Air Hockey!
About a year ago, my friend Kristen put an ad on Craigslist Boston looking for people to play air hockey with. A few people showed up the first time and she and her friends parlayed that into weekly air hockey sessions. The group started calling themselves Boston Air Hockey, since there weren't any other air hockey clubs in the city. Their motto: "Where even the winners are losers."
Once they began posting information online, this humble group of people who only kinda know how to play air hockey began sending shockwaves through the international air hockey community. Blogs as far away as Spain began talking up this new player on the air hockey scene. The beginning roughly translates as: "Boston, one more in the family. Only there is one more a more exciting thing for the air hockey explorer who to discover a new group of players: to see that it seems active and that it has future potential." (It's a pretty exclusive community.)
Word eventually got to Michael "Ricochet" Rosen, the U.S. Air Hockey Association's number-one-ranked player in New York, president of New York Air Hockey, and a former amateur air hockey world champion (according to his business card). He invited Kristen and company to Manhattan for a tournament against New York Air Hockey, which was held Saturday in a hole-in-the-wall bar in the East Village called Cheap Shots.
Never having been to an air hockey tournament before and wanting to show my New England pride, of course I went, decked out in a Red Sox hat and shirt (a few people came up to me and shouted "Go Yankees!"). It was way fun, and easily the most time I've spent thinking about air hockey in my life ever. Boston Air Hockey put on a good show, but the hard-core professionals from New York pretty much dominated.
They were really nice though, and so impressed that there was another upstart air hockey group. These guys really knew their air hockey -- like, referring to former world champions by their first names. I'm always interested to discover these unusual subcultures out there that no one knows about. And to support my friends' hilariously awesome hobbies.
Below are some pictures I took at the tourney. Here are some more from the official Boston Air Hockey site. (Note I'm not in the group shot because I don't play air hockey. Also, I was taking the picture.)
Kristen reacts to getting scored on.
Ricochet and James Scott Britton from Philadelphia in the final match.
The field of play.
Once they began posting information online, this humble group of people who only kinda know how to play air hockey began sending shockwaves through the international air hockey community. Blogs as far away as Spain began talking up this new player on the air hockey scene. The beginning roughly translates as: "Boston, one more in the family. Only there is one more a more exciting thing for the air hockey explorer who to discover a new group of players: to see that it seems active and that it has future potential." (It's a pretty exclusive community.)
Word eventually got to Michael "Ricochet" Rosen, the U.S. Air Hockey Association's number-one-ranked player in New York, president of New York Air Hockey, and a former amateur air hockey world champion (according to his business card). He invited Kristen and company to Manhattan for a tournament against New York Air Hockey, which was held Saturday in a hole-in-the-wall bar in the East Village called Cheap Shots.
Never having been to an air hockey tournament before and wanting to show my New England pride, of course I went, decked out in a Red Sox hat and shirt (a few people came up to me and shouted "Go Yankees!"). It was way fun, and easily the most time I've spent thinking about air hockey in my life ever. Boston Air Hockey put on a good show, but the hard-core professionals from New York pretty much dominated.
They were really nice though, and so impressed that there was another upstart air hockey group. These guys really knew their air hockey -- like, referring to former world champions by their first names. I'm always interested to discover these unusual subcultures out there that no one knows about. And to support my friends' hilariously awesome hobbies.
Below are some pictures I took at the tourney. Here are some more from the official Boston Air Hockey site. (Note I'm not in the group shot because I don't play air hockey. Also, I was taking the picture.)
Kristen reacts to getting scored on.
Ricochet and James Scott Britton from Philadelphia in the final match.
Kristen and Gen talk shop with the New York guys.
The field of play.
posted by Ryan Davis | 5:26 PM
1 Comments:
Wow.. I didn't know that Air hockey is such a popular sport around the world. I'm an air hockey enthusiast from Singapore and recently won a small-time air hockey tournament in Tiong Bahru Plaze in Singapore,the first ever air hockey competition to be set up in Singapore. Apart from that, I usually hustle around Tampines Mall Arcade (E-zone) and am considered a "veteran" there.
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