This year's Slapshot event drew 141 entrants, a new attendance record. The opening round welcomed the comeback of emcee extraordinaire Keith Hunsinger back onto the tall chair, to the cheers of the assembled masses, for the traditional reading of the rules.

The first round had several interesting games. At the GM table, Bill Crenshaw had his Superstar stolen twice, the last time just before the playoffs started, spelleing doom for his team. Tom Parauda's Superstar was also a victim, as Mark Guttag sidelined him in the first game of the finals. But the best story of the first round belongs to Ted Simmons, who won his game (as the top seed in the playoffs) despite losing his first seven games, and holding no player with a rating higher than 3 for an entire round.

We had 18 tables this year, so we had three semi-final tables, each advancing two players to the final. The "pucked" award in the semi-final round went to Jean-Francois Gagne, who had Tiny Tim score on him in sudden-death overtime, denying him a spot in the finals.

The finals saw lots of interesting playing pieces on the board. We had:
Mark playing the purple missile
Josh playing the Snickers Bar
Kaarin playing the orange robot
Ray playing the soda can pop-top
Doug playing the fearsome "blue pawn"
David playing the Halls cough drop

The final was characterized by a large amount of tie games. Ray went four entire games without scoring a single goal, but still made the playoffs, Josh got a his Superstar and Greased Lightning bruised in the same game by David.

The first playoff series saw Kaarin's Robots against Doug's Blue Bruisers. Doug used his bruisers to good effect, bruising 25 points of Kaarin's players over the series, but Kaarin prevailed anyway in five games. The other playoff series saw Mark's purple missiles play Ray's limping pop-tops. Ray's low scoring woes continued, as he lost in four games, only scoring one goal in the process.

Ray also failed to score in the 3-4 playoff game, losing 3-0 to Doug.

The finals showed the two powerhouses that were dominating the early rounds squaring off against each other. The games were tightly contested, with two games going into overtime. The beating Kaarin took in the semifinals proved costly, however, as Mark prevailed in six games.

The final teams for the two finalists:
Mark Kaarin
Offense 7,6,2 6,5,4
Defense 6, 2 7, 4
Goalie 9 8

The number of trades and drafts in the finals:

Trades Drafts
Mark 2 2
Kaarin 1 3
Doug 1 2
Ray 2 0
Josh 2 5
David 0 6

 28 junior players turned out to start a Saturday afternoon version of this adult Saturday night tradition and thereby set the WBC Juniors event attendance record for the year. It didn't take long for the kids to catch the spirit of the event, as before long they considered stealing a good player from an opponent in trade to be more important than actually winning any games. Much thanks are needed for Andy Lewis who helped keep the preliminary round going as well as Mark Yoshikawa who refereed a group in full striped uniform, including whistle.

After the first round of four boards of seven players each, seven young Slapshot artists advanced to the final game. Jennifer Alonso and Tim DeMarco jumped out to the early lead. While the other players struggled to catch up and with Tim only one victory away from the title, Jennifer was able to win the last two games played to grab the plaque in the initial year of this juniors event. Carolyn Strock and Suzanne Welker tied for 3rd place, while Alexandra Monnin and Brian Englesteen tied for 5th and Jordan Flawd rounded out the seven members of the finals.

Sportsmanship Nominee: Goes to Mark Yoshikawa for donating use of his game, for arriving in full referee attire to add spice to the event, and for volunteering to help supervise some of the juniors in the first round. His giving of time he could have used for himself was invaluable in keeping the event running relatively smoothly and for which I will be forever grateful.