul Robertson)

The official 2009 Yamato Cup report is available online. If you were there, read the report and re-live all those exciting games and good times...if you weren't, read the report and see what you missed as you get ready for the next Yamato Cup on October 9th, 2010.

Following on the great success of the 2008 tournament, an even bigger and better 2009 Yamato Cup Ball Hockey Tournament was played in Tokyo, Japan on Saturday, October 10, 2009. It was a fast paced tournament that was entertaining to watch, and play in, from start to finish. There were lots of very close games with the final, and other key games, settled by a single goal! The tournament also raised $1450 for the Second Harvest charity, topping the 2008 total!

Full details at http://yamatocup.com/2009/

5. Wednesday Hockey was very rewarding for improving your fitness level (by John La Cara)

Players took the time to work on various aspects of their game. Of note that night was that the roller hockey Nanashi Boyz of the MHL wanted to work on their team chemistry and played the night together while on the other side was a group of less talented individuals with various styles of play. The events of the night has made me contemplate, is ball hockey “A Game Anyone Can Play”. Although very talented individuals, the Nanashi Boyz struggled without the ease of the blades and were defeated three games to one. I noticed that the Nanashi Boyz made a lot of plays that you probably would get away with in roller hockey that you could not get away with in ball hockey.

Most roller hockey and ice hockey players struggle with the grueling demands of stamina required for ball hockey. If you feel you have what it takes to play ball hockey, joins us on Friday the 4th from 8:30pm to 10:30pm at Amazing Square. Check out www.tokyobhl.com for more dates.