STATE OF THE CUP

As a member of the informal steering committee for the Cup (loosely composed of Scott, Jeff and me, although open to anyone who feels the need), this seems like a good moment to note a couple of points about our little venture (in no particular order):

1. From a competition standpoint, the Cup has never been better. Consider that neither Ratz nor Tigers is absolutely running away with it. Then consider that this season's Das Losers Invitational will include Bajen Avalanche, Bonafide, Saltopus and either Delta or Direwolf, and it is clear how tight the Cup has become, which is great.

2. Several things make the Cup unique. Certainly it would not be what it is without the tireless and selfless efforts of Jeff the Information Minister in maintaining the stats and infrastructure. That said, the steering committee is giving serious consideration to using the Hattrix Cup Manager (http://www.databased.at/hattrick/cupmanager/) to help run the Cup starting next season. The big advantage is that a good portion of Jeff's current workload (tables, fixtures, some stats) would be fully automated. If anyone has thoughts or opinions about that, let one of us know.

3. Also thinking ahead to next season, it's clear that some of us (certainly Ellwood, probably Ratz and Brooklyn, possibly others) have progressed in quality such that they will now be surviving in their domestic cup competition long enough to miss our "usual" start time for the Brooklyn Cup. We're working on how to handle that, but we don't have a final answer yet.

4. Scott has been suffering significant hardware problems recently. This explains his lack of comment recently in our postings here. It also explains (together with an end-of-year rush at my job) the delay in match reports for the last couple of rounds. We are trying to catch up (possibly in one conslidated report per group), and we're planning to be back on track for the last round and the playoffs.

5. Personally, I'm looking forward to the return of Johnny the Wop. It's almost time.

6. Since Scott brought Maria in, and both Idali and Skaningarnas are nowhere to be found, who's the real chick magnet? Hmm??

Happy and safe holidays to everybody.