The first CATCH team attended the 1994 tournament in LAS host by ZOB.  7 of the 9 skaters were from ZOA.  The next five tournaments saw us combined with ZLA and SCT to form a team.  We would drive or fam into BUR for midnight practices prior to the tournaments.  Ed Orosz was part of these teams and those were truly good times.  The 2000 tournament in Moscow saw us into our current form as the Quakes complete with new logo and jerseys.  The team evolved to include skaters from facilities all over the US.  As teammates have come and gone, transferred, retired or stopped playing, the spirit of those early squads lives on today.


The first time a team from Chicago showed up at a tournament was the 1972 fest in Boston.  The Chicago team's nickname at that time was the "Aaarrrggghhhs!" and I'll tell you the genealogy in person as the story is not fit for publication in any family type journal.  The team was comprised almost exclusively of controllers from ZAU (most notably, the Waz) although they did draft a fellow or two from both ORD Tower/Tracon and Delta Air Lines.  The Aaarrrggghhhs won the Friendship Cup in 1981 and were summarily decimated by the strike.

In 1985-86, a group of ZAU controllers formed a hockey team and played in the local men's league, this time as the Aardvarks, as much for their group ungainliness on skates as for a "homonymic" homage to the Aaarrrggghhhs.  The Aardvarks first showed up at an ATC Tournament in 1988 in Minneapolis, but as a hybrid team of Cleveland Center, Buffalo Tower and Chicago Center personnel.  By 1989 in Winnipeg, the Aardvarks were and remained 99% Chicago Center until the mid 2000s. 

Hockey grew in popularity at ZAU and 1 team skating at the ATC Tournaments became 2 teams by 1993, with the addition of the Earth Pigs (someone looked up the definition of aardvark....and that was it, earth pig) and later, the talent challenged Lardvarks, who won the last place trophy 2 or 3 years in a row, if memory serves.  In 1998 at Minneapolis, the teams changed names, to no advantage, and became the Nads and the Go-Go Nads (and nobody got it).  1998 was also the year we won the best uniform trophy for our portrayal of the "Blues Brothers".  In 2000 in Moscow, by virtue of our new sweaters, we were the "Beer Bears" and in 2001, the team was renamed once again, this time the "Hammerheads".  By 2006, due to injuries, relocations, retirements, cost, washouts, A/L bidding problems, etc., the Chicago team had forged an alliance with the Detroit guys to form two hybrid teams, the Muggers and the Black Wings, which remains in place as of this year.


Sometime around 1986, Buffalo controller Al Kwiatkowsi transferred to Cleveland Center.  There, he met and told Bill Liberty about the ATC tournament which Al had previously participated in with the New York team.  Al recruited Bill to play with New York in the 1987 tournament in Quebec City.   The following year in Minneapolis, Bill and Al arrived to find out that Charlie Carpenter had traded them to the Chicago Aardvarks for a used hockey puck bag.  So Bill decided to recruit and form his own team from Cleveland for Winnipeg in '89.   There, they befriended the wild-n-crazy guys from Bagotville, who had some very colorful uniforms.  They became the inspiration for the Cleveland "Buzzards" who instituted the outstanding uniform trophy and then won the massive thing for 6 straight years before finally getting tired of hauling it all over the world.  The Buzzards have won the Esprit-de-Corps trophy a couple of times as well.  Cleveland has hosted 2 tournaments in Las Vegas in 1994 and 2002.  The 2002 tournament still holds the record with 625 participants.

During the late 90's and early 2000's, Cleveland sent 2 teams, each one drunker than the other.  While no team from Cleveland has won the tournament, they have come within 1 point twice, and the Cleveland "A" team had its finest moment in 2000 when they narrowly missed beating the home team in Moscow in an epic 4-3 championship battle.  Although Cleveland has not had its own team since 2005, many of its players have skated with other teams over the past few years including the Minneapolis Goons, Winnipeg Blews, Saltwater Cowboys, Dallas-Fort Worth, Salt Lake Proximity Event, New York TRACON, and Hicks-with-Sticks.  Cleveland is happy to back in the saddle at Fort Worth 2011!
The Detroit team was actually founded by a fearsome foursome, who was invited to join the Trenton, Ont. team for the Tampere games in 1995.  The Trenton team dis-banded in 1996, so the 4 of us got enough players from all over to form the Detroit team, which traveled to Halifax for that year’s tourney.  We are now the Detroit Muggers and over the years we have had players from other teams join in, mostly competing in the "D" division.  This year will be the 16th year in a row that Detroit has put a team together.  We haven’t won much of anything; a couple of "D" titles over the years.  We have also played under the name of Detroit Hodgepodge, because we have so many players from around the states.

The first year we played with the So-Cal guys, and John Fitz, and others...


Dallas-Ft. Worth area controllers first entered a team into the world of ATC hockey in MSP 1998.  The Ft. Worth Pylon Kings were made up mostly of controllers from Ft. Worth Center and a couple of guys from DFW (which back then was one big up/down facility).  Most of our players were new to ice hockey with just a few games of roller hockey under their belts.  Since we first played we’ve always been considered a Ft. Worth based team, but over the last few years we’ve made many friends and now have players from all over that join us each year.  We’ve won many awards such as the Team Esprit-de-Corps, the Individual Esprit-de-Corps, three Best Uniform Designs, and the Last Place Trophy.  This is the first year we’ve hosted the big tourney and we’ve hosted four October Fall Classics.

We’ve played under the names of Pylon Kings, Control Freaks, Hitmen, Controlled Chaos, Hocke’mon, Freebirds, Snowbirds, Jailbirds, Hosers, Testosterone Tigers, and now, Texans.


ZLA and YQX controllers became tournament friends during the tournament in Halifax in 1996 when it became evident that our esprit-de-corps was similar and that winning the tournament took second place to friendships.  When YQX could not ice a complete team for the tournament in Helsinki in 2005 the guys from ZLA extended an invitation for the few players that wanted to play to join them.  Since that time a collection of controllers and grandfathered personnel representing the east coast of Canada and the west coast of the United States and Germany have bonded and ensured that the true spirit of the tournament stays alive within their group.  Further, an invitation is extended to all people attending the tournament to join them and enjoy their
Esprit-de-corps!


The ZMP ARTCC teams date back to the early days of this tournament's inception.  Teams from ZMP participated in the tourney beginning in the '70's up to and including 1981.  After the ATC strike of 1981 no ZMP teams were represented until interest was regained and in 1986 we attended the tourney in YYZ.  Since returning we have entered at least one team in each subsequent year.  In 1988, when the tournament was held in MSP, we entered two teams, and thus the LOONS & GOONS were born.  In 1998, again hosted by MSP, interest was so great in this tournament that a third team, The MOONS, came into existence.  Most years since have usually seen two teams entered, LOONS (the good/serious team) & GOONS (the not-so-good/fun team).  Last year in YYC only the GOONS attended and that is also the case in FTW 2011.  Since 1986, some members of the original GOONS squad have played in 25-26 consecutive tournaments.


The Miami Center Hockey team officially entered its 1st ATC Hockey tournament in 1997 as the Miami Hurricanes.  Credit Bruce Schneider for getting the team started as he had played many years prior with many other teams.  We began with 8 controllers, 1 AF guy from the Center,
and a player from Gander to round out the roster of 10.  

In 2007 we changed our logo and became the Solar Bears!  ZMA has won its division 3 times, had 3 prestigious Horses Ass awards, but has never won the tournament.  But our motto, on and off the ice is, and will always be "WE NEVER LOSE THE 4TH PERIOD!"


"NY hosted the “Year of the Big Apple” in 1977 on Long Island at the Kings Grant Hotel and we played in the Islanders practice rink.  Eddie Westphal and boys made us feel welcome.  Trips to Manhattan in the daytime to watch The Waz troll for muggers with $100 bills hanging from his Foster Grants and the best of 42nd St. warmed us up for a night at the Playboy Club where they fed and entertained us.  There was a charity game between the NY city cops and a team made up of reps from each of our teams.  The cops (32 and 0) wanted to play contact.  Our guys didn’t as they had all played that day and some had never played contact before.  The first defence pairing for our guys was Ted Northcott and Pat "Elbows" Penny from the Gander Flyers senior team.  A cop on the first rush into our end ended up on the wrong end of Ted's hip.  That set the tone for the game.  When the dust settled the cops were 32 and 1."

KELLY'S RAIDERS was born out of the nickname Kelly's Heroes because I ran the New York Tracon team by default since none of the New York Tracon guys could make the tournament due to leave problems.  As a matter of fact, only 8 skaters made it to the tournament and we asked for more players and got 2 pretty good ones.  We ended up winning the tournament. 

Ironically, nobody from the New York Tracon was on the team, yet their name was on the trophy.  One non-participant commented that we raided the country for players and that's why we won.  This is not really true, but it makes for a good story.  We had players from Boston, Minneapolis, San Diego, New York, Philadelphia and Dallas.

Seven had played on the New York Tracon team but we decided to play again in 2011 as Kelly's Raiders.