RSC Mini-Beach Hockey - 19 January 2013

Our annual makan kecil this year was re-engineered by our young Sports members and the ‘New Year Mini-Beach Hockey’ was held at RSC Kiara Sports Annexe on Saturday, 19 January 2013.

Well... there was no beach, not even the pool... but no one really cared, because the players (who turned up in their colourful attire) had good fun playing ‘hockey’ with our own unique set of rules and the weather was just perfect on this Saturday evening!

Team selection the traditional way - throw in your sticks!

The 'beach' hockey players!

The Hats

The Hatless

Rules of the game – Played with a takraw ball, no tackling, no running with the ball, only pushing allowed (no hitting!) and our ‘keeper’ plays the other end! A goal is scored when the ‘keeper’ catches the ball using a hat!

The new rules made the game interesting and demanded a lot of creativity from the players to adapt to the situation.  As usual, there were the ‘disputes’ with our volunteer umpires, especially the usual noisy players (you know who you are!), but everyone played with great sportsmanship and it ended up with a score of 7-5 (the winners were the ‘hatless team’).

Whilst the players went to shower and change into their tropical attire for the night, the organising team was busy setting up for the dinner event. Door gifts, prizes, trophies, PA system, food...  and most importantly, the beers!

The dinner started at 7.45pm, and was well attended by our section members. We had almost 70 pax, including wives and children, and also the privilege of having the President and the Sports chairman in attendance as well. We were extremely pleased to have had so many section members and their families turn up for this event and it was great to see several new faces too!

In fact, it turned out to be a gathering of Hockey Olympians of sorts, as we had Freddy Vias, Dato’ Yogeswaran, Dato’ Poon Fook Loke, S.Bala, Colin Sta Maria and Stephen Van Huizen at the event, amongst several other ex-national players. In fact, Dato’ Poon won the Whiskey Award for being the oldest player on the pitch! 

Ladies first, of course!

A collection of Olympians - Dato' poon Fook Loke, Freddy Vias, Stephen Van Huizen, dato' Yogeswaran, Colin Sta Maria, S.Bala 

It was a busy night for the RSC F&B staff. The drinks flowed freely and the crowd made quick work of the food, especially the satay!  After everyone had their stomachs filled, it was time for some activities, starting with the awards presentation.

The ‘awards’ presented by our Convenor, James Sia were as follows:

1.          The Top Dog Award (Best Player) – Maninderpreet a.k.a. Minnie

2.          The Whiskey Award (Oldest Player) – Dato’ Poon Fook Loke

3.          The Happy Meal Award (Youngest Player) – Sriraam Vikneswaran

4.          The Breezy Award (Best Dressed) – I.Vikneswaran

5.          The Coconut Award (Worst Dressed) – Jay Ooi

The kids were not forgotten and were ‘rewarded’ with prizes sponsored by James Andrew, through an ‘angpow’  lucky draw. Our resident entertainer, Vincent, also amused the kids with his balloon animals. He was a definite favourite with the kids!

The final and most interesting activity was our tropical boat race. It was a boat race with a twist! The selection of drinks include coke, orange juice and beer in an Oktoberfest mug, hence the mix of ‘boat racers’, which included the kids and spouses! All ‘boatracers’ were presented with a 2013 note book courtesy of James Sia.

A big thanks to the organising committee – Charles Lim, Vincent Mariadass, Aiman Hakim and Tang Chun How, for a job well done and looking forward to more of such events in the future.