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| Competitive Sport Club |
| HB Sushi Masters |
The Sushi Masters was founded in 1985 by some of the members of the 1984 Olympic Team in Team Handball as way to continue to play with one another - even though they could not practice together due to job and family commitments and the fact that they were dispersed throughout the United States. The team has had a rotating roster of players built around this core group of 1984 Olympians. The rotation was necessitated largely by injury and, yes, fear of injury. (Age does that to you.)
In competition, the Sushi Masters liked to test themselves against the young ones, and many a venue will not soon forget the Club's venerable "Eat Raw Fish…. Waaaasssssabi" war chant. After all, the Club's motto, "Old But Deadly," usually was an accurate indication of the results of these tests. Unfortunately, the Club did not do the Haka before its competitions – although its leaders now greatly regret that lost opportunity.
For a team that averaged at least twenty years older than their competition and never trained together, the Sushi Masters amassed a remarkable record - winning a gold, silver or bronze medal in all but one of the ten national competitions it entered. In addition, the Sushi Masters often had sought to assist the U.S. Handball National Team program by offering to scrimmage. Shortly after the Sushi Masters were formed, the then-National Team coach declined the offer, fearing that the match would be demoralizing to the National Team. That coach, it should be noted, unsurprisingly became a Sushi Master. The next National Team coach declined the offer without explanation. Perhaps these coaches were correct. Eventually, a subsequent coach accepted, and the Sushi Masters played against the National Team which had been in long-term residence training at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. Unfortunately, among the spectators were the Officers and Senior Executives of the U.S. Olympic Committee: the Club still regrets that its nail biting loss in that match caused the National Team to lose its Olympic funding temporarily. |
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