Season 8 begins today. In what I hope will become an annual tradition we launch the year with a two game special event. First up, at 2:00, we have a match between last year’s two losing semifinalists, a crossover match between GOB and Turkey Club. Then at 4:30 we have a quick banner ceremony and then rematch of last year’s finals, LOS vs Leisure Rolls. Hope you can find your way through the ice to Bayside to come check it out.
#5 Guns of Brighton (-1) #4 XXX Club: I am genuinely excited to sit back, have a beer and watch this game unfold. XXX Club only missed last year’s finals when Precious picked up a crazy split conversion in the final frame of their semifinal match. They have been close and are hungry to finally break through this year. They continue to make moves, this time picking up E-Minor to replace Big Rig. E-Minor came over to them from today’s opponent Guns of Brighton. iHand made a power move to replace him with Railroad, he of the 300 Brick fame. He will pair with Mr. Pickles to form a nasty 1-2 punch. Jon Moon and iHand are no slouches and Seatown is the top woman in this match. I’ve changed the line in this one 4 or 5 times. I had T-Club originally due to their practicing more, but GOB’s not too rusty either. This could go either way, just looking forward to checking it out.
#1 LOS (-5) vs #10 Leisure Rolls: LOS finally did it last year. They’ve looked strong on paper for years but last year it all came together. They made a miracle rally in the semis and then breezed through to the title. Mr. Stiffy emerged as a big time bowler to join the Twin Towers, and Captain Alileujah was all business. They return everyone, plus have added Nugget who is one of the up and coming women in the league. Plus they finally have the monkey off their back so they should be a much looser bunch, which will only make them better. It’s well chronicled that noone has ever repeated as BoPo champs (a couple teams made it back tot he finals but lost), but LOS could make a run at it.
The Leisure Rolls cruised through their first BoPo playoffs with a relaxed nature that really helped them. They drank hard like an old BoPo team and didn’t feel any pressure. LOS ended their fairy tale run but it has to be considered an amazing success of a season. Magic will get his crew back together, toss back a couple (or 8) tall Stoli and grapefruits and see if they just can’t start this season off with a giant upset and a dollop of revenge.