The Canada Cup: There And Back Again

Posted in Features, Gaming by dnyl, November 16, 2010 at 6:19 pm | 3,127 views, 16 comments

Fighters representing different nations enter the ring. The smell of sweat and tinge of excitement in the atmosphere is easy for one to detect. A quick jab to test the waters, a light kick. The other fighter focuses and responds with a hurricane force kick which knocks his foe down. This is met with jeers and shouts from the crowd that has gathered to watch this street fight. Unscathed, the warrior gets up and delivers a flying uppercut with the roar of a dragon.

This is Street Fighter, a video game, a local pastime and a hobby for people around the world. This past weekend, for the first time ever, Canada held a tournament to determine if Canadian gamers were up to the task of competing against some of the best players from around the world.

Our journey through the Canada Cup starts with Brian Leung, a Calgarian third year psychology major at Mount Royal University. Brian has been playing Street Fighter competitively since the fourth iteration came out. He discovered his love for the game when he picked it up with his brother, Joey, and played a couple of matches. Pretty soon, he was hooked.

Street Fighter may seem deceptively simple at first but like any good game, take for example chess, feints, tricks and positioning are all a part of the strategy involved. Street Fighter has an insane amount of depth any grandmaster could respect. Browsing through some of the forums dedicated to the game, you’ll soon realize Street Fighter even has its own language. Do not fret though, as your humble writer here, with Brian, will guide you throughout our journey fighting our way through the Canada’s first Street Fighter tournament. His tag or alias is “Riceata.”

Calgarian Brian “Riceata” Leung and Daigo “The Beast” Umehara

Waking up not feeling like P Diddy, I headed over to Brian’s house to begin our trek over to the Radisson hotel where the tournament was being held. When I got there he was already playing Street Fighter. We waited awhile for everyone to show up and I asked him how he was feeling about the whole thing, Brian said “I’m going to beat Daigo.” I laughed it off, and figured hey, at least his head’s in the right place.

For those not in the know, Daigo “The Beast” Umehara is the Leonardo Da Vinci of the Street Fighter world. He is of Japanese descent and is considered THE man to beat if you’re looking to establish yourself amongst the best of the best, he is followed closely in skill by American player Justin Wong. Justin is regarded by most of his peers as the best player in America. Both were in attendance for the Canada Cup, along with a handful of other pros in the Street Fighter community such as Gootecks, Mike Ross and Mago. Needless to say, the Canadian players had their work cut out for them.

We arrived at the hotel with our hearts racing and nerves wracking. Canada had never hosted a Street Fighter tournament before, and had never had such prestigious players on her soil. Whilst in line we caught sight of Daigo and Justin Wong entering the tournament. The crowd of onlookers and players in line parted for them to enter the tournament.

Justin Wong and Brian Leung playing a casual match

With everyone settled in, Exhibition matches started first, anyone could try and take on the greats that had come from different corners of the globe. Needless to say it was almost a slaughter as Canadians were thrown around left and right by the pros. The level gap seemed too large.

Things weren’t looking good for Canadians, but JSmaster, a Balrog player from Toronto, fared reasonably well against most of the pros and the Canadian crowd cheered hard for him. The team tournament was held next with Team America and Team Japan and their star studded line ups decimating anything the Canadian teams could throw at them. Again things weren’t boding well for Canadians.

After the team tournament was held, and a recess was called. I used this respite to work up the nerve to ask some of the pros what they thought about Canadian players so far.

Justin Wong was easily approachable and told me, “I think that Canadian players have the potential, but everyone’s too far apart, so it’s kind of hard for everyone to get together and practice with the top players in Vancouver and the top players in Toronto, but there are good players out there like Air from Vancouver and JSmaster from the east side, so those players should help pioneer and get Canada better. JSmaster did really good in Seasons Beatings so that there proves Canada’s not free.”

I had to ask Daigo my question through a translator, but he was more than happy to oblige with an answer, “It’s my first time to Canada, but what I’ve seen so far, I’m pretty happy with. There’s about five people I’m really looking out for from Canada in this tournament.”

Gootecks, thankfully, had a bit more to say to me about Canadian players and Canada in general, “I think Canadian gamers are awesome This is definitely my favourite country, well just in terms of how nice everybody is, Canadians are the nicest. People outside of Canada are not very nice. You guys are good! Canada is solid.”

I also asked Mago, a Japanese player, with the aid of a translator on the subject of Canada’s street fighting, “Canadian players are a little bit below the American level, but they’re very strong and they’re getting there. This is just the beginning.”

With the short recess over, it was time for the start of the main event, the Super Street Fighter 4 singles tournament. Brian was placed in Pool D, nicknamed Pool Daigo because coincidentally, Daigo was also in the pool, much to the dismay of many players hoping for a shot at getting through the bracket.

As Mike Nguyen, a player competing in the singles tournament put it, “When you play against the pros you get flustered, they make you lose your mind, you just get mindfucked.”

Brian had no problems with his first match, being put up against a Ken player. Ken is a shoto style character, a match up which Brian excels in. Beating him two matches out of three, Brian advanced to the next tier without a sweat. He went on from there to defeat an Abel player in his next match soundly. High off the success of two straight wins, we looked to see who was the next victim. None other than the world’s greatest, Daigo Umehara.

We had to wait for the match against Daigo to begin. Most of the games the pros were playing were being streamed live onto the Internet. We never thought that a chance like this would ever come to Calgary, to see Justin Wong just waltzing around in the flesh, Daigo strolling around, being awkwardly polite. The sounds of Street Fighter everywhere, this was a defining moment Canadians wouldn’t soon forget. Then Brian’s name was called, and he sat in the hot seat, right next to “The Beast” Daigo Umehara.

The fight was surreal. I felt sick watching. I just couldn’t keep my eyes off the screen. The match was so close and after Brian won the first round out of two the entire crowd froze, people put down their fight sticks, stopped what they were doing and congregated to main screen to watch. This Canadian kid came from nowhere, no one had really expected anything like this. Brian had just beat Daigo in the first round.

The second round commenced. Everything still felt dreamlike to me, watching as Brian had beat Daigo in the first round of two. The high had not yet worn off. The second round was extraordinarily close and came down to Brian using an Ultra, a move that can be used only when your character has taken enough damage to trigger it, and again beating Daigo.

The crowd erupted. I screamed at the top of my lungs. A Canadian, a Calgarian had just beaten “The Beast”, one match out of three. Brian threw up his fist in celebration of his first match victory.

Immediately afterwards though, Daigo showed why he was called the Beast, sweeping Brian down in the last two matches, but by no means did Daigo get these matches for free. He had to work for them, with Brian nearly winning in 3 of the last 4 rounds.

Brian got up after the match and bowed, the players shook hands, and Daigo greeted Brian with a smile. It was one of the loudest matches of the day. Everyone clapped and cheered, because a Canadian kid had come so close to toppling the giant. Brian was knocked into the losers bracket, and immediately faced another Ryu character. We all found this funny because Daigo also plays Ryu, and Brian’s opponent knew he had no chance.

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He then played Embrio, a player who came out from Saskatchewan to compete with the world’s greatest and to represent his province. This match was a bit more intense, but again Brian pulled out with a victory. If he won his next match he would be slotted back into the winner’s bracket and face Daigo, one more time.

Matched up against Jozhear , a renowned Vega player in the Calgary tournament circuit, it was going to be a close one. After close matches and a strong performance Jozhear ultimately claimed victory, and knocked Brian out of the tournament. Brian Leung finished in 9th place in the Canadian Cup.

The tournament ended that day as all the finalists had been decided, and the finalists matches would be happening the next. An after party was to take place in the basement of the Radisson, and there Brian played one more match with The Beas Daigo Umehara. Again Brian lost this match, but this time Daigo said something in Japanese to him. With the aid of a translator, we were told “Daigo thinks you’re good.”

Daigo went on the next day to win the Canada cup. With a strong performance from the Canadians in the top eight, JSmaster finishing in third, and Air, a Vancouver player, finishing in the top 8. Canada showed the world that it can play this game too.

A special thanks goes out to Lap Chi, all the volunteer staff, and to Tubby Dog for making this event possible and bringing this opportunity to Canada, and specifically Calgary. It was a tournament that the attendees will never forget.