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University Games 2002 Page 2 |
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Day One: Baptism by fire (or we had to get up really early) Registration for competition was on the wee hours of the morning on ANZAC day, a public holiday in New Zealand. The hour was early and many were still asleep by the time they got to the Games Marquee (the future site of many drunken binges and partying). Al "whaddayamean the girls hockey team can't fit in my bedroom" Nicholls, the team manager was on hand to hand out the university team hoodies and by 11am most people had arrived and everyone headed to our accommodation on motel row in Hamilton. After the initial clamouring for beds ("nice and firm, this will do nicely" -David "my wallet is in Cynthia's pants" Burcher), everyone got settled in for the day and after freshening up, Al and a few others went to get lunch for the team while the rest of us headed to the Hamilton tennis centre to meet him there and start the first day of the tournament. The day was cloudy with a hint of passing showers. After lunch in the car park, the entire Auckland contingent trooped into the stadium with heads held high and eager to face the days challenges. |
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 The B Team - Daniel Sue, Stian Madshus, Al Nicholls & David Burcher |
The courts
were filled with eagerly anticipating fans and the atmosphere was clotted
with excitement (no, sorry, I'm getting mixed up with the US Open). All
the other universities had turned up in spite of the fact that we were
there (We're here for the beer and wenches). It was a colourful turnout,
with the Victoria team sporting vomity yellow t-shirts, Massey had their
light blue baseball shirts (It's tennis, people!), Otago wore their vomity
brown and green shirts, Massey Albany had a variation of the light blue
cheap tacky t-shirt thing going, Otago wore their bright yellow (also
a variation of the banana puke colour) hoodies, and Waikato….was
there a Waikato team?
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The Auckland
contingent however, including the ones disguised as the Tamaki team, were
resplendent in the their dark blue hoodies and assassin logos. Furthermore,
it has to be said that the material was far more superior and we had far
more sponsors than any of the other teams there. There were also more
of us and we just had the hot thing going. Anyway, the cornucopia of colours
made the day seem festive and Uni-games like. The tournament organiser
welcomed the entire tennis contingent from all over New Zealand (south
of Bombay were the others but they won't be featuring too much in this
roundup) and explained the rules of the competition (No, Johnny, they
don't serve beer during changeovers; no Andrea, naked tennis is not being
held this year; Its not compulsory for the women to give out their telephone
numbers if they lose, Dave; no Junko, we cannot start the competition
the next day at 6am).
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 The Otago Mens A Team |
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The draw
found the Auckland A team drawn against the Tamaki team (or Auckland C),
Auckland B team versus Massey Albany, The Auckland womens A team against
Victoria B, and Women's B team (also known as the tamaki team) versus
Waikato. Highlights of the day's matches included Auckland C's sacrifice
for the A team to get through AND playing without their star player Hayden
"Anzac day parade" Clarke. As would be a pattern to follow the
team playing Auckland A women's team proved no resistance to the Auckland
women's A team juggernaut. Dramatic match of the day was Johnny "no
respect" Tang against Risto "the uniform" Cvetkovic (but
I thought they were on the same team?)
After day one the mood was upbeat and spirits were high. Victories for all except for the Auckland C team ("we didn't want to beat any of the Auckland A team, they need their credibility"). Rain had begun to fall in the early dusk and the convoy of Auckland cars drifted slowly back from whence they came. The team retired to the athlete's village (or as we like to call it, Aaron Court Motor Inn) to contemplate the day's results and the coming challenges ahead (Sinead, how many combination of drinks do you think we'll get out of these four bottles?; Claire, do you think we can make the schnapps will last all weekend?). |
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Hayden "the
uni games is on Thursday??" Clarke arrived late and was welcomed
by the team. Aside from scoring a f**king awesome motel room (ummm, yeah,
there are six more people coming…..we'll need the bigger room),
the number one of the Auckland C team arrived to complete the team. Having
promptly secured the a 6 bed-room motel room for himself, fellow team-mates,
Marcus "I'll do anything for cookies" Ho and Tim "guitar-man"
Larsen immediately moved in just to be next to the girls (not that it
got them anywhere). The women's team commanded the corner villas (aside
from Auckland C who had the partyroom). Bunking together were Junko "I
want to win it all" Fujita, Keri "i like homework" Stuart
and Julia "gotta be cruel to be kind" Crockett while Cynthia
"cheers" Tang, Anne-Maree "Lil' Miss Tipsy" Wong,
Sinead "no, I'm not blatant, I'm a "stealthy stalker" Sinnot,
Clair "I'm purely here for the tennis" Paterson and Andrea "lookit
them buns" O'Brien shared the other large room. "Alaric "el
capitan" Nicholls, Dave "its dark out here" Burcher and
Anthony "I lost my gold medal" Burnett had dibs on the room
next to the hockey team (we assume they were girls) while Jonathan "my
eyes ARE open!" Tang bunked with Ben "them girls are hot"
White. Daniel "where's KFC? " Sue and Stian "I hate spin"
Madshus shared a room in the motel block next to the entire Auckland University
mens and womens hockey teams.
A quick shopping trip to the local supermarket to purchase important necessities (the major food groups - beer, beer, beer, beer, alcohol and chocolate) for the weekend was made. As befitting superb high performance athletes, the nights dinner consisted of protein packed carbohydrates and vitamin deficient lubricant (and you thought KFC and fat frying lacked anything good). By this time there was a light drizzle and after dinner everyone contemplated the nights activities. Needless to say, that by this time Claire "Mmm, yum! Tui and Peach Schnapps " Paterson and Sinead "Guys, Dave Burcher is SUCH a tennis hottie" Sinnot were way ahead of everyone with Andrea "cocktails are yum" O'Brien. Cocktail hour was the theme of that room and must be mentioned that they were the most prepared competitors in the entire team having brought enough alcohol to sustain them for several hours ("thank god we remembered to bring our tennis rackets"). |
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The nights
activities consisted of the opening ceremony which was compulsory for
all competitors ("nobody goes to those things" - Al) so ignoring
the mandate by the games organisers, we sat around and drank a few brewskis
to warm us up for the party at the Games marquee.
By the time we got going to the opening nights games activities, half the team were suitably relaxed ("I'm just tipsy, hehe!"- Anne-Maree), and raring to party (where's Andrea, Claire and Sinead? I think I just saw them jumping into that bus marked "party"). The atmosphere was suitably uproarious and gregarious with the din of Uni cheers from each University trying to drown out each other. Each University contingent had to go on stage to sing their song and challenge each other. We got there just in time to see the Auckland team and the very popular pom pom girls (courtesy of the Auckland Commerce Students Association) outgun the rest of the competition. Everyone had pretty conventional presence except for the the Waikato contingent of four guys who bravely did a naked song as part of their university song (as if there was anything to hide). Cynthia "that wasn't my hand, it was the pom pom" Tang reported from butt-side. "At first, we just went around and cheered but we decided that the guys from Waikato shouldn't get all the attention for being naked so we went up on stage behind them to really show them that we were the best. At first we thought they had a big university spirit but when we got close, there really wasn't anything to see at all" |
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A two-men
band rounded up the nights entertainment singing classics from good old
kiwi music to a bit of Bob Marley. David "she was up for it"
Burcher disappeared halfway through the dancing to give someone a tour
of the surrounding paddocks whilst never letting go of his jug of beer
(they have very nice cows) while Anne-Maree "I'm not drunk"
Wong danced up a storm with heaps of random guys (Hey, they weren't all
random there was a sophisticated subconscious selection process happening
- Lil' Miss Tipsy - yeah right). Meanwhile, Johnny "I'm spinning
around" Tang was getting acquainted with Waikato beer (the poor boy
has no clue what he got himself into), Stian "drink beer" Madshus,
Junko "lt looks like I'm sleeping but I'm not" Fujita and others
explored the festivities.
Having left the marquee when they finished at about 11, the gang all piled into two cars to get into town to continue with the jigginess. Hitting the Outback (local club scene), we caught up with Andrea "my tally is 2 so far" O'Brien, Claire "yes i nearly scored naked guy!" Paterson, and Sinead "sausages" Sinnot, Hayden "YEEEEEHAAAAH!!" Clarke stayed behind at the marquee to help someone get home. Everyone had a great night out partying and some even made it back to bed before the morning. ("No Junko, that wasn't the alarm, it's just someone spewing, go back to bed"). And this was only the first night... |
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