The Champions

Originally uploaded by jonny.hunter

So we came down to play in the Cuttin Crew Classic polo invite. Our normal team of ben/jonny/kevin was broken up by kevin testing positive to a blood transfusion earlier this spring so we picked up a third in the very capable Mike Morrel. As always Milwaukee came in style, sporting there color co-ordinated jump suits. In a move that surprised many, i gave up the dan marino for a better geared ratio bike that i had loanded to Morality earlier this summer. The tournament was laid out in such away that each team played a round robin against everyone, so we played a full on 9 games in full during the initial series against a full assembly of teams. The games were played first to three points or whoever was ahead at 10 minutes was declared winner taking three points for a win, and one point for a tie.

Milwaukee A team cruised through the round robin with an undefeated record, they beat us 1-0 in what was probably the best game of the day. I would have loved to play it out to 3 but in interest of time we called it at 10 minutes. Madison made few friends in chicago with a controversial intentional foul by myself for not leaving the goal area after a foot down and after we took a 1-0 lead we played keep away over by the lake. I guess we will not be winning the sportsmanship awards this time around. The finals ended up being Milwaukee A team versus Madison/Chicago. We got there by ben putting in what as probably the goal of the tournament, a shot going uphill from about 30 feet out that placed the ball through lucky's triangle.

The finals were intense as always, cody started things off nicely with a ben style goal while falling off his bike. We attacked quickly and ben put one through after cody fell off his bike maybe 10 times in the goal without pulling out. I guess it comes around. Jake put milwaukee ahead with a sweet brake down the sidelines pulling through the middle and a sweet shot through the posts. I thought we were done but things changed quickly with milwaukee making a tactical error that allowed me to final put in a fast break goal and then seconds later ben put a pass through the middle to me that allowed for me to score around cody's bike tire. I was stoked to win this one, it could have gone either way but we got lucky and took it home. Milwaukee fucking rocked it this time around and it is always a good time rocking it with them.

Okay, a few observations from the tournament. First, why does everyone leave a goalie back. I think this is a huge disadvantage to the team and a really bad strategy in the long run. We were able to take advantage of this especially against chicago in the semi-finals. Also i really think that people should play on freewheels, it is a huge advantage. Okay, finally, chicago fucking upped their competitiveness big time. Putting two teams in the semi-finals, it is good to see the midwest in general increase their competiveness throughout. I'm super proud to be part of this community.

One last note, we had our detractors as well, with the coasties calling us out on playing on grass as if our game was less worthy because of that. The whole debate is annoying and hopefully when the milwaukee kids head up to Ottawa next week and kick some ass it will finally show that the midwest is where the true spirit of bike polo lives.