Sporting Gestures

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In mid-March the 27th annual Mekong Cup was held at Bangkok’s British Club. It was the fifth straight year the event was staged there. For the first twenty-two years, it was held in Phuket at two venues: first, the Amari Coral Beach, and then the Centara Karon Resort.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions, only four Bangkok teams competed in the round-robin format: the Patpong Plugs captained by Mike Wilson; Kai Dao, capture by Kevin Mekala; the Silom Stars, helmed by Jesse Starosta; and Team Sweden, skippered by Anders Olofsson.

Round-robin play saw the Patpong Plugs go undefeated and draw the winless Team Sweden in the first semi-final match. It appeared that Team Sweden had been lulling its opponents to sleep early on as they thrashed Patpong 5-3 to advance to the final against the Silom Starts who had defeated Kai Dao 3-0 in the other semi-final.

So the Silom Stars and Team Sweden met in the final with the Stars prevailing over Team Sweden 7-4 and Stars goalie Lance Parker captured the MVP trophy. CanCham Thailand President Derek van Pelt was on hand to drop the ball for the championship game.

Yves Gaboriault organized the event and played goal for the Silom Stars. Referee Jeremy Hutchins did a great job of referring every single game and Dom Dumais was terrific with the time/scorekeeping.