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Wheelie warriors speed to victory

Kevin Kung

A very special hockey tournament was held at the Hong Kong Design Institute in Tiu Keng Leng last Saturday. Eighteen student teams competed in Aeron hockey - a sport where players sit on office chairs and use sticks to hit paper pucks.

A rectangular court was set up on the campus' Design Boulevard, and the prize for each winning team member was an Aeron chair.

Competition was fierce. You could see scratch marks from the wheels, black paint from the sticks and wreckage of broken hockey pucks everywhere. There was even a hole in the banner board made by a chair crashing into it at high speed.

Sky Ladder, formed by five exhibition design students, made their way to the final to face Victory, the defending champions. After two three-minute halves and a two-minute break, neither team had scored and so the match went into three minutes' extra time.

Sky Ladder were strongest in defence while Victory made the best attacks. But Sky Ladder won the match 1-0 when Or Pui-kuen scored a long-range shot during the 'sudden death' additional period.

Or and his classmates Zechariah Lau On-ki, Ivan Choi Wing-hung, Mishin Fung Chi-hin and Kevin Leung Yin-kiu celebrated with teachers and friends. 'That was so intense,' Or said. 'I even broke my watch in the match but I didn't know until someone picked it up for me during the break.'

Actually Sky Ladder were almost eliminated in early rounds. 'I got two yellow cards in the first match since I was not familiar with the sport,' said Or. 'The referee said I held the stick too high. That made me quite nervous as three yellow cards would make one red card and I would need to leave the court, leaving the team with only four players.'

Fung needed time to get used to the chair. 'I had to find my balance as it would tip me off when moving at high speed,' he said.

Lau did a brilliant job with his goalkeeping. He saved the team countless times when it seemed their opponents were sure to score. He stayed focused throughout the tournament and didn't let any team score goals against him. 'It's lucky we didn't need a penalty shoot-out to decide the winner, or we would all have been under pressure,' he said.

Teacher Leo Chan watched all Sky Ladder's matches. 'Yesterday the Pan Asia Championship 2011 was won by the Manteena team from Australia,' he said. 'My students are not as good as them, but they showed very quick learning abilities today. That is so impressive.'

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