posted Jun 22nd, 2006 - The NSL News has mentioned last weekend's competition in the Netherlands, the Tomscat Trophy 2006, already quite a few times while waiting for more details of the event action. The NSL News preview on June 16 provided information what to expect of the competition in the Netherlands.

The scores have already been posted for several days, the video of Infinity's Round 5 is available on NSL-TV, and the additional meet information now offers more insights.

The Dutch 4-way league already had a false start into the 2006 when the original date in May was weathered out. The Tomscat Trophy started out the same way on Friday, with clouds and rain keeping the teams on the ground.

The bad weather allowed the Dutch teams to watch the Netherlands' soccer game at the FIFA World Cup, just as the UK teams were able to see their own team on TV a week ago during a weather hold.

However, the Dutch weather turned out to be beautiful on Saturday and Sunday, and the results were accordingly. The teams did six rounds on Saturday, and the remaining rounds were completed on Sunday, up to ten rounds in the AAA/Open FAI Class. The A Class and Rookie Class teams completed nine rounds.

Punky Fish, the Dutch national 4-way team in the Open Class, had a good start, took the lead in round one and never gave away a point to any other AAA/Open Class team in the Netherlands or elsewhere. Alexander Egberink, Bert Hajee, Paul Hofstee, Donald Verveld and Johan Wieken finished with a 17.0 meet average after ten rounds.

Infinity, the Dutch national team in the female category, and Pulse, a new team with a former Dutch Flight national 8-way competitor, had a tight competition for the second place in the Netherlands. Pulse was able to stay closer to Infinity than expected after the all-female team had a serious exit funnel in round four. However, Infinity recovered and won the second place by five points over Pulse.

A very special aspect of the Tomscat Trophy was the participation of the two original Tomscat members, Arie Slob and Jos Arkes, who competed with team Ariekiri last weekend. Erwin van de Braak, Koen van de Venne and Meus van de Poel completed the Ariekiri line-up, Mike Pennock was on camera for the team.

The Tomscat Trophy was created to commemorate the two members of the Dutch 4-way team Tomscat, Remie Herder and Sjaak Strating, who were killed in Perris Valley on April 24th, 1992 in a plane chrash. This was the same plane crash where members of the U.S. team Airmoves were killed. Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld was a member of the Airmoves and survided the crash.

League and event organizer Mike Pennock mentioned that this year's Tomscat Trophy accommodated several new records. Punky Fish scored the team's first 17-point average in a Dutch competition. Infinity added a new Dutch record for the female category with the 17-pointer in round five.

Mind Your Step's 9.7 average in the A Class was the highest meet result in the history of the Tomscat Trophy in this category, as well. The same counts for the 6.2 average of Whooops in the Rookie Class.

The Tomscat Trophy 2006 was the 12th time that the event was held in the Netherlands. Punky Fish member Paul Hofstee has won the first place every single time in these 12 years. His team mate Bert Hajee is not far behind with ten first places in the history of the event. Last not least, the 29 competition loads on Saturday was a new record for the hosting drop zone in Hoogeveen.

Both Dutch national 4-way teams for the World Cup 2006, Punky Fish and Infinity, competed at the Tomscat Trophy 2006, and the NSL News will follow up soon with an introduction of the teams that will represent the Netherlands in Germany. As a reminder for the audience: this weekend's competition in Belgium is the qualification event for the World Meet 2006 after the last event in Belgium was completely weathered out in May. Defending champion Spa Hayabusa is expected to win the AAA/Open Class competition.