Flying V upbeat on Thunder, SEAG-bound hockey team

MANILA, Philippines - Flying V chairman Ramon Villavicencio expressed excitement not only for the debut of the Flying V Thunder in the PBA D-League but also for the gold medal drive of the company-backed national ice hockey team in the Southeast Asian Games.

“By the monicker itself – Thunder – the team is supposed to create a lot of noise,” Villavicencio said of the Eric Altamirano-mentored hoop quintet during a roundtable with media at his office yesterday. “But whether it’s going to create effectivity, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Thunder officials have yet to divulge the composition of the team but promised to form a competitive crew.

“Of course, we’d like to win the championship but it’s more of making it into reality. It depends on the players we’ll have but we’ll come into the competition positive,” the Flying V honcho said.

Villavicencio also spoke about the hockey team with equal passion. The Pinoy hockey players had previously won the Division 2 bronze in the Asian Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan and now look forward to scooping the mint in the Malaysia SEAG in August.

“We want to support a sport that’s never really associated with (a tropical country like) Philippines,” he said. “Little by little, people are getting interested in it…we hope in the next two, three, four years, this could be as popular as volleyball,” he said.

Villavicencio’s grandkid, Mikey is into ice hockey and his son-in-law Christopher Sy currently heads the Federation of Ice Hockey League, Inc., the governing body for the sport.

“I’m looking at either the silver or gold for the SEAG,” said Sy of their SEAG target. “The only contention right now is that Thailand has four Finnish players and one Swedish. We’ve been protesting about that already.”