Carter Cup is the name of the trophy and event which determines Air Hockey's World team champions. Carter Cup play began in 1992, started really as a challenge between myself (Don James) and Tim Weissman. I (DJ) told Tim earlier in the year that the Houston players from my generation (myself (DJ), Edward Almeida, Justin Oistad, Owen Giraldo) had already surpassed the Houston players from his generation (himself, Max S., Tom baldus, and Anton Mawhood). A challenge was struck! My team (the Fab 4) was regarded as a huge underdog by most of AH's veteran minds, but we won the inaugural cup in December of 1992. Since then the cup has become a truely open event. The cup is a lot like a heavyweight title, the current champions must make at least two mandatory title defenses each year, if there are challengers. Anyone is eligible to play, they need just form a 4-man team and make an official challenge during one of the challenging periods (Jan or b4 for a Summer challenge, b4 september for a year-end challenge).
Carter Cup was a revolution to AH play. It introduced the 1st concepts of team-play to the sport. A Carter Cup match consists of singles and doubles play over a 20 set format (much like Golf's Ryder Cup format or Tennis' Davis Cup). In my opinion, Carter Cup play is the most exciting and intense competition in AH today. If you are interested you should order a copy of some matches from the USAA's library.The Carter Cup is named such in memorial to the late Jim Bill Carter of Houston, TX. Jim was one of the sport's founding fathers and was instrumental in the formation of the USAA. He was known as a great sportsman and competitor throughout the AH world. The Carter Cup is played purely for the competition; there is absolutely NO prize money involved, just the title of the world's best. Since it's inception, there have been more CC matches than National tournaments, a testiment to the event's importance in the AH community.
There have been 4 Carter Cup champions in Carter Cup history. The current champs are the team : GOD COMPLEX or GC made up of myself, Owen Giraldo, Billy Stubbs, and Tim Weissman. We will be defending the title in Houston sometime during November and probably December too. If you've never seen CC play, I strongly encourage you to come out and see what it's all about. If anyone's interested I could go into more complete detail on the match rules, challenging procedures, records, or history.
For the table,