Comparing Tournaments

A couple of the guys had asked me in Hawaii how this tournament stacks up with the others i have been to around the world... Tough question to answer. I have definitely never been pampered as much as i was by a team like i was with ECG Scanning Hockey Club. John Nasuti runs the team and he runs it well ... we are all fitted with hockey bags ( mine was custom made in Kitchener and flown directly to the hotel !) , we are also given golf shirts with our team logos , had beer and water in our dressing rooms for every game , pizza & beer party , and to top it all off a Catamaran Booze Cruise . So this was a definite hard question to answer ...

Obviously you would not want to tell someone that has given you all this stuff that this tournament is not as good as others , so i kinda beat around the bush . The truth is that this tournament was lacking the social element that most tournaments that i end up loving have . I don't think it is a fault of the organizers they are doing a great job and i have no complaints just suggestions.

What i think is that playing 1 game a day 4 days in a row kinda takes us away from the rink , which means we are not meeting other teams hanging around . Whenever i am at a tourney overseas i always have at least 2 games on the same day , and usually i end up hanging out with another team in the parking lot and making new friends with like interests ...HOCKEY ! Now all our games aside from the first day were early in the morning which meant most of us did not go out or go hard , when my games are at noon you usually will find me stumbling to my room before the sun comes up :) 

Also there was a bar there but it didn't seem to get much push and there were no events planned by the tournament like drink specials at certain clubs or bars . I know in other tourneys you will find this and basically you end up drinking with the guys you just had a battle against , i know in Singapore this lead to all the gambling on games LOL!

Bottom line is i would suggest to any of you to go to this tournament as long as you are over 30 . It is such a beautiful island and i DO plan to go back there again if my gracious teammates would have me as their keeper again . It really caught my attention when Kathleen asked me why everyone was so tame as she does know things can get a little crazy at these tournaments .

My next big trip is not until the end of October , unless i end up at the Las Vegas tournament . Until then i will be playing alot of Ghetto hockey , with a few tournaments in there as well . Andi will be visiting Toronto and playing some Ghetto hockey along with some surprise guests, there is bound to be one of you readers here someday ( soon hahaha) .... Looks like Malaysia to visit Gary , Eu Jin and the KL Cobras & Bangkok Tournament will be the time of my life , now i need to work and make some money :(

Mahalo Hawaii !