MICCAI 2005
8th International Conference on Medical Image
Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention


MICCAI 2005 Soccer Game

Pre-game info:
As during most of the prior MICCAI conferences, the traditional game between (volunteering) participants located in the US against those from outside of the US (also dubbed US vs World) will also
take place this year. Due to the tight schedule of the conference program, the game is scheduled for Saturday evening 29th October starting at 5:45pm, just after the main conference has finished. The game will take place on the Demuth park main soccer field (which has lighting). The riviera resort will provide the transportation from the hotel to the fields, meeting point will be the hotel lobby at 5:30 pm.

Everybody should bring a pair of shorts and sports shoes, the t-shirts will be provided by the MICCAI conference (in 2 colors, orange for the US-based researchers, and blue for the others) at the meeting point in the hotel lobby.

Post-game recap:
As there were only about 12 US based (and even much fewer US native) soccer players at the game, while the World had 24 players, the make-up of the 2 teams had to be adjusted. After all the Canadians and Canada based researchers
joined the US, and also a few Europeans were coerced to switch sides, the mixed US/Canada/World team had 17 players and the World-team 19 players. Since everybody played at the same time, the field was quite busy... In general, it was a very friendly and collegial atmosphere on the field and all players seemed to enjoy the game very much. Thumbs up to all the players, who made this such a nice soccer game.

The World team in their beautiful blue MICCAI shirts went ahead early in the game 2:0 and held unto the lead quite comfortable until half-time. In the second half, the luck turned to the orange dressed US/Canada/World team, who was able to equalize at 2:2 quite early in the half. A magnificient shot from the World team (anybody remembers who it was? if so let me know and I will report his name here) put them ahead once more, before a nice header from Martin Styner again equalized the score at 3:3. As the World team seemed to get tired, the US/Canada/World pushed on to score 2 more goals.

Final Score:  Mixed US/Canada/World  vs World        5 : 3

This score indicates a historic event, as this is the first time in the history of medical imaging and intervention conference soccer games (at least IPMI and MICCAI) that the US won over the World! Well, of course, they couldn't do it alone, but needed the assistance of Canada and few other players from the world, but still 12 players were US based and despite this handicap the US team won (and 4 of the goals were even scored by US based researchers). What a surprise!


Pictures: Soon to be posted here....



Web-administration: Martin Styner (styner at miccai2005.org)