My Most Memorable Air Hockey Moment: Wil Upchurch, Part 2

Previously on My Most Memorable Moment, iconoclastic Dallas native Wil Upchurch descended into the Wolf’s den—Green’s Gameroom in Houston, Texas—to take on the cool kids, led by air hockey wunderkind Tim Weissman. If you missed the first half of Wil’s coming-of-age narrative, please click back to the PREVIOUS POST in order to get up to speed!

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Tim emerged from that car with the confidence of the rich kid on a field trip. You know the one: The guy who buys all the stuff you want to buy even though you only have five bucks, and that’s for lunch? He stretched as Seal went into the final chorus, then reached into the back seat and pulled out his bag (much cooler than mine) as the sound diminished toward the end of the song. Then he shut the door, reached into the open window, and finally removed the keys. Who shuts the door and then turns the car off? Tim Weissman, that’s who, because the universe loves him.

Tim works the crowd as the air hockey gods smile down.

In a heaven of people there’s only some want to fly… Ain’t that crazy?… Oh babe… Oh darlin…

The tournament came and went that weekend. Tim won… duh. I finished a disappointing 15th, and made my way back to Dallas to regroup, get better, and look forward to the next time. But a funny thing happened when I got back into town. Seal came on the radio, and I didn’t hate that song anymore. In fact, I could kinda see why people liked it. Seal’s voice was great, the lyrics were interesting…

Wait a minute! I thought to myself. What’s happening here?

And that was when I realized—when I was hearing that song, I was seeing Tim in my mind’s eye, emerging from his car and stretching languorously in the hot Houston sun, sure that whatever waited for him inside Green’s was going to turn out for the best.

Wil's never gonna survive. Unless he gets a little crazy.

In that moment I realized a fundamental truth about being a winner, a champion. Winners weren’t outside the circle or inside the circle, winners drew the circle. Tim could love that song for the same reason he could shut the car door before he took out the keys—because he was in control. Tastemakers and trendsetters don’t work hard to pick the next big thing…they wear it, they use it, they live it. And people get that, and they admire them for being in control, for loving what they love and doing what they do. That’s what makes it a hit.

A Magnum-esque Vince Shappell forks over the prize money to Tim. Again.

Seal didn’t write his song to please his market or to conform to some imagined standard of popularity. No, he did the best he could do, and knew it was good, and walked through the world knowing that until even I had to admit that it wasn’t just “that damn song,” but a damn good song. Tim, with his unique diamond drift and out defense, wasn’t trying to please the Old Guard by mastering their techniques… he was doing the best he could do and knowing it was good.

As a young upstart air hockey player who had never seen Tim lose a tournament, I couldn’t help but always be gunning for him. I knew if I could take him down, I could take down anyone. You don’t get to be pack leader by picking off the whelps, after all. But seeing Tim enjoy that song taught me a new perspective. Before I saw him only as a villain, as someone I had to defeat. But now I felt like Zeus, raging against the mighty titan Kronos, mixing in feelings of admiration with the drive to destroy.

Portrait of the author as a young man

In that moment, my most memorable moment, I learned that it was ok to admire my opponents for who they were—for their skills, their successes, and the things they had that I didn’t—because that freed me to do the best I could, and to know that it was good. It freed me to draw my own circle. And that was the first step to becoming a champion.

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Editor’s note: Wil won his world championships in 1997 and 2007. At this rate he will have to wait seven more years to win his third. That will make him the oldest player to ever win a final, by far.

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Wil Upchurch is happily married and  teaches public speaking in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. His website is http://www.istopdating.com

My Most Memorable Air Hockey Moment: Wil Upchurch, Part 1

In many ways, two-time World Champion Wil Upchurch is the perfect embodiment of all things that make air hockey players…well… air hockey players. Outsize in both personality and proportion, Wil is cheerful, raucous, intelligent, powerful, and opinionated—part gamer, part athlete, part non-conformist, and all animal when he steps up to the Table. Wil is nicknamed the Juggernaut for good reason; when he gets up to speed he is not unlike that humongous spheroid rock at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark that crushes everything in its path—except he’s hairier. And sweatier.

We asked Wil to talk about his favorite air hockey moment in his long and storied career. This is what he said.

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The year was 1991 and I was just a young upstart air hockey player, though one that had already achieved a fair amount of success. I lived in Dallas, Texas, where I practiced with my friends and occasionally got to test my skills against two of my air hockey heroes—Paul Marshall and Mark Robbins—the two men who had introduced me to the sport.

Wil & Air Hockey Guru Mark Robbins

Being from Dallas, I lived outside the air hockey Mecca of Houston, and could only imagine going to Colorado or Philadelphia to play against the greats that resided in those places. I was on the outside, looking in. Being a teenage boy with somewhat… esoteric… tastes in hobbies and interests, I felt on the outside of pretty much everything else as well.

There was a song on the radio that summer by a new artist named Seal. It was called “Crazy,” and I didn’t care for it at all. It played over and over again on the radio as I drove down to Houston for Vince Schappell’s Houston City Classic. What I wouldn’t have given for an iPod. But I endured it, and arrived at Green’s Gameroom in Memorial City Mall ready to live up to the high expectations I had set by placing third in the Texas State Championship earlier that year. The same doubts that plague me even now crept into my mind, those that said, “they all know you’re not that good” and “they all know each other, you’re here alone.”

Crazy yellow people walking through my head… One of them’s got a gun, to shoot the other one.

2 Degrees of Separation?

Though the Old Guard had welcomed me into the sport with open arms, the young players had not been so kind. It wasn’t so much that they were cocky—boy were they cocky—but that they were close to my age, and they were better than me. And they knew it. “Green’s Wolverines,” their shirts said. Shirts that marked them as together. As something special. Their de facto leader was Tim Weissman, air hockey wunderkind, who by that time was on a winning streak of a dozen tournaments or more. He seemed untouchable, unapproachable… especially to an outsider like me.

Tim, the Maestro

So it was that I arrived at Green’s on Saturday morning, ready to get inside and start warming up before the tournament began. As I pulled my air hockey bag out of the car, I heard that damn song echoing across the parking lot.

No we’re never gonna survive, unless… we get a little crazy…

I turned to see who was blasting it out their open windows, and it was a little red sportscar pulling into a space right in front of the arcade. I’d had to park several rows away. The person inside the car had the gall to just sit there jamming to the song while those of us on the outside suffered. As the door started to open, I thought to myself, Oh good, it’s stopping. But in fact it kept playing, even as the driver of that sportscar, none other than Tim Weissman, emerged.

The Young Wolf's Lair

Of course, I thought. He drives a sportscar, has a hot girlfriend, wins twelve tournaments in a row, has a great group of friends that whip me on the table every time I step up, and he likes that damn song. I never felt more like Ralph Macchio than I did at that moment. At least air hockey didn’t involve getting my leg swept…

…to be continued: Can Wil defeat the Cobra Kai, or will he scurry back to Reseda? (Dallas, I mean.) And what about Elisabeth Shue?

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Wil Upchurch is happily married and  teaches public speaking in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. His website is http://www.istopdating.com

The Ritalin Chronicles: Part 1

There is plenty of weirdness going on in this picture. Discuss.

"What's the matter with Ashley?"

(Amazing stock photography courtesy of Fotosearch.com)

Exclusive Interview With Newly Crowned Air Hockey Champion (and Overlord) Davis Lee Huynh

Six years ago I interviewed Davis Lee Huynh for an article in Giant Robot magazine. He was ranked #10 at the time, and he practiced two hours a day, six days a week–studying game tapes 20 minutes a day. “That’s probably more than anyone else is doing at this point,” he had said. “I just gotta outwork them and hope they slack off.”

Three years later, Davis won his first championship. “Against a weakened field,” many naysayers remarked. Yesterday, Davis won his second championship– against the third-largest field of all time. He is not the most physically gifted or innately talented player, so his success story is a narrative of hard work. There will always be haters, but here’s a guy who set a goal and outworked everyone else to reach it and you can’t begrudge him that. It just so happens that his goal was to be the air hockey champion of the world.

Henry, the 11-year old son of my cousin, was able to watch the Finals yesterday online, and showed great interest in air hockey played at this level. He had many questions, so I asked if he would like to pose them to one of the more qualified people at this point, the newly crowned champion.

He said yes.

I corrected some grammar and spelling but the questions are his.

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HENRY: I see that you have a smaller mallet. How come nobody else uses it? Is it legal?

DAVIS: I play with a low or flat top mallet, as they are called.  Since it is the same basic size and shape as a regular mallet, except that the round knob has been removed, it is a legal mallet.  I like playing with it because I feel it allows me to be faster on the table.  The regular mallets don’t let me play as freely as I would like to.  90% of the top players feel it is not as stable for defense, and so they advise most players not to use the low top mallet.

HENRY: Are the best players in California?

DAVIS: Historically, the best players have all hailed from Houston, Texas.  7 of the 12 champions live in Houston.  California has been considered to have one of the weakest player bases among the active states.  If Air Hockey were Star Wars, Californians would be considered the Rebel Alliance, and Houston would be the evil Galactic Empire.  We are going to try to change that though, right Henry?

HENRY: What kind of foods do air hockey players eat?

DAVIS: I don’t really keep track of what other air hockey players are eating, but since most of us are on the “plus” side of average, I would say we eat what the average person eats, but a little more of it.  When I am competing in tournaments, I try not to eat anything that even has a chance of making me sick.  There are only 1-2 competitions per year, and you don’t want to have one ruined by food sickness, which has happened to me in the past.  I stick to steak, carbs and fruit.

HENRY: Now that you are champion please tell us your SECRET. And don’t say “practice.”

DAVIS: My secret is that I’m air hockey’s version of Batman.  Batman didn’t have any superhuman powers, he would just figure out his enemies’ weaknesses and stay 3 steps ahead of them.  Batman also could take a beating and come back and rally to win.  I’m not the strongest or the fastest player, but I can figure out most of my opponents’ weaknesses and devise a plan to defeat them.  I am also calm when down in a match, and sometimes able to overcome large deficits.

HENRY: Why do some players hit the puck in a boring circle? Everybody knows the way to win is to smash the puck in.

DAVIS: Henry, it’s funny that you and I think alike.  I am not a fan of anything that looks boring, and some of those circle drifts are boring to watch.  I like to put the puck on the table and score as fast as possible.  I think some players do it hoping that they will put the other player to sleep, but instead they are putting the audience to sleep.

HENRY: Who will beat you first?

DAVIS: The first player that has challenged me for my #1 World Ranking is Brian Accrocco.  We will see if he makes the trip out here to play me and try to get the top rank.  Mark Nizzi of Colorado has offered to pay for me to come out and play against him.  If I wasn’t the current #1 player, the players that I look forward to defeating are Anthony Marino and Wil Upchurch.  These two have given me the most difficulty over the years.  If it weren’t for them, I may have won another 2-3 championships.

HENRY: Would you rather fight a shark or a polar bear? Why?

DAVIS: I’m not sure how I would even go about fighting against a shark, so I would choose to fight a polar bear.  Even though a polar bear is pretty large and quick, I think I could elude it and buy some time to try to figure a way out.  Maybe polar bears have a “sensitive groin area” that I could go for.

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Congratulations, Davis!

Way of the Puck Coming Soon

Greetings all!

It’s been a long hard slog, but we are near the end of it. Way of the Puck, the finest feature film about professional air hockey ever made, will be released on DVD in October of this year.

Features should include:

• Way of the Puck (TRT: 81 minutes)
• 5.1 Surround mix
• Commentary track featuring director Eric D. Anderson and air hockey guru Mark Robbins
• Deleted scenes
• Original trailer
• letterboxed 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio

Pre-orders will begin in earnest in August. Stay tuned…

Praise the Table!

Syllabus: The WOTP Blog

Congratulations!

You have stumbled upon the maiden post for the Way of the Puck Blog. We are quite happy to be out of the editing room and here in the relative civility of the blogosphere! Can you tell? For those skimming, here is the most important takeaway of this initial post:

***WAY OF THE PUCK (the finest feature film about professional air hockey ever made) WILL BE RELEASED ON DVD IN OCTOBER OF THIS YEAR.***

Sorry to use all caps there, but In order to celebrate this release, we are SCREAMING as loud as our keyboards can SCREAM. (Sounds of pounding of table). And so, 3 months early, we are launching the Way of the Puck Blog to ramp up to this release and to try to dig even deeper into the secrets of air hockey. Hopefully many of you will come along for the ride. I urge everybody to subscribe to the WOTP Blog RSS feed for maximum efficiency!

Here is a basic outline of what the blog will feature, in no particular order:

• Way of the Puck related news
• Air hockey related articles, essays, interviews, and other bits
• Discussion of other independent and sports-related documentaries
• Random non-air-hockey-related items we think our audience will appreciate
• Everything else

Comments will remain on, until they are abused and/or we grow tired of policing them. Please, for the love of the Table, withhold obnoxiousness from your comments. Dissenting points of view are fine, even encouraged. But let us be adults. If you must type something incendiary and rude please go to our YouTube WOTP Trailer page and let it all out. That is the perfect venue for that sort of thing.

Thanks again for stopping by. We believe quite strongly in our little film–it’s been a real labor of love–and we encourage everybody to support the cause and to spread the word about Way of the Puck. Word of mouth will be key to the movie’s survival, so anybody you can bring into the fold is a big deal, since we are a tiny movie and we can’t afford to rent billboards on Sunset Boulevard!

Please check out our Facebook page, Twitter feed, and trailer on Youtube. The website will be active in a few days. Links are available in the rightmost column of the blog. And leave a comment if you are so inclined…. we’d love to hear from you!

Air hockey lives forever!

Respectfully,

The Management