Players Ready For Winter Tournament

The Siege of the Wellington Railway Station is scheduled for exactly a week from the appearance of this report. For on that day, Wednesday, August 28, a wild, surging, singing rabble composed of nearly 300 representatives from Victoria and all the Southern Universities will commence the mad scramble for seats on the train which is to bear them to Auckland, and to Winter Tournament.

To any person who has attended such an event, the term "Tournament" really means something. In a patch of sublime euphemism, D. Foord, chairman of the NZU Winter Tournament Committee last year, said: "The value of Tournament lies not only in the competition it affords, but also in the fact that it lets us meet students from other colleges..." Tournaments are undoubtedly successful functions for two apparent reasons. "There is intoxication to be found in a crowd" (Macaulay), and secondly, most of the representatives are away from home anyway.

But it is essential that due importance should be given to the sports. Few competitors from Victoria at Winter Tournament last year will gainsay that it was a great show, but fewer will maintain that VUC did well in the individual sports. The sole victors cut of the eight teams who competed were Soccer (who drew with Auckland, there by gaining half of VUC's total points) and Table Tennis. This year we hope to see more than mere confidence on the part of Victoria representatives.

With the experience of one Winter Tournament to guide us, the organisation of Tournament has been comparatively smooth going. We have been confronted with only one major problem to date—the Women's Hockey. In this sport there is a clash between Tournament and the Provincial games, and even at this late date we are not sure that it will not be a "stag" Tournament.

However, with the undoubted enthusiasm of our host College, Auckland, and the ready co-operation of the other Colleges, Winter Tournament, 1946, promises to be a great success. It would be difficult to eclipse last year's effort, but if it is possible we will certainly try.