Worlds: Musings from the Score Page

I have seen or heard little beyond the scores and the game reports, (never could get the video to work) but based on that I've a few observations.

Revolver back to #1. After a shattering loss to Chain in the Finals last fall, when they were woefully out-coached, Revolver has reasserted its status as the best team in the world. Congrats! Now can they win Nationals?

Fish back in the race. With a disappointing 2009 following a devastating 2008 quarterfinals exit, people were claiming the death of Sockeye. With only one player (MC) remaining from the Carleton-Moho juggernaut (Rog, Chase, Nord, Jimmy, Cram, CK, Lou, Burkhart, Dufort...) that powered them three titles, I even heard someone claim the Dark Years (1999-2001) were on the Fish again. Put all that shit to rest. By knocking off short-listers Ironside and Chain in back-to-back games, the Fish have powerfully reinserted themselves into the National title race.

Fury over Riot (and everyone else) again. It'll end eventually, but it continues to be amazing that the story line is always Riot-Fury and that it is always Fury coming out on top.

CUPA get it together. Only two Canadian teams placed in the quarters (Invictus and Lotus) and neither challenged their opponent at all. A huge part of the problem was that two of the top Canadian teams, Furious and Traffic, opted out of Canadian Nationals instead going to ECC. So CUPA disallowed them. As an organization, CUPA is responsible to send its best teams to Worlds and is responsible to make a national tournament that its team care about. It did neither and now ranks a distant third behind the Japanese in national strength.

I'll be at ECC a bit next month and do a little reportage there.