Vancouver Bulls, Mitsubishi and Chinese Taipei favourites in the BOCI-Prudential HKAHC Invitational Amateur Ice Hockey Tournament

The BOCI-Prudential HKAHC Invitational Amateur Ice Hockey Tournament will begin this Friday evening with 4 matches starting from 7:30 pm at MegaIce.

9 teams divided into 3 groups will chase for the Bauhinia Cup, Silver Plate and the highest honour, the Gold Cup.  Vancouver Bulls, Mitsubishi and Chinese Taipei are seeded in three different groups. 

Chinese Taipei is the overall runner-up in last year’s tournament returning with a much stronger team and is the hot favourite in the tournament. Vancouver Bulls was beaten by Chinese Taipei last year in the strongest Gold Cup Group remains highly competitive this year.  Mitsubishi thatched the Silver Plate last year is another strong contender.

The host puts up two teams to try to keep the Gold Cup to stay at home.  Jerome Lui, Team Manager of HKAHC Giants, said “HKAHC Giants has a wealth of experience with players from the HKAHC Regular Division and some young guns from the Novice Division. With guidance from coach Hiroki Wakabayashi, our team will play as well as we can to achieve the best results, and enjoy games with global players at the same time.

This year’s team includes talented playmakers from Jason Chan (captain) and Eric Pang, with top league forward players from Derek Selch, Jason Yip, and Keith Hong.  Justin So and Kevin Wong will lead our team’s defense against various strong teams to make this weekend interesting.”

HKAIH Troopers, coached by NHL’er Barry Beck, is made up of top local players such as Sam Szeto, Julian Ma, Hayes To, and Yannick Wong, is probably the strongest home team ever in the history of this tournament.