TAKING A SHOT AT RAREFIED AIR
Dozens descend on UH to try to be world champion of arcade staple
With a calculated flick of the wrist, Colin Cummings angled the speeding puck into the goal with a satisfying clatter.
By then, the high school senior from Beaumont had already planned his next shot, surveying the table with a sort of intensity that has made him the world’s highest-ranked air hockey player. It’s about thinking ahead of your opponent, he said, and moving unexpectedly.
“I’ve gone from playing purely for speed to more of an intellectual game,” said the 17-year-old, who hopes to attend the Air Force Academy.
Cummings again prepared to defend his title Saturday at the University of Houston during the U.S. Air Hockey Association’s four-day global tourna- ment. The outcome, decided Sunday, will determine the next world champion of a sport often thought of as little more than an arcade amusement.
More than 60 people competed, then watched as some of the elite play- ers challenged one another to some high-intensity matches. With wrapped fingers, they swiped custom paddles at ricocheting pucks.
Air hockey, introduced in the 1970s as a table game with few official rules, de- veloped as a sport when several enthusiasts in Houston began to make it more competitive. Around that time, Phil Arnold, now an adviser to UH’s air hockey club, founded the official association.
In 1978, it hosted its first annual tournament as interest in playing the game competitively spread. Players had begun to intensify their strategies, Arnold said, creating fiercer matches that required sharp forethought and focus.
“When you stand before the table, you’re exposed, you’re revealed,” he said. “It makes such demands of you and some people just can’t take that.”
In the decades that followed, the world tournament elevated the game’s top contenders to near-celebrity status among the few who had made it their mis- sion to master the sport.
“These guys were legends,” said Will Upchurch, now 42, an expert player who discovered the game in 1988 at an arcade in Arlington.
In the beginning, Upchurch practiced as much as 16 hours a day with a single goal in mind: Beat Tim Weissman, who had dominated the tournament for much of the 1990s.
His chance came in 1997, a moment he recalls with vigor. At the tournament that year, he claimed first place and bumped Weissman to second.
“Air hockey has always been a space in my life where I could find out what I was really made of,” he said.
Around then, 11-time world champion Danny Hynes had begun to develop his game with an intensity he had once reserved for playing football. He recalled the day when an airborne puck knocked his right front tooth onto the game table in front of him.
“I put the tooth in my pocket and kept on playing,” he said, adding that he went on to win the game.
A similar drive has motivated Petro Otero, the No. 2 player in the world, to stay with the game for 22 years. Now 40, he still practices regularly.
He flew from Caracas, Venezu- ela, for his fifth Houston tournament. He’ll likely duke it out with Cummings, who beat him last year.
“It’s like chess,” he said. “You need to be fast in your mind and smarter than your opponent.”