That's funny - I don't recognize any of these people.	OK, Lynda wins the hockey jersey contest ... USA ... USA
The mafia are wearing dark blue for Slapshot.	Laura Browne, Mark Mitchell, John and Sarah Vasilakos

Saturday night is always resevred for WBC's biggest party - the Slapshot tournament. This year, our crowd of 200+ crazy pucksters gathered in the rink again, and, after a moment of thanks that the Ballroom was one of the few rooms that retained its Air Conditioning all week, the games were underway. We had our usual whiners sent to the penalty box by referee Mark Yoshikawa. This year, Mark himself spent some time in the box, sent there by special guest referee Grant Dalgliesh. Leaving the table without its referee produced a surprise winner, Dennis Nicholson, who usually manages to avoid having to stay up any later than necessary. Also in the "wait, I have to stay up now?" category was admitted "reluctant winner" Gretchen Paull at a table where Kris Spencer managed to win the pucked award twice, and Andrew Emerick, who noted that "people were thrown out of the Olympics for trying this hard to lose".

At the GM's table, the Lisa Gutermuth/Don Greenwood rivalry resumed after a brief interruption, and they managed to take each other out of the running. Jeff Mullet won the game, but the most interesting hand was held by Stephen Hunt, who had both the Superstar and Tiny Tim (who scored five times. Stephen is now convinced that Tiny Tim is the best player in the deck), and managed to hold both for the entire game. When Tiny Tim is your team's high scorer, people aren't too worried about taking the Superstar from you. At other tables, Michael Wojke won despite being pucked three times. Mark Guttag won and felt the need to declare that "Everyone was sober (I think)" at the table. If you're not sure, then you're probably wrong. At the Greenville Mafia table, Tim "Peaches" Rogers was the "I got pucked" winner because of an "unfair" playoff goal by Tiny Tim. Betrayed by another Tim, oh the misery ...

In an effort to get our many reluctant winners to bed as quickly as possible, the second round is referred to as the "Massively Unfair Semifinal Round". It's an abbreviated game whose only real purpose is to whittle down the sleep deprived to enough players to have a Final. This year, due to a lack of games, and missing score sheets that never got to me, the semifinal was even more Massively Unfair. I've done my best to berate my "people" into leaving more copies of the game around before they abandon me to the tender mercies of the Slapshot crowd, so hopefully it won't happen again.

Anyway, once the Zamboni left, we had six finalists, each, according to long-standing tradition, bringing the playing piece that best represents them to the table. Josh "Late Night Juggernaut" Githens, played the Martin Brodeur figurine. Derek "I won this thing 12 years ago" Landel, played the pig figurine, which was just the right size for Josh's Brodeur figure to "ride". Doug "Can't we just all go to bed?" Gallulo, played the illegible smudge. Frank "How did I get to this table?" Cunliff played the dime, and was outspent by David "Back for more abuse" Metzger, playing the quarter. Rounding out the field of nodding off competitors was Paul "Yeah, I'm here too" Weintraub playing the car keys.

In a departure from previous years, there was a relatively high average age. I don't know if this is a part of a renewed effort on the part of the geezers to take back Slapshot, or if there was a killer Werewolf game the younger people had to get to, or what. But it was an interesting contrast.

The Final started with Doug making a trade with David, who had not shown anyone his cards yet. Doug's response upon getting his card was "well, dang", which immediately pegged him as the table patsy. His Tiny Tim did manage to score two goals, though, so at least something good came of it. On the other side of the table, Paul had Le Goon, and used him to take out David's 9 and 10 goalie. When Doug finally won a game, Josh declared "Hey, your team is not that terrible". Which was probably only true in relation to Josh, who assumed the new patsy position, but did manage to trade for Doug's best player. Josh managed to win enough games as the frequently played patsy to keep himself in contention, and also managed to pull both Superstar and Tiny Tim from the deck to build his team. The Josh/Doug battle pushed them both towards the top, while David was being left behind. He spent three turns trading to improve his team, but despite (or because) of this, nobody would play him.

Eventually, Josh's horrible team (1,1,2,3,4, and Tiny Tim) and David's team that nobody would play were left behind as the playoffs began. Doug could have played Derek to start the playoffs earlier, but spent a turn to improve his team first, and drafted a 1. Oops. When the playoffs started, David and Paul were tied for the last playoff spot, and had to play a play-in game to decide who advanced. Paul won in the second overtime card.

The first playoff series was Doug vs Frank. The first game went to overtime, and Doug conceded the loss, trying to bruise Frank's best player. Frank was thinking a step ahead, though, and sacrificed his lowly 1 to the bruiser. The second game also went to overtime, and Doug managed to get his best two players bruised by Frank, which was enough to wreck his chances and Frank advanced.

The other series featured Derek's bruiser who took out Paul's 6 in the first game, and after Paul improved to a 7, bruised that player too. (Prompting Derek to ask "Did you improve or deprove that time?" Deprove? Hey, it's Slapshot in the wee hours.) Derek managed to hospitalize Paul's remaining players and advance to the Final.

The consolation series was Doug versus Paul. The final game went to overtime, where Paul "played the wrong card", allowing Doug to claim third place.

Both Derek and Frank had bruisers in the Final, which meant that anything could happen. However, both bruisers proved equally effective, and Derek's team (Forwards 7,7,2 Defense 4,4* Goalie 10) which he boasted was better than his '99 team swept the series in four games for Derek's second title 13 years after the first. Probably the most impressive thing about the night was that Derek could remember the composition of his '99 championship team.

Chris LeFevre signals the score 2 -1 as Tiny Tim scores.	"How do I tell my father he sent me to Duke for this?"
Stein to the penalty box. Whining again.	Josh and Christin are in the spirit.

Four hours before dropping the puck for 200+ crazy hockey fans Saturday night, Mark Yoshikawa warmed up with 23 little hockey players. Mandy Mossman (11) proved to be the toughest little bruiser in the rink. She was followed by Eric Petruzelli (7), James Confoy (12), Lucas Holmquist (9), Giovanni Petruzelli (8) and Aiden Powers (9).