Vipers' Ikkala Spreads Love For The Game Across The Pacific:

Vipers' Ikkala spreads love for the game across the Pacific

Thursday, February 5, 2009 - Submitted by Vernon Vipers

It all started with a sign posted at Okanagan College that sought volunteers to be 'communication partners' with exchange students.
Cody Ikkala saw the sign-up board last year while he was taking some classes and decided it was something he would try. He ended up having so much fun that he signed up again this year and was connected with Sayaka and Megumi, two exchange students from Japan.
Being a 'communication partner', Cody hung out with the two exchange students and helped them with their English -- and what better way to do that then do regular everyday activities.
Cody took the students bowling, played pool, went for dinner and a few Starbucks outings.
“Cody is very nice and helped give us subjects to talk to our host billets about,” said Sayaka and Megumi, who also made it to as many Vipers games as they could during their five month visit.
“We always cheered for Cody” they said.
During a visit to the college this week, Cody taught a class of international students all about hockey.
“I showed them one of our highlight videos from our website and then answered all of their questions,” he explains.
The students were a bit shy to start but once the first question was asked the students hands kept going up and many questions were asked.
“The students had a lot of questions about fighting at first, many have never seen a game and can’t believe that fighting is allowed," Ikkala said. "When they watched the highlight video the class started cheering every time they saw a fight.”
“They were all very interested in the game and who plays and why we play," he continued. "A lot of the students are coming to the next home games and wanted to know as much as they could.”
As for Cody’s 'communication partners', they won’t be able to catch another Vipers game since they fly back to Japan on February 14th -- but Cody has helped make their visit a memorable one and the Vipers will now have two more fans cheering all the way from Japan.