(By Steve Hopkins)
Rhode Island Table Tennis Association 70-year-birthday celebration
The Rhode Island Table Tennis Association is celebrating 70 years of continuous operation – dating back to the club reopening after World War II.
The club was a regular stop for regional players and pros for a generation with appearances from Dick Miles and Marty Reisman and Bernie Bukiet and later from more recent legends like David Sakai and George Braithwaite. We were home to USATT Hall of Famer Dick Evans, were host for nearly a decade to USATT Magazine and one of the most interesting features of the club is the League – which has been running using the same basic rules since the 1940s.
Over the years, the club has had three locations (Providence, then Warwick, and now Manville). The Rhode Island Club has seen some updates, we’re now a We Are Butterfly club with great tables and lighting and wood floors. But our rich history continues. Come visit us and share in that history.
We expect 2018 to be a great year. We will run four sanctioned tournaments (Tournament Info Site), we will host the Rhode Island Senior Games, and we will also host the Rhode Island Junior and Rhode Island High School Championships.
In celebration of our long history, we have begun a Rhode Island Table Tennis Hall of Fame. Our inaugural class of inductees included Irvine Levine and Eddy Raky (who were the strongest players in the 50s and 60s), Dick Evans (a great promoter of the sport who is already in the USATT Hall of Fame), Haig Raky (a fixture in the club for 40 years), and Chuck Cavicchio (President of the club for nearly two decades). You can learn more about our Hall of Fame here.
For more about the Rhode Island Table Tennis Association and our club hours, visit the RITTA WAB page.
