posted Jun 24th, 2004 - The new addition to the European Skydiving League in the Netherlands, the Dutch Handicap Cup (DHC), completed its second competition of the 2004 season last weekend. This event has already been the Tomscat Trophy for many years and is more popular in the Netherlands than the Dutch national championship. The Tomscat Trophy was included in the Dutch Handicap Cup league schedule for the 2004 season and attracted a total of 18 teams to the hosting drop zone, the Paracentrum Eelde-Hoogeveen. Nine teams completed eight rounds in the AAA Class competition, while another nine teams signed up for the A Class and completed six rounds. Both classes applied the same draw that was used for the NSL last weekend. In fact, Mike Pennock, DHC manager, was responsible for last weekend's competition draw.

The names of the winning teams in both DHC competition classes sound very familiar for a good reason. Punky Fish and the 4tunates have both competed at NSL events in the past and put their team names out. Punky Fish with founders Paul Hofstee and Bert Hajee has been around for several years. The team name stands for the standard of player coaching combinations. Hofstee and Hajee created their two-on-two line-up years ago and moved their skills up to a very high level of 4-way competition. Using mostly American and Norwegian world class player coaches Punky Fish attended several meets of the Florida Skydiving League over the years and also competed at the NSL Championship at SkyQuest 2002.Hofstee and Hajee have recently scaled back their efforts to recover from financial investments into their team project. However, both have still been greatly involved by forwarding their experiences to other teams as coaches. They have also teamed up with their former teammates of the Dutch Force national team and now enjoy a much higher performance level even without player coaches. The Dutch line-up of Punky Fish now posted the 16.6 meet average at the Tomscat Trophy and showed clearly that this team is currently the best one in the Netherlands. Punky Fish still has no plans to compete as the Dutch national team in Croatia this year. However, Hofstee and Hajee have already completed their plans to attend SkyQuest 2004 in November, once again with an international line-up.

The 4tunates won last weekend's DHC meet in the A Class with a 9.0 meet average after six rounds. Three of the team members had attended the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2004 in March at Skydive DeLand. This meet was the end of a winter training camp for the 4tunates. Coach Shannon Pilcher filled the tail slot for the ten meet rounds in March and guided the team to a 9.0 average by then. The 4tunates won a 10-minute certificate in the A Class of the NSL SkyVenture Competition on the Shamrock weekend and plan to use it during the next winter camp in Florida. Team members e-mailed that they were now eager to show the results of the training with their original line-up and without player coach Pilcher. It worked out well last weekend when the 4tunates came out on top after a very tough competition in the DHC A Class competition.The results of last weekend's NSL SkyVenture Competition are now complete and will be posted later today.