A chance comment made in jest became the inspiration to hold a table tennis tournament at Craig Hospital.

“I was at the U.S. Paralympics meeting a while ago when I said I wanted to join the paralympic table tennis team,” said John Vcelka, one of the April 1 event organizers. “Of course I was joking since there is no paralympic table tennis team but some of the Craig recreational therapists were at the meeting, thought table tennis would be something a lot of patients could do and the next thing you know, we had this tournament scheduled.”

The result was was Vcelka worked with Viktoryia Bekish, Craig therapeutic recreation intern, to put together the April 1 event. On that date, the click-clack of the little white ball filled the hospital’s gymnasium as, during the height of the tournament, there was game action in progress at almost a dozen tables.

About 35 or 40 players took part in the tournament. About half the players were Craig patients and the others were Craig alumni like Steve Pisano.

Pisano said he doesn’t compete in many wheelchair sports but decided to enter the tournament because, as a kid he was pretty good at table tennis.

“I didn’t win the tournament but I won some games and I had a lot of fun,” he said. “It was a great idea to have this tournament. We who are alumni got to meet some of the current Craig patients, and it provided another fun activity for all of us.”

Alex Adkins, a current Craig patient, agreed.

“The tournament was fun,” he said with a smile. “I used to play a lot of ping-pong and I find I can still do pretty well.”

Adkins’ final opponent was Greg Hydle, who said Alex challenged him on the ping-pong table even though Adkins was the only player at the table in a wheelchair.

Tournament organizers set up four divisions, sitting alumni paraplegics, sitting alumni quadriplegics, sitting inpatient and standing inpatients.

The morning was devoted to pool play. When the results were tallied, Josh Stapen won the sitting alumni quadriplegic division, Josh Davis was the in-patient sitting champ and Wade Smith was the inpatient standing division winners.

In the sitting alumni paraplegic division, Vcelka and Tom Wheaton advanced to the finals.

Before the finals, Wheaton said his goal was to keep the game respectable because he is OK at ping pong and is thrilled to be in the finals

However, he said Vcelka is a much better player and should win it all.

His prediction was accurate as Vcelka won the title.