The weekend of August 4th-7th was the International Air Hockey Championship….including the Houston weekly handicapped tournament on Thursday night. I had debated with going and playing in the weekly or not for multiple reasons. I eventually decided that I would just fly down to Houston on Thursday whether I play in the weekly or not in order to not fly on a day I would have to play in the main IAHC doubles competition. The only reason I would not play in the weekly would have been if my elbow started acting up since I’ve been having some minor pain while playing air hockey and disc golf. (tennis and golfers elbow and cubital tunnel syndrome….the latter which I still have going on). Turns out playing in the weekly before the doubles before the singles may have been just what I needed. (more in later posts).
I get to SRO early on Thursday after checking in at the airport and after saying hi to some familiar faces I sit and chat with Blade and his friend Jamie who I met in Vegas. Blade can be hilarious. I think his acceptance speech at Vegas had something about needing oxygen and air hockey table providing air so the oxygen we breathe or some shit. Now, my other strategy which was completely different than the previous tournaments I had played in was that I was going to only warmup on the table with 1-2 games against another IL player…no picking up random games outside of the tournaments for the sake of saving my arm in case I happen to make it to playing on Sunday. Blade poked fun that I was obviously itching to play because there were a bunch of players playing pick up games until the tournament would start. ”The air was saying my name” Oh, and I mentioned that Billy would be hopefully making the weekly as well to which Blade said “Oh yeah, I know that Mr. Stubbs. I saw some old footage of him from like 1979 with him wearing some kind of hat and that announcer was there.” I had no idea what or who he was talking about but he seemed convinced that he saw footage of Billy play from the late 70s. I think he mixed up a lot of the archive footage from Way of the Puck. I just rolled with it.
So after a few hours of hanging out at SRO the weekly tournament starts. I was playing as a level 4 although the system had me listed as a 3. The classification levels are used as a way to determine the handicap in each game of the best 2 of 3. Players can choose to waive their point spot if they choose to do so. My first set is against Tad Gibson. I’ve met Tad briefly before but never played against him. He was also a 4 so this would be a neat way to start off my weekend. It turns out I really needed to play in the weekly before doubles and doubles before singles to help shake off some pre-tournament jitters. I can’t recall too much about Tad’s attack but I came out and just played my game. Time delayed RWU and cuts, with the occasional RWO. If I needed to I would break out the LW/cross but I beat Tad 7-5, 7-4. Tad had said this was his first real games/set for a couple months bc of some back issues and after the set he was talking to one of the tournament directors about the lighting….I think it was definitely more the former that hurt him since we’ve been playing a ton of air hockey in Illinois as of late. I looked into it and since 1/1/11, leading into Houston, I had played over 100 sets (rating sets, tournament sets, or challenge match sets) plus any pickup games/winner stays kind of things we’ve done. Which reminds me of another point in that while we may have a smaller player base in Illinois, I think the amount of table time per capita is second to none in Illinois and soon this fact would really show with the finishes from the main draw.
While the rest of the first round was being played, I didn’t look at the tournament chart but from talking with Mike Cummings and others, I heard that Colin was playing as a 4 and has been progressing a lot since last year. I was actually hoping to face Colin just to see how well he has advanced in just a year. Turns out I would have the chance in the second round. Colin and I play straight up no point spot and using the same attack that I used against Tad, I was able to win game 1 7-5. Colin came out really strong in game 2 and I couldn’t stop his overs. Colin’s main drift from watching him the entire weekend seems to be a fast diamond drift that he hits primarily out of the top of the diamond. This fast forwards a little bit on the weekend to Sunday but here he is playing against Avery in the Youth 18 and under finals:
Now going into game 3, I wanted to really use my cut. Colin’s defense seemed to jump a lot, often times pulling back all the way to the back rail on every shot, and my cut has really been working for me as of late so with highlighting the cut (maybe 2 to 3 cut to RW) out of an open V off the left rail and my standard drift with a time delay I am able to win game 3 7-3. Colin, with the right mentors, has the potential to be really great if he sticks with this sport but for now, I was able to win the set against him.
Next up, Steven Accrocco. I think I spotted Steven 2 or 3 points…not sure which. In either case Steven plays a very relaxed defense, charges a lot and from watching him play some games doesn’t seem to have too much of a setup to his attack but hits fast overs from the back half of his side and tries to hit a lot of power straights. The newbie cut and RW attack works extremely well and I win 7-5, 7-4 despite the point spot.
My next set is against another Gibson…this time Chris Gibson, Tad’s son. Chris plays as a 3 so a 1 point hole…not too bad. Chris is one of the taller kids so he’ll be able to play the line a bit more easily than others if that is part of his game. Prior to this, I’ve only seen Chris play in warm up games and I think he uses a super hard mallet. Now, I understand the appeal of super hard mallets for offense….same swinging power plus harder mallet = faster shots. But you sacrifice some puck control and a lot of the kids that use these super hard mallets turn over the puck way too much. I think that was the reason early on in Illinois that Billy told me to switch from my translucent to one of Chris Green’s supersoft mallets. I had enough power on offense with either mallet but lacked the puck control. This is what I saw in Chris’s game from watching pick up games. He tended to be flashy and hit okay shots but lost the puck a lot. These games were close. Both games were 7-6s and I was able to win both of them. I think in the first one I was up 6-5 and the second Chris was up by the same margin. Billy and I look at the chart and we’re going to be facing off in the semifinals. Kind of neat that the two Chicago players that show up to the weekly are the two in the semifinals. 
I decide to wave my 2 point spot against Billy. In a best 2 out of 3, I stand a better shot than a 4 of 7 against him so I thought it’d be good to try to play him straight up. ( 
) Billy wins game 1 7-4, I take a 7-6 game 2, and Billy wins game 3 7-5. Off to the loser’s bracket I go. Win this set and then it’s up against Billy again.
My next match is against Anthony Munez. This kid….he plays a razzle dazzle type offense but has some really ridiculous shots out of it including hitting the puck off his back rail as a shot against his opponents. They were on target, but slow and extremely easy to read. But from watching him all weekend, he does have some potential if he removes a lot of the BS that just wouldn’t work against the majority of the player base from his attack. He was able to win game 2, but games 1 and 3 were good wins for me (7-5s with giving up a 2 point spot).
Next up…again…Billy Stubbs. Again I wave my point spot. And again Billy beats me 2-1. This was a better set though the scores were 7-5, 6-7, 7-5 and I finish second in my first Houston weekly only losing to Billy. Not bad…not bad at all and after my first set with Tad, I got over some pre-tournament jitters which would make doubles that much more fun…and after all I was teaming up with Mr. Dan Meyer and what would be more fun than that.
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