The Great White Blog

Rob Heckman, Scotty Burnett and I made the long 14.5 hour trip to where we met up with Canadian friends, Jay Barlow and Trish Grzesik who travelled for their first HK Open tournament. We hopped on a train and headed over to the beautiful hotel which over looked over the harbor - just awesome!! Thanks for the hook-up, Jay!! We went over to the HK Open to say our hellos and check out the venue as we were to play later in the team event. After hanging out a while and watching some darts we all went out with out local friend and tour guide, Patrick. It started with some local bars and ended at an I-Dart bar that I had not been to before. Just like all the others bars it was busy with locals playing darts and having a great time. We were joined by David Fatum and played darts late into the night having a lot of laughs!!

Saturday, November 12, 2011 – Hong Kong Open
For the HK Open 4-Person Team event we decided to play last minute as we also
had The World shootout later in the day too. Scotty Burnett, Robert Heckman, Jay
Barlow, David Fatum and myself played. Because it took a while to finish up the
round robin, we had to hop in a cab over to the i-Darts Club for The World seeding.
I ended with a score of 6700 and that put me in the upper 3rd of qualifying scores.
Back in the cab we went to finish the Team event, which we ended up with a top 8
finish going out to a strong Philippines Team and Paul Lim.

It was great to see two of my sponsors Peter McCormick from Puma and Hiroaki
Matsubara from Fit Flight. Thank you for your support guys!

Sunday, November 13, 2011
Started the morning with serious practice sessions in our room then we took a ferry
across to the event. Very cool way to travel in Hong Kong. In round 128, I played
great and won 3-0. In the top 64, I think it was 3-0 again for me. For top 32, I had
to play top Thailand player and I was able to pull out a hard fought 3-1 win. Top
16 I played fellow Puma player, Scott Mackenzie. It was a tough match as I did not
perform as great as I should have. Scott played amazing and won 3-1. He went
on and was unfortunate to lose in the next round to the winner, Dave Fatum. Big
congrats to long-time friend, Dave Fatum!! It was great to see him win!!

After the tournament was over we headed out to celebrate Rick Espinoza’s 40th
birthday. Lots of laughs and a fun time by all!

Shanghai, China
Monday, November 14, 2011
A group of the North Americans headed to Shanghai on a 12pm flight from Hong
Kong. I was looking forward going back to Shanghai as I had previously gone in
2009 for a steel tip tournament. On the first night we went for a welcome dinner
by our gracious host Joe Mei. After the great meal (minus the stinky tofu) everyone
pretty much crashed as this was a day to catch up on our rest. We had a big day
sightseeing planned for Tuesday.

Tuesday, November 14, 2011
Joe arranged for two friends of his to take us to a small Chinese old town in Shanghai suburb called Qibao. It was awesome to experience the culture and see all the great sites. This trip also included some shopping for the family! The groups got
separated while we were there and Ray Carver and I ended back at the venue so I
could pick up the Team Canada shirts. Unfortunately the shirts were not there yet
so we checked out the very cool venue with a great stage setup and then headed
back to the hotel where I was to meet Peter! Scotty, Robert, myself and Peter went
out to meet with Tyler, Phil (friends I met in 2009) and a few of their friends. Tyler
is the distributer of Puma Darts in China. Phil is American who lives in China now and is a good friend who helped setup the 2009 Steel Tip tournament. We went to the Kangaroo bar and participated in the local league night. We were joined by all Team Canada and the USA team too. Great fun night where we also went to the Green Dragon and ended the night at Jo Jo’s Bar, Koala Bar. Late night but fun!

Wednesday, November 15, 2011
This was an enjoyable day as we went to hang out with the Chinese Youth players. I love doing this as I came up through the youth system and this is a way to give back. It was a great time and certainly a lot of talent there too! We played games with the kids and I gave a couple set of my signature darts to the two youth players who were the first to score over 100.

Wednesday night was the opening ceremonies with the Team parade and photos.
The opening ceremonies were beyond great, I can’t believe how much they put
into this and it was very cool!! I was happy the Team Canada shirts arrived and the
SHADE shirts looked great – thanks CoCo, sorry for the late notice but you came
through as always!

A late dinner again with Peter and a couple of us and it was straight to bed to
prepare for the tournament starting the next day.

Thursday, November 16, 2011
With no air conditioning and the humidity at 97%, it was awful conditions to play in.
The IDF World Cup started with the Pro Singles 501. I ended up getting beat in the
very first round knocking me into the loser bracket. Never feeling comfortable and my shirt sticking to me, it seemed like I was pulling ever dart. After this I borrowed
an under shirt off of Scotty since he had an extra one and then I changed my dart
shirt which made a world of difference. I got by Scotty Burnett and going four or
five rounds on the losing side before going out to a great player from Germany after
missing one dart on a 126 for the match. Benny Dersh won the event – congrats
buddy!

At 4:30 we were in a monster round robin team event including USA, Austria,
Croatia and Chinese Taipei. Team Canada ended up in third place after the round
robin. Everyone on the team performed pretty well but I also knew we had a lot left
in the tank for the knock out. It was an early night getting ready for the next day.

Friday, November 17, 2011
Cricket Pro Singles started the day but of course I woke up to brutally hot conditions
but I was more prepared today. First round I had a good win 2-1 win over a top
Japanese player. This put me up against Scotty Burnett where I was able to pull
out another 2-1 win. After a couple more wins I found myself in the top 16 on
the winner side against Japan player, Ono. At 2-2 I started the game with back to
back 9 marks but unfortunately I would miss crucial shot and paid for it dearly
and onto the loser side I went. I won one more round and lost to a Croatia player
who finished second in the tournament. Congratulations to Paul Lim who won the
event!!

Knock out was starting where we had to play down to the final four. I knew our
draw would not be an easy one after coming in third in our group the day before.
We started of with a hard fought win over a tough Thailand team which put
us in the top 8 against one of the pre-tournament favorites, Japan. The match was
a great one with big crowds watching. They jumped out to a 2-0 lead which we
quickly made 2-2. After this we split game for game all the way to 7-7 and then they pulled it out 9-7. Congrats Japan and thank you to all of the Team Canada players, Trish, Jay and Dave. You all played your hearts out and shot awesome darts. I can’t wait to go back next year and go a couple steps further!

Saturday, November 18, 2011
With us out of the tournament, Team Canada decided to do more sightseeing. We
went to a famous observation tower, I believe it was a 103 stories high, then to the
market for some more shopping and back to the hotel to get ready for the closing
ceremonies and to cheer on Team USA in the finals.

Team USA and Team Japan were in the finals. Japan got out to an early lead with
USA coming back and having a 6-4 lead of their own. Japan made it 8-7, USA made
it 8-8 and then we were at the last game decider. There was tons of drama and you
could cut tension with a knife. Japan won the bull and had the start but USA pulled out the win with Scotty Burnett taking out 58 (18, dble 20) for the match. If Team
Canada could not win, I was very happy to see USA win with me having so many
great friends on the team. Congrats to both Teams!! The tournament was wrapped
up with closing ceremonies.

The week was finished with a great Brazilian steak house. All Team USA and Team
Canada attended along with Hiroaki and Koichiro. Of course the night didn’t end
there, as Scotty and I went out with Tyler and his friends to a rocking night club.

Thank you all that was involved and I can’t wait to do it again next year. Truly a great experience that one should try to do at least once.  A big thanks to Joe Mei for coordinating and hosting us!