2005 Season - BC Cup Report

BC Cup heads back to Alberta

Despite a serious downpour during the night before, the weather held off for a glorious BCFooty Cup day that saw 7 tremendous games of footy played throughout the afternoon. For the second year in a row the Alberta Kangaroos took home the BC Cup after going through all of their three group games undefeated. Despite being absent for the season so far, the Seattle Grizzlies came out blazing and also went through the tournament undefeated in their 3 games. Unfortunately due to time constraints all 5 teams couldn’t play each other, so we missed seeing a Seattle v Roos playoff.

At the end, with some quick mathematical analysis by the Vancouver Chief Statician, a series of complicated and very intricate percentage calculations determined that the Cup would be heading to Alberta. In the end, their net % of 136.3% just pipped the Grizzlies 133.3% (worked out to a nailbiting 3 points).

Game Results -
Game 1 –Alberta Roos 8.7.53 def. Burnaby Eagles 5.3.33
Game 2 – Seattle Grizzlies 3.8.26 def. Victoria Lions 3.4.22
Game 3 –Alberta Roos 5.8.38 def. Vancouver Cougars 5.5.35
Game 4 – Seattle Grizzlies 4.5.29 def. Burnaby Eagles 3.4.22
Game 5 –Alberta 4.3.27 def. Victoria Lions 3.2.20
Game 6 –Burnaby Eagles 5.3.33 def. Victoria Lions 3.8.26
Game 7 – Seattle Grizzlies 6.3.39 def. Vancouver Cougars 4.3.27

To write match reports for all games would be rather time consuming, so here’s some tournament highlights (and a few humourous lowlights)

Sensational….the play of Luscious Louie. Despite playing in a losing side, Luscious set the tone of the tournament by having a tremendous opening game, getting at least 20 touches, laying about 10 tackles and kicking 3 goals for the Eagles in their opener. Probably the best individual performance in the tourney.

Sensational Part 2….despite playing a man short for the second half in the Vancouver v. Alberta game (after Cashie got sent off), the Cougars dug very deep, tackled hard and actually outscored the Roos to almost pull off a stunning victory. Yes Cashie, one way or another you were the difference between the two sides.

BBQ bust – our thanks go to the lovely Burnaby Health Inspector who was at Burnaby Lakes checking out the food stalls at the nearby soccer tournament and decided to butt her nose into our humble little BBQ - just because she felt like it. To ensure our little money spinner could continue, a couple of token water stations were set up and an SOS was sent out for hotdogs as apparently they are a lot healthier to prepare on a BBQ than Hamburgers – go figure. Given her ample size, for a “Health” officer, she clearly needed some personal tips of her own about what does/doesn’t constitute good food preparation and eating…

Point of the year – congrats go out to Randy Dickins who has now taken over the race for the Number 1 worst attempt at goal this year. After receiving a handball 15 metres out from goal, Randy casually turned to face goal, ran into the goalsquare and despite being under no pressure, with no opponent within 15 metres of him, proceeded to miss the goals by a good 2-3 feet from only 5 metres out, directly in front. A relieved Stu Grills was later heard to comment that he was “quite pleased” that his non-goal in Victoria had now been bumped down to No.2.

Umpires Award – co-awarded to Rosie (Alberta) and Stu Grills (Vancouver) for their vocal and quite colourful “suggestions” to the various field umpires on how they could improve their umpiring skills.

High fliers – throughout the day, the crowd was treated to a number of high flying grabs which rated highly on the ooooooo-arrrrrrrrrr factor. Special mentions to Crisso (Alberta), Craig (Victoria) and Richie (Vancouver) who all licked their lips repeatedly throughout the day at the chance to launch for a huge hanger (or two).

Battlers Award – to the Victoria Lions. Despite only coming with about 10 players of their own, Victoria once again proved that the players they do bring are still very keen and determined to fight their guts out and win every single game no matter what. It certainly makes it very easy to recruit additional supporting players - as who wouldn’t want to play with a bunch a guys (and one girl) with such solid attitudes to the game.

What the? Seriously, what was with all the Vancouver/Burnaby Eagles injury’s throughout the day? Big John went down with an ankle early on (which apparently got better later in the day after quite a few medicinal beers and herbs); Nate threw his back out (which apparently got better later after a nice deep heat back rub from boyfriend Walker); Guru got polaxed by 3 Albertans; Diddy did something - but apparently had more to do with tiredness as he’d only had 12 hours sleep the night before and he figured he needed to duck home to get the missing 6 hours to perform at his peak; as well as a number of minor injury’s to various others.

However, the worst went to Goalsneak Stratford, who broke his ankle. At the time Stratford was carving up the Grizzlies on the forward flank and was having a great game. For those who haven’t heard, it was actually a really bad break and Stratford went into surgery last night to have it operated on. When I spoke to him last night he was quite groggy on the morphine but clearly disappointed at the fact that he’ll probably be out for the rest of the season now. Our thoughts go out to you mate!!

Was that a goal Freeman?... Yes, Chris finally scored a goal in a match. Despite being a superstar in front of goals on the training track, it has widely been noted that Freeman just can’t seem to put it together on game day. Playing full forward, Freemo finally got the duck off his back by converting a simple goal from 20 metres out after taking a strong grab against a Seattle opponent who was basically wearing him like a jumper. Later on, Freemo actually made it number two by snagging a nice running goal. He later kicked a 3rd goal by pulling his own name out for the VB draw, gathering 3 eskies and quite a few VBs as his prize. A most popluar winner?? You be the judge…

Special Thanks – as always to all the helpers. The Grills family and Lyds for maintaining the BBQ sales, and to all the field, goal and boundary umpires that chipped in to help.