slapshot   

Updated Nov. 23, 2013

2013 WBC Report    

 2014 Status: pending 2014 GM commitment

Kristen LaDue, NY

2013 Champion

Event History
1993    Andy Lewis        24
1994    Luke Kratz        39
1995    Peter Staab        74
1996    Leonard Omolecki        75
1997    Dan Metzger      106
1998    Dennis Nicholson      116
1999    Derek Landel     131
2000    Leonard Omolecki     133
2001    Kaarin Engelmann     108
2002    Richard Curtin     140
2003    Mark Guttag     141
2004    Devin Flawd     122
2005    Greg Berry     137
2006    Jeff Cornett     156
2007     Ted Simmons     180
2008    Ken Gutermuth     171
2009     Alexandra Henning     203
2010    Josh Githens     188
2011    Nicole Reiff     226
2012    Derek Landel     207
2013    Kristen LaDue     194

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Derek Landel       NJ    12     81
  2.  Kaarin Engelmann   VA    08     66
  3.  Ken Gutermuth      NC    10     54
  4.  Josh Githens       SC    12     50
  5.  Doug Galullo       FL    12     46
  6.  Kristin LaDue      NY    13     40
  7.  Nicole Reiff       OH    11     40
  8.  Alexandra Henning  CT    09     40
  9.  Ted Simmons        NJ    07     40
 10.  Greg Berry         VA    06     39
 11.  Leonard Omolecki   PA    11     38
 12.  Luke Parauda       NJ    13     34
 13.  Jeff Cornett       FL    06     30
 14.  Devin Flawd        PA    04     30
 15.  Mark Guttag        VA    03     30
 16.  Richard Curtin     NY    02     30
 17.  Yoel Weiss         NJ    13     24
 18.  Frank Cunliffe     PA    12     24
 19.  Mark Smith         KY    09     24
 20.  Jerry Cantrill     VA    07     24
 21.  Jerome Billones    VA    05     18
 22.  Rebecca Hebner     CO    04     18
 23.  Mike Stachowski    NY    02     18
 24.  Gordon Elgart      CA    01     18
 25.  Ken Keller         AZ    00     18
 26.  John Poniske Jr    PA    00     17
 27.  Natalie Beach      MD    11     16
 28.  Jessica Foster     NY    10     16
 29.  Shannon Keating    IN    09     16
 30.  Joe Yaure          PA    07     16
 31.  John Emery         SC    01     16
 32.  Steve Scott        CA    05     15
 33.  Ray Freeman        CA    13     12
 34.  Paul Weintraub     MD    12     12
 35.  Drew Duboff        NJ    11     12
 36.  Hans Kirketerp     dk    10     12
 37.  Rachel Harley      VA    09     12
 38.  Sam Edelston       CT    08     12
 39.  Derik Galullo      FL    07     12
 40.  Legend Dan Hoffman MD    06     12
 41.  Tim Dolan          NJ    02     12
 42.  Andy Lewis         DE    00     12
 43.  Ben Goldstein      SC    99     12
 44.  Dan Dolan Jr       NJ    09     11
 45   Harald Henning     CT    05      9
 46.  Branden Bernard    PA    04      9
 47.  Ray Stakenas II    MI    03      9
 48.  Jason Levine       NY    02      9
 49.  Paul Saunders      VA    01      9
 50.  Kevin Cantwell     PA    13      8
 51.  David Metzger      NY    12      8
 52.  Ben Collinson Jr   MD    10      8
 53.  Tony Musella       VA    07      8
 54.  Brooks Beyma       MD    08      6
 55.  Adam Nolan         VA    06      6
 56.  Brian Mountford    CA    05      6
 57.  Mark Mitchell      GA    04      6
 58.  Dan Lawall         VA    02      6
 59.  John Ellsworth     IL    01      6
 60.  Harry Flawd        PA    00      6
 61.  Luke Koleszar      VA    99      6
 62.  Gus Collars        SC    13      4
 63.  Samantha Berk      PA    11      4
 64.  Charles Squibb     PA    10      4
 65.  Sean Druellinger   MD    09      4
 66.  Brittany Bernard   PA    07      4
 67.  Sam Brosius        CT    08      3
 68.  Andy Gardner       VA    06      3
 69.  John Kerr          VA    04      3
 70.  David Vereb        PA    03      3
 71.  Michael Zorrer     DE    02      3
 72.  Steve Crenshaw     VA    00      3
 73.  Brian Kirchner     KY    99      2

2013 Laurelists                                                   Repeating Laurelists: 0

Yoel Weiss, NJ
2nd

Luke Parauda, NJ
3rd

Ray Freeman, CA
4th

Kevin Cantwell, PA
5th

Gus Collars, SC
6th

Past Winners

Andy Lewis, DE
1993

Luke Kratz, ID
1994

Peter Staab, PA
1995

Leonard Omolecki, PA
1996, 2000

Dan Metzger, PA
1997

Dennis Nicholson, NY
1998

Derek Landel, NJ
1999, 2012

Kaarin Engelmann, VA
2001

Rich Curtin, NY
2002

Mark Guttag, VA
2003

Devin Flawd, PA
2004

Greg Berry, VA
2005

Jeff Cornett, FL
2006

Ted Simmons, NJ
2007

Ken Gutermuth, NC
2008

Alexandra Henning, CT
2009

Josh Githens, SC
2010

Nicole Reiff, OH
2011

Kristin LaDue, NY
2013
 

Some of the many entrants in the uniform contest ...

... and the winner has upped the ante this year by bringing a helmet!

The LaDue table is a place of humble beginnings ... where champs get their start.

Big Meanie, Mark Mitchell and the Grinch ... before she was escorted to the Penalty Box. Serves her right!

and the comparisons are just beginning ...

This year's Slapshot tournament got off to its usual raucous start at 11 PM with the annual Reading of the Rules. Since the usual Voice of Slapshot, Keith Hunsinger, chose Gettysburg over WBC this year (sounds like grounds for a 2014 trip to the penalty box to me ..) we dug deep into our archives and selected Stuart K. Tucker, the namesake of the "I Got Pucked" award, to do the reading instead . With that formality out of the way, the unofficial beginning of the end of WBC 2013 got underway.

Historically, the GM's table contains an annual grudge match between Don Greenwood and Lisa Gutermuth as the latter picks Don's pocket on the trading block. This year, Don chose an early bedtime over more abuse from the Grinch, and Lisa abandoned the table to join another. To add insult to injury, she chose the "Flush Stein" table. That injury could not be borne, so her new tablemate and constant referee Mark Yoshikawa sent Lisa to serve out a two minute penalty for treason. In the absence of our two star players, nobody was left at the GM table to stop Bruce Reiff from emerging victorious, complaining all the while about having to stay up later than usual.

Other action of note from the first round:
· Richard Irving's team made the playoffs with players totaling 8.5 points. He then got swept as the reigning Caesar Randy Buehler won the table.
· Laurie Wojtaszwzyk won her playoff series with all games going to overtime, and in one of those overtime games, Tiny Tim scored the winning goal. Laurie was "stunned" to discover she had advanced. I'm choosing to interpret "stunned" in a good way, as opposed to "whataya mean I have to play another round?"
· Grant Dalgliesh won at a table where Tiny Tim scored twice in consecutive games.
· Not to be outdone, Lex Jackson's team (which he called the "Masked Marauders" scored with Tiny Tim three times! See, he is an asset to your team! Sadly, Lex couldn't pull out a victory, as Kristen LaDue advanced despite Tiny Tim's best efforts to deprive her of her rightful glory at her first WBC.

When the Zamboni had cleared the ice, we had three tables for our annual Massively Unfair semifinal Round (we call it that because it's Massively Unfair!), each of which advanced two players to the Final. The lineup of unfortunate - I mean happy - advancers for the Final was:

Gus "I'm making my dad stay up late!" Collars, playing the gold dubloon.

Kristen "That's nothing, I dragged my dad down from the bar!" LaDue, playing the smushed penny.

Ray "Can someone drag me up to the bar?" Freeman, playing the Altoids case.

Luke "The Voice of Experience" Paruda, playing the bottle cap that he "found". Luke is a returning finalist from the 2011 Fnal table. When we asked him why he hadn't learned his lesson last time, he replied: "You have to want to advance!". Which, actually, probably puts him ahead of 75% of the field.

Kevin "How did I get here?" Cantrell, playing the crown from Small World.

Yoel "We get laurels for this, right?" Weiss, playing the Ticket to Ride piece. He took great pains to let me know that he chose this piece because "he don't care"

Kristen started the game off aggressively by challenging Kevin to a game. Kevin tried to intimidate her by asking if she was sure. When she said she was, he said "good choice", and showed a pretty bad team that got decidedly worse when Kristen bruised his best player. Kevin's team was still too good for Yoel, however, who played Kevin to a tie, and then spent some turns doing some much-needed drafting. Gus and Luke also played Kevin for easy wins in the early going. Kevin went several times around the table before picking up his first (and only) win, and that happened while he was in the bathroom. Insert your own joke about how "anyone could be a better coach" here.

Meanwhile, Ray stayed quietly on the side, drafting for three straight turns, and when he finally played, showed a great team. On the very next turn, Kristen traded with Ray, who moans "No!". Yoel, going immediately afterwards, said "I have a hunch your team just got worse" and played Ray's leftovers. Yoel won, but Ray still had two bruisers who decimated Yoel's team. Yoel then tried to play several games against bruisers to have his bad players bruised into better ones. Luck wasn't with him, though, as he continually lost his team's best players instead. Still, he picked up enough wins to stay in contention.

Off to the side, as all of the bruising and chaos was going on, Kristen was quietly putting together a strong playoff run. It seemed like the only player who noticed and tried to stop her was Gus, but his team wasn't good enough, and the melee in the middle of the table didn't play him enough to give Gus many cheap wins. Once the rest of the table noticed, Kristen was one spot away from winning the division and starting the playoffs, and it was her turn. Immediately several players outdid each other saying how horrible their team was, and how easy it would be for Kristen's team to beat them and start the playoffs. Turns out, they were all right!

But first, the consolation series between the two people who didn't make the playoffs: Gus, who finished one win away from qualifying, and Kevin, who had won only once is his reward for playing a third round. Showing once again that Slapshot is massively unfair, Kevin beat Gus to take 5th place.

In the actual playoff series, the 1v4 matchup paired Luke and Kristen. Luke came in with a strong team, but Kristen bruised Luke's 6 and 7 players in the first two games, propelling Kristen to a 3-2 series win.
The 2v3 pairing matched Yoel and Ray. Game 1 went about as well as Yoel could hope for, as his Tiny Tim scored, and his 1 scored on (and got bruised by) Le Goon. In Game 2, Tiny Tim knocked Le Goon out of Ray's team, and that was enough to give Yoel a push into the Final.

The 3rd place consolation series was between Luke and Ray, and the remnants of Luke's good team was enough to beat Ray, who no longer had a bruiser, so Luke took third place.

The first game went to overtime, but Kristen's superstar lived up to his billing and gave her the game. The second game, it became apparent that, as Yoel said "I've run this team as far as it can go", and Kristen won again. In the third game, Yoel's "get my bad players bruised strategy" finally works as his 3 defender got upgraded to a 6. But it wasn't enough as in Game 4, Kristen completed the sweep and took home the coveted Superstar plaque. Maybe you can convince your dad to play next year! You know - display your shield next to his. Oh? He doesn't have any? That may require a change in strategy.

The final team rosters:
Kristen: Superstar, 7, 2, 6, 3*, 9
Yoel: 6, 4, 3, 5, 12, 10

The most important thing about Slapshot is to ensure the proper mojo with the correct token.

Please don't tell me they are cloning Reiffs now down in Greenville? The horror ...

One of the Massively Unfair semifinals as Kristen takes step 2 to glory.

Umm .... Sandman aside, Grant ... comparison might not be a good idea.

 Derek Landel lends a hand dropping the puck.

 GM and referee Mark Yoshikawa skates between tables.

 Slapshot Junior

Four hours before dropping the puck for 194 crazy hockey fans Saturday night, Mark Yoshikawa warmed up with 35 little bruisers. Holiday Saccenti proved to be the top skater followed by Sophie Bels, Ethan Shipley-Tang, Ryan Sokolowski, Brandon Wines and Sam Shambeda.

 GM      Sean McCulloch [9th year]  NA
    stmccull@owu.edu  NA 

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