Bottom Feeders 2021 ish... Yes. ish.

[John J. MacInnes]

I was informed the Needham-Storey Funeral Home has a cockroach problem, but agreed to postpone treatment until the 28th to accommodate our tournament.

On the contrary, that moves them up to ideal for the NoWinS. My sources say that local officials suspect that the tournament committee is somehow responsible for the infestation.

(Hides the empty bags and traps behind himself)

[BUPhD]

Oh hey, Gas City is down the highway from my home town. It's most knowing for its truck stop in days yore, but there's a Cracker Barrel there now. So it's probably one of the more amenities rich locales for this event.

Maybe we'll see BU play there.

[John J. MacInnes]

I was informed by telegram that the bus to transport the Nanooks to the NoWinS has arrived in Fairbanks. They will begin the 3600+ mile journey tonight.

[John J. MacInnes]

Today's the big day. Waiting for reports from Gas City.

[MissThundercat]

The Commish woke up and is hearing reports of stray cockroaches and food poisoning from Gas City.

[John J. MacInnes]

The committee instructed local operatives to hide or remove all EPA signage from the Anchor Glass Company abandoned plant before the arrival of the teams for the 2021 NoWinS. In preparation for the tournament, school district officials from Mississinewa High School loaded their leftover cafeteria food into open wheelbarrows and walked it to the Needham-Storey Funeral Home.

In an ironic twist, the dilapidated buses transporting Alaska-Fairbanks and Holy Cross collided at the intersection of US-35 and Indiana Highway 15, with the Fairbanks bus t-boning the Crusaders. No injuries were reported by the Grant County Sheriff, who attributed that to all players wearing their hockey gear. The report explained that since neither bus had any luggage space, the players were forced to wear anything they needed on the trip. When informed of the incident, Miss Thundercat scolded the teams and told them they were on their own for transport for the remainder of the tournament.

Semifinal #1 – Holy Cross vs Alaska-Fairbanks

The teams were involved in a parking lot brawl at the Needham-Storey Funeral Home before leaving for the Anchor Glass Factory. Both squads tried to commandeer the wheelbarrows used to deliver the food, and ended up in a hammer-and-tongs donnybrook. Eventually when the fracas slowed down, only 8 players on each side were in condition to play.
Upon arrival at the AGF, the teams found the playing surface. Local organizers had cleared a large area of slag glass left over from production and painted lines on it to approximate a rink that measured an almost perfect circle with a 160’ circumference. Skates dulled to the sharpness of butter knives after on a few shifts, so the game downgraded into both crawling on all fours to move around.

The only goal of the first two periods came from the stick of HC forward Jackson Macnab, who combined with fellow Indiana native Jack Hillman to use their local connections. Macnab had friends infiltrate the AGF before the game and install a rope line from the HC bench to one of the goals, but since the playing surface was circular they ran it incorrectly to open ice instead. Nevertheless, Macnab pulled himself hand over hand to an open area where he appeared to be offside. Hillman tossed the puck in the air and batted it to Macnab, who was ruled onside due to the curvature of the glass surface. The puck was almost out of reach, but Macnab gripped the blade of his stick and swung the shaft to increase his reach, getting just enough of it to propel a shot that rolled off a flaw in the surface and fooled Fairbanks goalie Daniel Allin.

In the third, the Nanooks were left even more shorthanded when head referee Frank Anzalone (yes, he’s back!) ruled that only players with even uniform numbers were allowed to play the last 20 minutes. Of their 8 players who made it to AGF, only two Fairbanks players qualified. Meanwhile the Crusaders had only one player not allowed to participate – the goal scorer Macnab. Anzalone declared that all seven of the HC players with even numbered jerseys could play at the same time, and those 7 effectively smothered the outnumbered Fairbanks duo to secure the win.

Final Score – Holy Cross 1, Alaska Fairbanks 0 (Fairbanks advances to title game)

[John J. MacInnes]

Neither Fairbanks nor Holy Cross returned the wheelbarrows to the Needham-Storey Funeral Home, so the Badgers and Tommies had to use their provided buses for transportation to the Anchor Glass Factory. Since neither one had a working transmission, they had both resigned themselves to the walk. But Wisconsin assistant coach Mark Osiecki spotted the van from St. Alphonso’s Catholic Church that was dropping off the rancid leftover coffee, and piled half his team in after hijacking the van. That gave Wisconsin a head start on arriving at the AGF.

Semifinal #2 – Wisconsin vs St. Thomas

Suffering from the effects of the Mississinewa School cafeteria food, both teams hunted for restroom facilities which were non-existent. Rico Blasi sent his players behind a pile of abandoned pallets and crates, only to have six of them immediately ruled out for the game for entering an EPA cleanup area that required a six hour decontamination.

As two of the worst combined special teams programs in the nation, power plays were going to of course play a role in the early going. St. Thomas spent half the first period playing perpendicular to the ice markings as they battled the delirium onset from food poisoning, and took 7 consecutive penalties. Knowing how putrid his man advantage has been so far this season, Tony Granato made the strategic decision to decline the power play each time to stay 5x5.

In the second period, the Tommies got a break when Andrew Kangas fired the puck around the circular boards. All five Badgers tried to cut off the play on the opposite side, but it eluded them all and came right back to Kangas. He looked up to see that goaltender Ben Garrity had also tried to chase down the play and was hopelessly stranded outside the net. It was a simple play for Kangas to fire the puck into the unguarded goal and the Tommies somehow managed to lead 1-0 with just 20 minutes to play.

In the third, the Badgers made their early arrival count. Mathieu De St. Phaille had discovered that the playing surface was attached to an abandoned railroad roundhouse, and the controls were right behind the Wisconsin bench. The Wisco staff spent the second intermission fixing bolts from the nets to the boards so they would stay stationary, and whenever St, Thomas made any headway in the third they would just spin the glass underneath so the Tommies were always going the working way. Two Badger goals by Carson Bantle put them ahead and made it look like things would be comfortable, but with the clock winding down Grant Loven snapped the metal blades off his skates and crunched into the offensive zone where he appeared to fire a shot to tie the score. However, when the officials went to retrieve the puck, they discovered it was in fact a mutated cockroach which had grown to a size just short of official dimensions. Loven retched on the glass when shown after his protests, and was assessed a penalty for delay of game. Granato declined the power play and ran out the clock.

Final Score – Wisconsin 2, St. Thomas 1 (St. Thomas advances to title game)

[John J. MacInnes]

All four teams suffered through a sleepless night at the Needham-Storey Funeral Home, with Holy Cross unable to find a replacement bus and Wisconsin discovering that theirs had been repossessed by Grant County tax collectors who mistook it for a drug lab. The leftover cafeteria food had been eaten by the cockroaches, so no one ate.

Championship Game – Alaska-Fairbanks vs St. Thomas

The Tommies were without a coach, later discovering that Rico Blasi had been mistaken for a corpse as the only person able to sleep at the funeral home. The Holy Cross staff discovered this when they attended the services with Rico in the casket as they waited for a replacement bus.

Both teams opted for athletic shoes rather than skates to start the title game, prompting the referee (who was wearing a full face shield and N95 mask) to issue penalties for illegal equipment. The Nanooks were incensed that none were called on St. Thomas, only on UAF. Unfortunately for the Tommies, their putrid power play units only managed one shot in almost 20 minutes of man advantage time in the first period, and that one hit Gustavs Grigals squarely in the mask.

In the very late second period, the Tommies got a superhuman effort from defenseman Kimball Johnson. Seeing a puck flying out of play, he reacted with almost clairvoyant awareness towards it. Jumping from off the top of the boards, he landed on the outside of his left thigh and slid across the glass for almost a third the length of the surface. When he came to a stop, Grigals had read the play and made a move to cut him down – but his push-off created a crack in the glass and trapped his foot behind him. With his back to goal Johnson picked up the puck, threw it in the air, and swung his stick back over his head in a reverse woodchopping motion. The resulting contact put the puck into the net, which was vehemently protested by Fairbanks for FIVE reasons:
A) Johnson had closed his hand on the puck to throw it
B) Johnson’s stick was well over his head
C) He was almost 25 feet offside
D) No player had left the game so St. Thomas had too many men
& E) Time had expired in the period almost 10 seconds earlier.

At this point the referee revealed his identity as none other than Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, who waved away all protests and gave his trademark smirk reserved for all the times he has tried to kill hockey in his state. 1-0 St. Thomas led after 40 minutes.

As the third period began, word started to circulate that due to the omicron variant the Canadian border would be closing in 14 hours to all except Canadian or US citizens. Knowing that more than half of the Fairbanks roster is composed of Eastern European players, coach Erik Largen saw his team score twice before he received confirmation that the rumor was true. Faced with the choice of staying to defend the lead or high-tailing it for the closest border crossing, Largen pulled his team with just over a minute to play. Even with no opponent, St. Thomas only managed to score twice – with the last and winning goal coming clearly after time had expired again. Dunleavy ruled it a legal goal anyway to give the Tommies the win, and took possession of the NoWinS Trophy (a broken glass toilet brush duct taped to half a wooden toilet seat) with the promise that he would deliver it to the Nanooks. True to his word, he ordered his state-sponsored private plane to swoop down over the dilapidated bus racing to Fairbanks and dropped it through a hole in the roof as he jetted back to Juneau.

Final Score – St. Thomas 3, Alaska-Fairbanks 2 (Fairbanks declared NoWinS Champions)

Epilogue – the Fairbanks bus was detained at the border by customs officials after not declaring the trophy. They have yet to be heard from.

[owslachief]

Hosting in Eurasia? I heard they are at war with East Asia.

Reference ++ good

[Snively65]

Here is an article about the new referee Nimbus for the upcoming NE Regional on the summit of Mt Washington.

https://www.wmur.com/article/mount-w...72ec4c52f488a2

[MissThundercat]

Frank Anzalone is in the office today.

I've already said "dang, that's crazy" 20 times and he still won't shut up.

[John J. MacInnes]

Frank Anzalone is in the office today.

I've already said "dang, that's crazy" 20 times and he still won't shut up.

Ask him about what he would do if he replaced Dunleavy in Alaska. That should be like dropping in a nickel and getting $2.00 back.

[MissThundercat]

Ask him about what he would do if he replaced Dunleavy in Alaska. That should be like dropping in a nickel and getting $2.00 back.

I did. He bolted out of the office.

Today, the Commish looked at getting an office cat. The previous office cat passed in September.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Speaking of cats, One-Eyed Betty will be available to help officiate a BFB regional if needed - she'll relay news to me and I'll slowly compile the reports. These teams and the ice they'll play on are so bad, I figure we can just position her on the red line, and she can occasionally crane her head around when the action is on her blind, left-hand side. I'll slurry up several cans of wet food and put it in a thermos for her consumption.

[MissThundercat]

We're looking for an abandoned lot in Ottawa County.

The 'VID rates are higher than average there and we can call two unsuspecting teams to participate in competition.