Welcome to the Home Page of the

Viking Death Rats

Soccer Team!

What is the Viking Death Rats?

The Viking Death Rats is the soccer team of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. It started in the Fall of 1992, mainly through the effort of Harry Shum, the first captain. The Viking Death Rats play in the Intramurals Soccer at Carnegie Mellon.

Who plays in the Viking Death Rats?

The Rats are composed mostly of people who study or work at the Robotics Institute. But anybody can practice with us; if you want to receive messages about the practices, send mail.

What have the Rats accomplished?

First, we have had a lot of fun. But we also got the gold during the Spring season, 1995: we won the final game in the Intermediate League by 5-1. Other than that, we have reached the semifinals three times (Spring 93, Fall 93, Spring 96) and the quarterfinals twice (Fall 92, Fall 94). More history in a moment, later in this page.

The Rats NOW!

Here are the players: Fabio Cozman, Richard Voyles, Marcel Becker, John Hancock, David LaRose, Mark Smith, Dimitrios Apostolopoulos, Charles L Zitnick, Bo Fan, Dirk Langer, Bala Kumar, Matt Deans, Jeff Byrne, Stuart Fairley, Murali Krishna.

And here is the schedule:

Date Time Result
Tuesday 4/8 5:45M ???
Tuesday 4/22 5:45PM ???

Pictures of the Rats!

Here is an (INCOMPLETE) List of Players

If your name is not here but you have played with the Rats at some point, send a message with your URL.

Some History

Here is a recollection of facts that have happened to the Viking Death Rats:
  1. August/September 1992: Harry calls people to join the team; response is immediate. Lots of questions: what is the name of the team? when do we practice? Here is the first mail sent to the team, written in the excitement of the time: 
    first of all, we need a team name. ian has proposed 
"viking death rats" which i would ask your guys' opinion. 
if anyone out there has objection, and would like to 
propose another name, let me know asap. the second thing is 
practice time. i propose wed afternoon at 5.
you should have fun, eh?
--harry
    Here is the schedule of the first games: 
     field C      Oct.19	Mon 7:30
 field C      Oct.22	Thu 6:30
 field C      Nov.4	Wed 5:30
 field A      Nov.11	Wed 7:30
    The Rats enter the field for the first time, 19 October 1992, and get a 6-1 victory (little fact that only a few may know: the first goal of the Rats was scored by Fabio Cozman...). By then the Rats adopt Green as their color. The Rats get a great sequence of games; they reach the play-offs. Some games are tougher than others: during a very violent game, a fight explodes; Dimitri is sent out of the field. Another game is won after a 1 hour overtime. The team is happy; here is a message sent before the play-offs: 
    ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK...

here is my new idea of our offense and defense:

1. Greek goalie (Haralabos)
2. Two great walls:
	American wall	(Richard and Andrew)
	Asia wall	(Shinichi and George)
3. Three attack waves:
	Big wave	(Onapas, Dimi, and Fabio)
	Fast wave	(Bunsen, Ian, and Murphy)
	Dead wave	(Harry, Gary and Steve)

Tora, Tora, Tora...
--harry
    The Rats reach the quarterfinals. The quarterfinal game is, unfortunately, lost by the Rats to "Shooting Worms" by 3-4.
  2. March 1993: The Rats are back for the Spring Indoor season; Harry is again the captain and hopes are high. The season is a great success; the Rats reach the semifinals. The Rats lose 2-3 in the semifinals.
  3. September 1993: The Rats are back to a new Fall season. Fabio is the captain (and has been since...); the team practices a lot and is ready to win. The Rats have a new goallie, Mark Wheeler. And Chuck Thorpe agrees to play for a season. After a shaky start (we tied 4-4 the first game), the Rats start to collect victories. The Rats reach the play-offs, and then the quarterfinals. Strange facts happen during the quarterfinal game: In the third game of the season, Dimitri was suspended for two games; during the quarterfinal game, the other team argues that Dimitri is still suspended in the quarterfinals and therefore could not play. This causes the refree to consider the Rats out of the competition (!!). We complain and get the problem fixed; here is the mail that explains the situation: 
    The refree made a mistake today. The
guy that called me on Tuesday DID say that Dimitri 
was suspended just for a game, and he admitted the 
mistake. So we will play 
MONDAY on the same schedule (7:30), but on the
following conditions:

we play with the same team SUDDEN DEATH, and THEN
we play the semifinal. Pretty tough, rats, but 
we will make it for sure.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSS!!!
	Fabio Cozman
    And in fact, the Rats win the quarterfinal game after 1 hour of sudden death game, thanks to an extraordinary goal by Jim Rehg. But then, the Rats lose the semifinal game.
  4. March 1994: The Rats are back for another Spring Indoors season. The team is: 
    fabio cozman
andrew gove
charalambos athanassiou
dimitrios apostolopoulos
richard voyles
george paul
harry shum
john murph
charles thorpe
john hancock
jeffrey yang
jim rehg
bunsen wong
todd jochem
mark wheeler
    This time, no luck: the season is played in a loser-is-out basis and the Rats lose their second game.
  5. August 1994: The Rats are back for a new Fall season. Mark Wheeler orders the Rats soccer jerseys, and now the Rats adopt the orange as their color. The team is: 
    Harry Shum
Mark Wheeler
Jim Rehg
Fabio Cozman
Dimitri
Bunsen
Dirk Langer
Andrew Gove
John Hancock
George Paul
Ruhul Quddus
Bill Niehaus
Rich Voyles
Charalambos
Bala Kumar
    The season is tough; a record number of team participates in the League (56 teams). The Rats start with a couple of difficult victories, but then get a 7-0 in the third game. The Rats reach the play-offs, and then get a great 3-1 victory. But then the Rats have a very bad time during the quarterfinals and lose 1-2. In 5 games, we scored 16 goals and gave 5.
  6. March 1995: The Rats come back to their best season. Hopes are high that finally the gold will be found. The team is: 
    Harry Shum
Andrew Gove
Haralambos
Dimitrious
Fabio Cozman
Rich Voyles
George
John Hancock
Dave LaRose
Bunsen
Ruhul
Atsushi
Sconant
Bill Niehaus
Bala Kumar
    The Rats decide to play in the Intermediate League this time. The season starts with a loss, but the team recovers well and gets a number of excellent victories. The Rats reached the semifinals, and win 4-0; and then the Rats win the final, 5-1. Here is the message to the Rats: 
    HI all Rats,
Yes, we are

CCCCCC  H    H  AAAAAA  M      M  PPPPP  I  OOOOOO  N   N  SSSSSS
C       H    H  A    A  MM    MM  P   P  I  O    O  NN  N  S
C       HHHHHH  AAAAAA  M M  M M  PPPPP  I  O    O  N N N  SSSSSS
C       H    H  A    A  M  MM  M  P      I  O    O  N  NN       S
CCCCCC  H    H  A    A  M      M  P      I  OOOOOO  N   N  SSSSSS
We won the Intermediate Final yesterday, 5-1 (!!).
	Fabio Cozman
  7. Septemer 1995: The Rats come back as the champions, ready to play in the Outdoors Intermediate league. The team is: 
    Harry Shum
Bunsen
Fabio 
Santiago
Atsushi
Bill
Rich Voyles
Marcel Becker
John Hancock
Mark Wheeler
Dimitri
Dirk
Hui Zhang
Bala Kumar
George Paul
Mark Ravaglia
    But unfortunately this time things do not go well. In the first game, the Rats are still slow and lazy from the summer, and lose (to a clearly inferior team) 1-4. After a number of great victories (and another defeat), the Rats come to discover that they will not make it to the playoffs. The team that defeated the Rats in the first game got its way into the playoffs due to that victory (rats!).
  8. During Spring 96, the Rats play in the indoor Intermediate League. The team is: Fabio Cozman, Harry Shum, Santiago Conant, Bill Niehaus, Rich Voyles, Marcel Becker, John Hancock, Mark Wheeler, Hui Zhang, David LaRose, Cam Riviere, Mark Smith, Bunsen Wok, Dimitri and Alan Horn (our new goallie). The first-round games are:

    Date Time Result
    Tuesday 4-2 8:45PM Victory 3x1
    Tuesday 4-9 8:00PM Tie 0x0
    Wednesday 4-17 6:30PM Victory 2x0
    Tuesday 4-23 8:00PM Victory 3x2

    We got the second best record in the first-round games, therefore going to the playoffs:

    Date Time Result
    Quarterfinal: Tuesday 4-30 10:15PM Victory 4x1
    Semifinal: Wednesday 5-1 8:45PM Tie 2x2; defeated in shoot-out 3x2
    Final: Thrusday 5-2 8:45PM ---

  9. During fall 96, the Rats played the outdoor season, Minors league. The team is: Fabio Cozman, Richard Voyles, Marcel Becker, John Hancock, Mark Smith, Dimitrios Apostolopoulos, Matthew Deans, Bo Fan, Charles L Zitnick, Mark Ravaglia, Dirk Langer, Bala Kumar, Chris Skalka, Jeff Byrne, Murali Krishna. The first-round games are:

    Date Time Result
    Monday 10/28 6:30M Victory 10-2
    Monday 11/4 5:30PM Victory 8-1
    Monday 11/11 4:30PM Cancelled (rain)
    Wednesday 11/13 7:30PM Victory (forfeit)

    Unfortunately, the Rats lose their first playoffs game, 3-2 (Sunday 11/17, 3PM).

fgcozman@cs.cmu.edu
The Soccer Rat image, displayed in the title, was created by Fabio Cozman in paper, scanned into a Mac, painted with Photoshop and altered with the giftrans program. A larger version of the picture can be accessed. Please use this image only in connection to the Viking Death Rats.