West Covina Table Tennis Club

There will be another league match at the club this Saturday 2/6/2010 at 12.30. Come and cheer for our team! Here's some details from Ken:

Our opponent this week is "3 Black Men" from USC (don't be supprised if they are not black at all). Their team members include: Adam Bobrow, Subal Mehta and Jason Sun. Make sure you come to the club this Saturday to cheer for our team, and cheer even louder when our players are playing Adam. As Adam put it when he send me email to confirm the match:

"Feel free to put out the word, round up a crowd, get the local news, your camera men, your score keeper, your draw sheet and whatever else you need. We look forward to playing in front of a thousand of the craziest table tennis fans in East, West, North and South Covina"

Let's make him looking for East, West, North, and South exit and want to get out of West Covina as soon as your game is over!!!!!!!!!!!

Just like last week, we will still open 3 other tables on the other side so everyone can still play TT while cheering for our team.

Ken Trinh
West Covina Table Tennis Club
www.westcovinattc.com

Our WCTTC team of Paisan, Ken, Willy, and Tim won our inaugural LATTF league match. We beat the Robotfit Amigos team of Will and Lloyd 4-1. The individual match scores were:

Paisan d. Will 3-0 (11/4, 11/7, 11/6)

Willy d. Lloyd 3-1 (11/8, 11/9, 9/11, 11/8)

Ken/Tim d. Lloyd/Will 3-2 (11/7, 12/14, 11/8, 8/11, 11/9)

Tim d. Will 3-0 (13/11, 11/3, 11/7)

Paisan l. Lloyd 2-3 (4/11, 11/9, 11/8, 8/11, 6/11)

Congratulations to our team!

Thanks to Eng Soedjono for the photos...

I have a message (below) from our beloved president, Ken, regarding holiday
hours. Also, we should all extend a special thanks to Ken for keeping the
doors open to the club. City budget cuts have reduced the staff at the
Senior Center where we play. Only Ken's dedication allows us to keep
playing. Thank you, Ken!

---------------------------- Message from Ken ---------------------
Hi WCTTC members:

First of all, wish everyone have a very happy holidays.

I would like to inform everyone for the holiday hours as follow, we will be closed for the following days and for the following reason:

1. Saturday 12-19-2009 close due to National Championship Tournament in Las Vegas. All of our staff will be either competing or coaching at the tournament for this yearly event.

2. Thursday 12-24-2009 Xmas eve. Senior center will be closed. Merry Xmas !!!!!

3. Thursday 12-31-2009 New Year's eve. Senior center will be closed. Happy New Year !!!!!

Thank you.



Ken Trinh
West Covina Table Tennis Club
www.westcovinattc.com

Recently, a key member of the Chinese table-tennis national team caused the wrong kind of news. Wang Hao apparently got into an argument over pee-ing! I'm sure he was being picked on because he is a well-known sports figure, and not because he missed the Olympic gold medal, not once but twice. Poor guy.

This past Tuesday, while club member Khom was warming up during regular club hours, he suddenly stopped because he felt dizzy. In a matter of 3-4 seconds, he no longer responded to queries and collapsed stiffly to the floor. I managed to catch him inches before his head hit the floor. As concerned fellow players gathered around to help, Khom stopped breathing. We had to administer CPR repeatedly to him over the next few minutes as both his breathing and heart stopped and started over and over. Thankfully, paramedics arrived less than 10 minutes later, and with their equipment, was able to monitor Khom's vital signs more accurately. At one point, they were forced to use a defibrillator on him. Thankfully, Khom's vital signs stabilized significantly after that, and he was transported to the hospital.

At this moment, Khom is resting at the hospital and appears to be responding to those around him. Our thoughts are with him and we wish him a speedy recovery.

UPDATE: Khom underwent quintuple by-pass and is now back to work. I've never heard of quintuple by-pass before!

Chinese athletes train like no other in the world, basically sacrificing everything in their lives. However, it is still heartbreaking to hear some of these stories.

First is a story about an athlete who is simply forbidden to quit. (There is no such thing as personal freedom for a Chinese athlete). Second is another story about an athlete who continues to train even though he could go blind because of the training.

Ok, we do have new club hours, officially.

Tuesday and Thursday, 6-9 pm.
Saturday 11 am - 5 pm 12 pm - 4 pm.

Enjoy!

Some of us will remember an old friend, Dowen, who played at the club years ago. Take a look at his new favorite pastime!

Dowen de wikidess keyboard playah pon vocals

The West Covina Senior center is asking our club to change our playing hours. The suggestion is Tuesday and Thursday 6 - 9 pm, and Saturday 10 am - 4 pm. The motivation is to avoid the current situation on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 - 6 pm when the center is also used by an after-school Chinese school. Class dismisses at 6 pm, and the playing area can get overrun by active kids. Play frequently has to be suspended for a few minutes.

While there hasn't been a set date for the new playing hours, it can happen soon, as in within a week. So, now is the time to speak out about it!

Club president Ken is getting an itch to run another tournament. The last one we had was quite successful, with participants from Europe, the East Coast, and elsewhere. If we offer big prizes again, I bet they'll show up again. Any comments?

The club closure seems to have disrupted everyone's routine. We actually had unoccupied tables last Tuesday. This just never happens. It is much more common to have 3 people waiting at every table. So, come on down everybody, there are plenty of tables open!

The club will be closed temporarily from Jan 29 till Feb 5. Our first day back after the closure will be Feb 7. The facility is being painted.

We are going to have a potluck this Saturday, October 6, during club hours. Please bring your favorite dish and join us. We'll welcome anyone, especially if you bring food!

In July, Alan Tanti won the U-1150 and U-1300 in the Long Beach tournament. Then, in August, he won the U-1400 at Pacific Coast 2007 in Santa Monica. That makes it 8 titles so far in 2007. As a point of reference, Roger Federer won 5 titles in 2007.

Can someone else at the club please win something?

Our young Alan is at it again. This time he won the U1000 event at the US Open in Las Vegas. We have a national champion!