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 Chicago Reader's article about the 2nd Biannual Midwestern Champeenships finally came out.

I think it captures the preposterousness of the sport pretty well.

For the record:
1) we don't play 3 times a week, nor do we ever "practice".
2) we don't really play much in the winter. i, for one, have to prioritize pond hockey first, especially given our waning winters.
3) As Jill just pointed out, Ben does a lot more other than truing wheels with his forehead for the "sheer theatrical pleasure of it"--though I think he actually feels that his forehead method is superior.

Ben scored the opening and final goal of the final match, which were both very memorable. After getting around a big check from joe, he squeezed this shot past their final defender.

more awesome pictures by Pete D from Milwauke