"Berjalan Biar Ke Depan, Jangan Ke Belakang"

Words of wisdom from Wong (plagiarised from PETRONAS' TV commercial).

There was a lot of heated debate with the Bapak Itiks, as the fall out from what had happened during the weekend continued to rage for a while. Understandably some are still pissed off, that despite all the planning, all the official communication, the majority of the boys did not stay back though they had promised (at least to the captain and that was passed to us). There was a lot of wastage as we had to pay for their ration throughout the weekend, not to mention the frustration of putting everything aside only to find out we could not carry out most of the plan.

Even on the night itself, because of this unexpected turn of events, we had to shuffle many things that in the end resulted in a huge confusion and miscommunication - an error that those who work in the HSE like Wong would not have tolerated ha ha.

Naturally there was a tendency to point fingers albeit very subtly. Most of all the need to vent off the frustration and finding out where the breakdown was - if we were to take the immatured and arrogant approach, even to question how come we were treated that way in spite of all the things we offered to the school and the boys?

But I was pleasantly surprised with Wong's simple reply to my plea to move ahead and put everything that happened last weekend behind:

"Walaupun aku sakit hati mcm nak mampus ...but I'm still in!

Kalau sekarang dah teruk....kalau kita lepas tangan lagi teruk.... turning back is not an option... Berjalan biar ke depan jangan ke belakang....."

This is the guy whose crimes in koleq include the break in into the HM's office to tap the telephone line and made expensives calls to Japan, amongst others.

In the end, what binds all the Bapak Itiks - despite our differences, egos and tendencies to shout at each others on top of our lungs - is the genuine and sincere hope to see these kids go far in their life, because all of us remember where we once came from. It is the love of talents and their innocence that binds us to Mighty Ducks, and after last weekend's fiasco I take even further comfort that this will survive tests after tests that will come in the future.

At the time when our anger, fuelled by our tiredness and hectic life threatens to overwhelm reasons, we fall back to that one particular reason we all gave our words to this - that the kids will come first before us.

This week they have honoured it again - and I cannot describe my own feeling of being honoured to have been amongst them.

So all is fired up again, next stop:

- Next tactical training is on 8 and 9th September
- Mighty Ducks Cup in November 07
- USM Open in December 07
- F2-F5 team building in February 2008

Busy months ahead.

And if any of the boys is reading this - it has never crossed our mind to quit on you.

Footnote

I come across this posting by a junior from Class of 2002 (I think). We should not let opportunities escape the boys the way it did him, because of adults' neglect. 10 years from now, we hope anak-anak itik will reflect their time in the hockey team as one of the best time of his life, the way we reflected on our own days in koleq doing all the crimes we were so good at:

koleq managed to get da 4th place for da u-16 inter sbp national level. n it was something that should be proud of!!! koleq n hockey is not synonymous as koleq n rugby or koleq n debate. i still remember back in my days, da hockey team kinda being neglected. we got no special attention from da admin. it was supposed to be one of da major game. even there were no cheering squad to cheer us during da game. =(

as a fellow budak koleq n a hockey player, i would like to congratulate da team n batch 9094 for mighty duck project. hope dat da mission can be accomplish. district champion in 2008, state champion in 2010. c'mon stickmasters!