2007 US Nationals

Ahh Nationals… where to start. It was great! First off because my team won. Secondly because the level of competition was the deepest it’s ever been. And Thirdly because, well, Ben and Karen Erickson put together a fantastic tourney.

We had 20 teams come together in Minnesota, proposed site for the 2012 whatever-you-call-it-ships, where the weather was nice, then hot, then wet with lightning but still hot, then beautiful. Fortunately the wet and lightning didn’t occur until finals started and with the hotel right across the parking lot no point in getting dressed at the pool. Grab the gear and out we went. But rumor has it they planned to get everyone into a central location in the building in case it was a tornado coming. Turned out it wasn’t so we got to play on. The rumble in the crowd was slightly louder than finals at World’s. Oh wait, that may have been the thunder. It was 1-0 at half so who knows. I’m going with it was the crowd.

So Club Puck and a surging Denver team, which may also have been called Colorado but that’s just semantics, end up 3-0 as Club Puck got the early lead and then took away the youth and fitness advantage by playing the wall. In what I will always think of as a bonehead reffing call Denver was called for offside or encroachment or something on a penalty shot that would have given them the early lead. Not sure how a ref can call someone for being in front of the puck when the horn sounds while the rules states that the chief ref is to start the play when all players are in position. Hmmm… I think that happened at World’s too. But being on the good end of a bad call and one to keep my mouth shut when refs screw things up (don’t all choke at once) I kept my snorkle in my mouth and played on.

Denver made it to the final by beating Minnesota who in their earlier game upset the 2 seed, Los Angeles, in overtime 3-1. It was LA's first exposure to playoff wall game strategy. LA is my dream team –- a bunch of college swimmers with as much competitive cockiness as speed. As their skills improve they won’t find themselves in a situation like that again. Club Puck beat Team Orphan which was basically a mix of Seattle and Florida. Not sure how they connected without picking up other orphans across the country. By day two they were referred to as the Whorefins. They ended up beating Minnesota to get 3rd.

In the 5-6 game LA was given another crash course on how to play the wall and ended up 6th behind a team made up of Cincinnati and Florida players. Still not sure how the whorefins missed those quality FL players on their journey to hook up with Seattle. The 7-8 game had Chicago beating our Capital contingent from D.C. who lost a couple players just prior to the tourney. San Diego won the B division and Roger Bacon, our only competing High School Team, got 1st and third in the 4-team C division. And then there were others that filled in the remaining spots and blah blah.

The banquet was a drunkfest with almost unlimited beer and a regular bar to satisfy most tastes. Awards were given, people got hurt, pictures were taken… oh crap, pictures were taken. I wonder if I did anything stupid? Nah, would have seen it by now. Anyway, it was great. Good after parties with more than enough nakedness and some flipcup. Oh me, I just went to bed...

Duck

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Great reort Duck.

Do you have any photos?

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sounded like lots of fun! thanks for the report.
i noted that you said it was the proposed site for 2012...does anyone know about 2010 options?

No photos from me. I prefer to have fun rather than try to record it (been there done that), but a bunch are out on facebook from other folks.

I've heard France gets 2010.

__________________
Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.