Team History

6 Years of Ball Hockey in Hong Kong – An HKIBO Retrospective
Fall, 2001, Mui Wo Lantau Island: Over a couple of drinks, Jody Tessaro and John Harper started to wax poetic about what they missed so much about Canada (perhaps, more honestly, they were pining for the youth that had passed them by). At this point in the evening, on their balcony overlooking Silvermine Bay, they had not started to argue yet. In fact, it may have been a moment of clarity that possessed Jody to turn and say, ‘You know what we should do? We should organize a game of road hockey.’ A whim, perhaps (after all, on which road in Hong Kong could they possibly play?), but one that has endured 6 years and has brought together more than 100 like-minded souls in a unique and significant circumstance.

Sounds simple, eh? There are many who believe that the organization of this great club is a simple matter. Well, things were not exactly running like a well-oiled machine back then. The first obstacle was where to find sticks and a place to play!

As luck would have it, a few weeks later Jody and Harps were on the slow ferry into HK and spotted a young Canadian lad with a plastic-bladed stick. Goodness knows that we’ve all cursed those flimsy white things in moments of near misses, but the lads thought they’d ask the boy where they might find a stick or two for a one-off day of hockey. He suggested the Dragon Centre.

The boys made a few calls and rallied a few other lads in the pursuit of a game. One evening, Harps hiked up to Terence’s shop and got them each a couple of brand new twigs (he didn’t opt for used ones just in case they decided to make it a regular gig). A few of the others begged, borrowed and stole the needed equipment and they were off to the races.

Curtis LaBounty, Dave Climie, Chris Angelosante, Don Benson, Jody and Harps played the first-ever Islanders ball hockey game on the basketball court on Lamma Island with a frustratingly bouncy tennis ball. In fact, they played on half of the court as the other half was taken up by basketball players who were neither impressed with the lads’ game nor inclined to make room for them. It didn’t matter, really, as they were in seventh heaven with their t-shirt nets and the continual delays of game cause by the ball rolling under the fence. It was a blast and they all committed to doing it again. The enduring part of this particular game was the tossing of the sticks (something Curtis had never heard of!) and it remains a part of Saturday hockey and Islander tradition.

Over the following weeks, they had a fluctuating roster as hang-overs determined the attendance of Angelosante and Benson. Their ranks were refueled by Robbie Davidson, Keiran Doyle and the man who inspired them all: Dustin Orser. Of course, Jody and Harps hated Dusty at first; he thought ball hockey was a running game!

Through a twist of genius and fate, they moved their game to the courts of Delia in Tai Koo. Their ranks began to swell as the hardworking stiffs at Delia began to look out of their classroom windows (what were they doing there on Saturdays, anyway?) and plan their career comebacks. In rolled the likes of Matt Buntain, Huy Nguyen, Jeremy Lanaway, Jay Prohaska, Pete Haynes, Frayne Kyte and Chuck Yorke. They finally had the crowd they needed to have a serious run at the Stanley Cup! They even had nets and subs!

Back then, games lasted all afternoon. It would not be unusual for the lads to show up at the court at 11:30 am and hit the pub, un-showered, in Tai Koo Place at 6 pm. It was at this time that Harps started to play around with a digital camera and had the tongue-in-cheek idea to name the team and put out their first press release. He called it the Dragon’s Breath and it was his imitation of the sappiest sports write-up from those papers back home that celebrate the great game. The first 10 issues of the Breath were lost in a not-so-freak laptop incident, but the rest are available here. He also worked up a shoddy design of an orange dragon holding a hockey stick. To Harps, the whole idea of pretending the Islanders were a real team on their way to world domination was both funny and a way of garnering loyalty and interest for the team. Little did he know that the team would eventually compete at the world level! They had a team, a name and a home. But all good things must come to an end and the Delia days were overtaken by ‘progress’.

Booted from Delia as the school refurbished its court, the Islanders were banished back to Lamma Island and the courts of Korean International School. During this period, all-stars such as Buzz Languille, Bryan Turner, Pete Moores, Geoff Brown, Ian Calton and Kevin Trampbanger joined the ranks. Harps also had a chance meeting with an old University pal, Doug Foster, who had been playing regularly on Discovery Bay. Thanks to the membership of Jay Cummings and Ben Yue, the lads were able to at least look like a team. Ben re-designed the team logo and a bunch of the boys ironed the new logo onto t-shirts (with varying degrees of success) and made their way out to Discovery Bay. They thought they were good, but never dreamed that they’d destroy DB 19-1. Prohaska began his film career by documenting the victory and the team absorbed (as has become tradition) the best of their opponents – Dougie Fresh and Gerald Tang.

By this time, Dusty had convinced the boys to enter the Mekong Cup. They hurriedly ordered what are now vintage shirts and off they flew to the big leagues. In Phuket, they were destroyed by Singapore, decimated by the Thai Stix, defeated by KL and the Bullies and somehow scraped past the Tokyo co-ed team. The Islanders were rightly humbled but had learned a valuable lesson: The Chili Crabs are rat-b*stards!

Licking their wounds back in Hong Kong, the lads worked harder at building the Islanders. Dusty became a legendary net craftsman, Robbie began booking the team extra nights at German Swiss International School, Prohaz documented their successes and failures on video and they all went on a massive player-drive. An ice-hockey incarnation of the Islanders was created, featuring new Islanders such as Andrew White, Rob Corbitt and Kevin Rushton. The Islanders had banquets with awards and a new star: Gav Robinson.

The all-star coaching team of Frayne and Gav came together to lead the Islanders to the finals in the 2004 Mekong Cup. They went undefeated on the day and, in fine tradition, lost in a heart-breaking final. While they lost that particular cup, neither Islander tournament team has lost a game to a non-Islander team in the Mekong Cup ever since.

But the team was in debt. Dusty had borne the brunt of Islander costs in a variety of sacrifices which found him buying equipment and making up for shortcomings in the new deal with the YMCA. No man has sacrificed for the Isles like Dusty and he will always be remembered for his passion and commitment. YMCA Saturdays began to bring in enough money to carry costs, but left the team short at banquet time. They needed a sponsor.

They had been spending a fair amount of time and money at Delaney’s, who gave the team discounts, but no hard cash. One night, Harps appealed to Matt Boner, friend and owner of Mes Amis, to help cover some team costs. After all, the second banquet consisted of paper awards, created on the sly by Chuck Yorke. This was no way for a team to live. As luck would have it, Islander Juraj Kuzma joined the Mes Amis staff and talked Matt out of giving the Islanders too much money – but convinced him to give them just enough!

Dusty had always dreamed of creating a Hong Kong tournament, but did not stay in HK long enough to see his vision to fruition. Prohaska had taken the reigns of organizing Saturdays and Chuck Yorke had the burning desire to contribute to the team. Chuck and Harps went to work on organizing the inaugural Canton Cup (named by Jeremy Lanaway) in June of 2005. Chuck remained behind in HK over that summer and worked on the Y angle. Harps talked Casella and the Thai Stix into coming over.

When the team returned to regular play in August, their ranks had swelled to new heights. They were faced with a problem for the tournament: they couldn’t put everyone on the traditional Islanders squad or they would have 30 guys on the bench! They needed to create a new tournament team so that all Islanders could play on the big day. They had to make sure that it was a competitive tournament but also needed to retain a ‘traveling roster’ – guys who would be willing to travel to the Mekong. So the Islanders were divided into two teams: the Blues (old-timers) and the Whites (newcomers). The Islanders put Juraj on loan to the newly formed White team in order to secure the bond between the new players and our sponsor and, indeed, courted the talent of one Jeff Brennan. Both moves were, as it turns out, misunderstood and served in the vilification of the Islanders Blue team. But the vilification has served the Nords and the whole organization well!

Using the unclaimed Islanders list, Vic Demelo did a great job of organizing the Isles White team (later dubbed the Nords) and Brennan managed to find additional talent by getting Jeff Wall and Kevin Rushton to don the white jerseys on the day. The Nords won the Canton and the rest, as they say, is history. The Islanders found themselves with two talented tournament teams and an organization that brought together the opportunity for players of all levels to play in a social atmosphere.

So, what has followed? A run at the World Championships in Pilsen Czech Republic; 4 Mekong Cups, 3 Canton Cups and 1 K-Town Cup; the birth of a growing number of children whose dads slip out of the flat at 8:30 every Saturday; social events such as parties, weddings and stags attended by men bound together by a game; a variety of competitive local tournaments; weekly stats; fundraisers for charity; mantles filled with medals and trophies; membership in the ISBHF; absolute dominance of Asia by a special group of lads who find a strange, zen-like comfort in trying to bash each other’s heads in any time a little orange ball is dropped on the floor; memories to last a lifetime, recorded in photos, on video and on this website. Not bad for a whim, eh?