Origins:
Irvine Invitational 2009, Frorida
City Wok started out in 2009 when the TD of the Irvine Invitational Tournament asked me to put together a "community" team for the college tournament. The reason being that the 16th team had dropped from the tournament at the last moment and he needed a team to round out the pools so that he could keep the current format. Thus, "Frorida" was born. The team consisted of a majority of (azn) Irvine alumni with a couple other guys from UCLA and the OC area. Our only instructions were to "not win the tournament," but as the tournament went on, playing games against UCLA-B, Azusa Pacific, Concordia, and SF State proved to be too difficult of a task NOT to win... so we sleptwalk our way into the finals. Once there, we faced the #1 seed LPC who had in their own right plowed their way to the finals. In the pre-game huddle, we reminded ourselves what the TD had asked of us to NOT do... but won the tournament anyway with a 15-7 win.
The first Frorida roster consisted of 10 guys, with our tallest guy being a mere 6'2"... with 3.5 non asians. We relied mostly on familiarity with each other as players, in addition to a lot of quick movement and tough defense to get through our games. Despite the tournament win, we knew that it was a college level tournament, and to many of us, the team was a "one-time deal," and we went about our own ways and into the real Club Season.
City Wok
Fast forward to 2010... and Club Trouble in Vegas. The core from Frorida consisted of Irvine alum, Allen Lai, Steven Lowe, Jerry Yang, Jamison Gorin, with UCLA alum Ed 'Biclops' Melo. We had talked about attending the tournament in Vegas as "Frorida," but decided while watching South Park that the name "City Wok," (pronounced "shitty" wok), would be more appropriate. So the team name was born. In addition, Biclops had secured somewhat of an endorsement deal from the City Wok Restaurant chain that would give us $250.00 towards jerseys which we put the company's logo on. It was quite amusing to see people's reaction to the jersey, but we cruised into Las Vegas with 13 guys, just to have some fun.
Due to the weather and Cultimate's rescheduling, the open division was reduced to one day on turf, with 4 games deciding the champion. We partied hard on Saturday, and showed up to games on Sunday hungover. We faced three teams in "pool play," and won the first two handidly, something around 15-4, 15-7. The third game was against the Minnesota Alumni team and despite our efforts, we lost the game by 3 or 4. At that point, all was done, but due to point differential, we had advanced to the final against the Hodag Alumni of Wisconsin. They had a lot of star power, with a callahan winner and multiple national champions on their team. You can find the game recap here, but in the end, we upset the defending champions and won the tournament.
It was an incredible accomplishment for the rag-tag group of unknown players from Orange County. To come into Vegas and beat some very good teams... made winning even better, especially since we came into the tournament without any expectations to do well at all. Two for two in tournaments played. Not bad.
2011
This year... City Wok has expanded the roster to 19 players for the recent New Year's Fest tournament in Tempe, AZ. The roster expanded to some more UCLA players, a couple more UCI Alumni as well as the three top players on the current UCI team (farm system?). A 5th place finish was disappointing though, as we struggled to find chemistry on a team that was so full of talent and athleticism. It was a lot of fun playing with former teammates and we even had a full 2007-2008 UCI line go out and play an O-point. Just like the good o'l days.
Next up.. will the the final Trouble in Vegas. "Mega Vegas," as it is being refered to. Our team is the defending champions of this tournament, and despite losing a lot of players to the mixed division, this team is the most geographically and ethnically diverse City Wok team to date. It will be a squad of 17 or 18 players from the greater LA/OC area, looking to just have a ton of fun and quite possibly win the tournament. Again, last year's win was a one-day affair, but this year's tournament will really show us if we can hang as an open team.
Looking forward to many future tournaments. We've also talked about attending Kaimana in the future, as well as maybe traveling to the midwest for some tournaments. I think we got a good thing started here in Irvine. Here's to Vegas!
-Hammie
zot zot zot~*
