Asian Hockey Championship competition begins with battle for best name

NORTH YORK, Ontario -- The competition was on even before the first puck dropped at the 2026 Asian Hockey Championship on Friday.

Teams with players of Asian heritage from across North America have battled over the tournament’s three decades over which have the coolest names that pay homage to the culture and the sport.

“It became a competition,” said Jeff Chang, the tournament’s organizer. “Teams would really brainstorm and try to outdo each other.”

The names among the 33 men’s, coed and youth teams competing are winks and nods that range from the fierce to the fanciful – Sake Bombers, Bar Down Bobas, Chicken Chow Men, Dim Sum Danglers,  Rah-Men, Teriyaki Ticklers and Miracle on Rice.

“You always look at the names on the sign-up sheet, and you're always, like, ‘Man, is this one better than ours, and this one better than ours?’” said Darcy Cheung, a manager for Miracle on Rice. “It's like this competition that way, but I think we usually have most people beat in that category.”

Cheung said he came up with his team’s name to reflect that many of its players were family members, some with limited hockey experience.

“It's that spirit of overcoming large odds to beat bigger teams,” he said before Miracle on Rice lost 6-0 to Arashi in their tournament opener on Friday.

Albert Koe, a player and coach for Chicken Chow Men, said his team’s name is a hat trick of sorts. It’s a nod to the stir-fry dish. The team’s initials -- CCM -- honors the Canadian hockey equipment company, and the team logo is a tribute to the giant chicken that Peter Griffin fought in an episode of the FOX cartoon series “Family Guy.”

“When we started, we also thought about Peking Duck Dynasty,” said Koe, whose team lost 5-3 to the Soy Saucers on Friday. “It’s all part of the fun. It’s hockey and a little bit of culture.”

More than 500 players are competing in elite and recreational divisions in the tournament at NFP Athletic Centre in North York which concludes on Sunday.

The talent level ranges from house league skaters to youth competing in the Greater Toronto Hockey League and at least one former NHL player.

Josh Ho-Sang, the 28th pick in the 2014 NHL Draft who played 53 games with the New York Islanders from 2016-19 and skated for Canada at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, is playing for the Dragoons, which also has Sofia Ismael, an 18-year-old forward who’s committed to Penn State’s NCAA Division I women’s team next season.

Most of the players are from the Toronto area, but teams and players also come from Winnipeg, Montreal and as far as Vancouver to participate.

The tournament began in 1989 in Toronto when a group of friends got together to play an informal, four-team, round-robin, gathering, Chang said.

It has grown into a sporting and cultural event and family gathering with music, dance and martial arts demonstrations.

“For me, it's been about it's about the culture of it,” said Kent Nakamichi, a 27-year-old forward who started playing on youth hockey teams at the tournament and is now a teammate with his father, 61-year-old defenseman Keith Nakamichi, on a team called Tobana. “It’s kind of your own space to really celebrate the Asian community.”

And to come up with spicy team names.

Melissa Misztal and Christina Chin, a professional pickleball player who was a forward for York University’s U Sport women’s hockey team from 2016-20, were having dinner with family members about five years ago trying to figure out what to call their tournament team when inspiration was served.

“We are just spit-balling names and I was like, ‘You know what? I really love kimchi noodles, I’m on that right now,’” Misztal said. “We needed another ‘K’ so we became the Kimchi Killers. Done.”