Last league night seems like ages ago, since after that I got caught up in a blur of getting ready for Fear and Trembling (the fall charity tournament). (Stay tuned for some pictures from Fear and Trembling later. I’m having some issues with my computer that’s affecting getting photos from my camera.) It was a very exciting one, though, since it kicked off Season 17 and saw the return of some people who have been absent a while.
I had announced before the start of league that this season we would return to playing a single bank per night unless more than 16 people attend on a given night. This is a compromise between those who prefer two banks because it gets league done faster and cuts down on waiting, and those who prefer the classic single bank which has various advantages like allowing people to see their true league standings at the end of the night instead of at the end of a month. I found that last season we ended up with so few people on some nights that having two banks seemed silly and we would have gotten done just as quickly with one. Unfortunately, after a big boom for the league a couple of seasons ago, it contracted quite a bit last season. I thought it unlikely that we would get more than 16 people, but I left open the possibility of expanding to two banks if we did.
As it happened, we got 15 people, so it was a lot closer than I expected! But we started the season, at least, on a single bank, “Apollo.” Joining us after a season or two away was Todd, who played all but one of his games early due to his work schedule. He did save one game to play with a group. A surprise that I tried and failed to keep from Joseph was that our Grand Rapids guests Jake and Sam also returned after a long absence, bringing a lot of energy with them. Sam brought his usual Puckish humor, at one point drilling me about how I would make various rulings and whether yellow cards would carry over for the season or just the night. Unexpectedly absent were Jason and Brian K. I don’t know the story with Brian, but in Jason’s case I suspect it has to do with Monday having been Columbo’s Day. I remember in the past he told me that when there is a federal holiday on Monday, he has to work late the next day to make up for it.
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on Attack from Mars. Unfortunately, our source for Smackdown medals has dried up – Michaels has discontinued the buttons we were using – so we are going to have to owe people until we figure out what we’ll be using instead. Even more unfortunately, I somehow managed to miss taking any photos of the winners. Dan was the Smackdown champion, his first win as far as we could remember. In the Best Division, Sam took honors, surprisingly eclipsing Tim, who usually dominates the Undercard but this time had to settle for second.
At one point, while we were talking about the Best division, someone – I don’t remember who, but it might have been Sam – suggested that the A division was the Ass Division. I responded by filling that in after “A” in the scorecard. Then someone (again, I forget who) said “Hey, it does look like it says Ass division!” apparently not realizing that it said that because I had just written it in. For some reason this made me laugh until I nearly wheezed. This is the high quality humor you’re missing if you haven’t been to league yet this season.
Speaking of the season, it’s not too late to join! You only need to make four nights of eight to play in finals, and your lowest night of eight gets dropped so if you start now you’ll still get a full seven nights of scoring in. Hope to see you shortly!