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Nothing quite says WBC Slapshot
like
Pete Stein in an Islander's jersey. All
that's missing is
th bottle of No Doze ... |
Obviously the award for best behaved
table goes to ... Maly, Stakenas, Paull,
Schmittgens, McCandless,
Courter ... never mind. |
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The best hockey costume winner |
The Jay's Basement table
is again
easily spotted. |
Farewell to the Host ...
The last year at the Host came to a raucous end with another great Slapshot crowd. The annual “Traveling Hanson Brothers” trophy was awarded to the hockey player who brought his own beer (fed into his mask via tube). We welcomed back Keith Hunsinger for the annual “Reading of the Rules”, and then did our best to say farewell to the Host in style. Despite our best efforts, it was still standing when we left … honest.
Some highlights from the first round included:
- Eugene Hourany surviving a quadruple overtime game to win his table.
- Bryan Nadeau won his table with every playoff game going to overtime.
- Ray Stakenas Sr not realizing the “game within the game” of the first round is to not advance, in order to get to bed early. Greg Courter did a masterful “jump off of the railroad” that Ray is still marveling about.
- In similar news, last year’s champion Danny Lewis didn’t have to worry about his parents grabbing bragging rights, as Michael “what the heck is going on here?” Buccheri went 7-0 in the playoffs despite trying not to advance. You may want to try a little harder next year.
- Yoel “two time runner up” Weiss came prepared with his very own Buffalo Bills keychain to celebrate his perennial First Loser status. While he did advance from his table, his drive to threepeat loserdom was derailed in the semifinals.
- Adam Hurd won his table on the back of Tiny Tim, who scored the winning goal.
- For the second year in a row, Mark Mitchell won the “Flush Stein” table, and then got lost in the bar on his way to the semifinal. Be careful, Mark, the referee knows where to find you now.
- Speaking of the referee, Donte Saccenti wants us all to know that despite losing his superstar to a bruiser and winning the pucked award, he chose not to whine. Normally this would win you a voucher for a “free whine” at next year’s event, but sadly those vouchers are only good at the Lancaster Host.
- Nick Avtges won his table, but Thomas Avtges won the pucked award for being scored on four times by Tiny Tim.
- Jennifer Glinzak won her table, and remarked “I actually won a game!!!” (all three exclamation points were present on her sheet). Sounds like the end of a rough week.
Once all the tables were completed, we moved on to the annual “Massively Unfair Semifinal Round” (We call it that because it’s Massively Unfair!), which quickly produced this year’s finalists:
- Ginger “What are my friends doing?” Thompson, playing the boring black piece. When we informed her that was unacceptable, she produced a nifty skull ring.
- Holiday “Taking my Juniors room championship to the next level” Saccenti, playing the orange meeple.
- Adam “Slapshot is a game of skill” Hurd, playing the pin he pulled out of his pocket.
- Daniel “Tiny Tim’s biggest fan” Long playing the 239 point Green Bay Packers from Paydirt.
- Michael “Ready to school the kids” Shea, playing King Tut
- And finally, Dan “I just drank 17 Red Bulls” Dolan Jr. “Number 484 in your playbook, Number 1 in your heart”.
As in Dan’s last Final appearance, he managed to convince the table to follow the “Dolan Rule”, where tied games in the regular season are resolved by a random sudden death overtime period. After the games started, the usual “find the patsy” round settled on Daniel, who had Tiny Tim, and Dan, who had an overall horrible team. Ginger and Holiday both beat up on Dan, who said his team went from a total of 5 (a mathematical impossibility) up to a 7 (I guess technically possible). But even that was an underestimate as Dan played and beat Daniel’s team. Michael then tried to jump in on the fun and challenged the “Dans”, but lost his superstar to a bruiser.
Then some tension opened up in the ranks of the “Dans”, as Daniel was about to draft, but Dan said “play me and I’ll bruise you into a better team”. Daniel agreed, only to find that Dan was lying about having a bruiser. Daniel decided at that point that getting the pucked award was the true measure of Slapshot ability, and spent the rest of his time trying to get goals for Tiny Tim. He managed to get at least six, jumping with joy after each one, but also randomly chose Tiny Tim in overtime to lose at least three games.
After seeing Tiny Tim run to the scoring lead of the Final, Adam decided he didn’t want to get pucked again and started challenging Holiday. Meanwhile, Ginger had what appeared to be a very good team, but had constant bad luck in the order in which her cards came out, and somehow found herself out of the playoffs looking in. She did manage to beat Daniel’s “All I care about is Tiny Tim” team to take fifth.
The first round of the playoffs showed Dan’s energetic team rolling over Holiday’s good but quiet team, 3-1. In the other semifinal, Michael had the better team until he bruised Adam’s forward, giving Adam an upgrade into the Superstar! After that lucky turn of events, Adam won the series 3-2.
Michael’s team was still good enough to defeat Holiday for third in the consolation series, and then the Final began. Both teams had bruisers, and Adam had the Superstar. The first two games went to Adam, but Dan got the better of the “bruiser wars”, improving his team enough to win the second two games, tying the series at 2-2. Adam won Game 5, and Dan took Game 6. The superstar plaque would go down to the final deciding game. But even that wasn’t enough. It was tied after regulation.
Somehow, Dan convinced Adam to go along with the “Dolan Rule” of randomly choosing players for overtime in Game 7 of the championship. The first cards came out. tie again! Both players still decided to choose their cards randomly. Then, in the second overtime, Dan’s luck prevailed. He drew the higher card and took home the championship.
Final hands:
Adam: Forward 7,6,1 Defense 7,3* Goalie: 10
Dan: Forward 7,5,4 Defense 4,2* Goalie: 7
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Wes Lewis lends a hand
with the munchkins. |
The munchkins go skating.
The one
in the striped shirt is the GM. |
Slapshot Junior
Four hours before dropping the puck for 200 crazed hockey
fans Saturday night, Mark Yoshikawa warmed up with 38 little
bruisers. Every WBC young 'un needs to get their skates wet in
the traditional Saturday night party eventually so Mark has been
running the Juniors league for years—many of whom have since
grown up and are now sending their children to his academy.
~ 1st: Aubrey Powers, age 9
~ 2nd: Casey Moquin, age 10
~ 3rd: Sydney Matusiak, age 11
~ 4th: Andrew Freeman, age 8
~ 5th: Alex Freeman, age 11;
~ 6th: Ishiah Petruzzeli, age 11
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