My Baby

Hey everybody, my wife gave birth on 12/29, Little Baby, Emma Melina was 6lbs 14oz, 19.5 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing well. I tried to attach a photo. Happy New Year to all.

Congtrats to BFC

Wiiinnnnnnnnnnnaaaaah.

Keeping the Cup Stateside.........must be killing you Euro's. (Oh, and the Brits, too!)

Seasons Greetings ALL!!!

***** Merry Christmas and a youth pull tastic new year to all of you BC candidates out there.*****

All the very best,

Brett (system 3loc)
Worcester, England

:)

Relegation Suspended

So the Competition Committe has met, discussed, and decided that for this season there will be no relegation.

Here's what happened. Brett, the steadfast manager of System 3loc, accidentally accepted the wrong challenge for next week. Since national cup matches are starting the week following, we have no window to make up the match. Brett admitted his mistake right away, and we do of course believe this was an honest mistake.

In theory, we could have relegated Brett for the mistake as the loser of the match by default. But given the fact that System is a charter team of the B-Cup, and that Brett has always been an active and engaged manager, relegation seems like an overly harsh punishment for an honest error.

Bottom line is that we are going to forego relegation altogether for this season because that seems to us to be the Most Fair result. We are also going to reconsider whether to keep the relegation rule at all. We first introduced it in order to put more energy into the DLI, and also try to accomodate other teams that were eager to play, and to vary the gene pool a bit. If you have an opinion on whether or not to keep the rule, please let me know via comment here, HT mail or regular email.

Oh and one more thing: GO BROOKLYN FC!

FINAL ROUND FIXTURES

Listed below are the final fixtures for this season. Note that these should all be neutral venue. Some of the venues are specified below. If no venue is listed below for your match, you are welcome to choose the venue yourselves. Good luck to all.

CUP FINAL
Brooklyn Tigers vs. Brooklyn FC
at system 3loc. Should be huge.

THIRD PLACE
Bajen Avalanche vs. Kings County United
at Ellwood

FIFTH PLACE
Dirty Ratz FC vs. Maidstone Reunited

SEVENTH PLACE
Sea Lane vs. The Brooklyn Wind

DLI CHAMPIONSHIP
Ellwood vs. Freaks
at Brooklyn Tigers

DLI THIRD PLACE
FC Bonafide vs. Direwolf Athletic

THIRTEENTH PLACE
Rasaritul Delta vs. Chocolate Thunder FC

RELEGATION FINAL
System 3loc vs. Saltopus
At Bajen Avalanche.
Personally, the thought of losing either of these teams for a season is terrible.

Good Luck

to all you guys in the semi final. No excuses from me, just could not recover from auto losing 2 games. I will look forward to representing you guys in the new Hattrick Masters next season. Will get my arse kicked but at least can say i was in it!

Have a great Christmas and New Year to all of you my friends.

Rats!

Never has a Head Rat been more gutted than he is right now. I guess we didn't take BFC seriously enough and paid the price.

Good luck, Scott.... grrrrrrrrr! ;P

DLI Fixtures

Here are the DLI fixtures for postseason round 2, home team first:

Bonafide - Ellwood
Direwolf - Freaks

CTFC - Saltopus
Delta - System

Whoever thought we'd see a Bonafide-Ellwood semifinal...in the DLI?

Good luck to all.

SEMIFINALS and Consolation Fixtures

Well, it looks as though we are guaranteed a Sweden v. USA final. Fixtures are as follows, home team first:

KCU - Brooklyn FC
Avalanche - Tigers

Ratz - Sea Lane
Maidstone - Wind

The Avs-Tigers match will also be interesting because Claus (at 630 minutes) is approaching the consecutive shutout minutes record set by Tigers in Season 21 (at 701 minutes). Can he do it?

DLI fixtures will be posted after tonight's matches.

As of Today USA Hatstats

Has me promoting to Division IV-36.......LOL........Get ready WOP!

Small world.......

CUP RULES? Update

Did Boyd mention CUP RULES!!!!!!!!!

We went down to the wire with my picks. I hit a new high with 7 of 8 finalists. It was due to the defending champ Bonerfried that I was not perfect this year. You would think the DEFENDING CHAMPION would AT LEAST QUALIFY (!!!!!!!). He's not even trying to win his series or avoid relegation? As we were both on-line yesterday watching our matches, I jinxed him by telling him that all KCU needed was that 1 point. 5 minutes later - the equaliser was in the net. Son of a bitch, eh Boyd?

Still, in an age of parity and equlality in the B-Cup, where so many had a shot, I'm giving myself a pat on the back.

Good luck to everyone. I'll be handicapping the Finals over the weekend. I'll tell you though. It's wide open, isn't it?

Remember

All Quarterfinal and Semifinal matches are played at the higher seed's home ground, but the Final match is played at a Neutral site. The higher seed is listed first in the matches below.

PLAYOFF AND DLI FIXTURES

OK, here we go. First, a couple of things to remember:

1. CUP RULES. And also, cup rules and cup rules.

2. In order to do the draw pots for next year, everyone still has three more matches to play, even if you lose.

3. Yes, I became the first Brooklyn Cup winner to fail to qualify for the playoffs in the next season. (But which word do you think was most important in the previous sentence?)

4. The USA got hosed, Mexico should never have been seeded for the World Cup draw on Friday. Can someone tell me why 1998 Cup results should matter for 2006 seedings? OK, so that's not relevant here, but still.

PLAYOFF FIXTURES

THe full bracket is on the Cupmanager page under the "Table" tab. The first round is as follows, with HOME team listed first.

Sea Lane - Tigers
Avalanche - Wind
Maidstone - KCU
Ratz - BFC

Good matchups here.

DAS LOSERS INVITATIONAL FIXTURES

I have set up a "training cup" page on Cupmanager for the DLI (doesn't have all the features that our regular page does, but it was free). The bracket and DLI page can be found here:

http://www.databased.at/hattrick/cupmanager/index.asp?id=8871

First round as follows, home team first:

Bonafide - Da Pus
Delta - Ellwood
CTFC - Freaks
Direwolf - System

Feel free to contact me with questions. Good luck to all! Only one thing left to do: bring on THE WOP!

Playoff Drama

Great Match Bonafide, it was truly a battle.

Playoff Reminder

Just a couple of reminders as we head into the playoff season:

1. The playoff bracket is still structured by a "FIFA style". This means that the opening round of matches should be A1 vs. D2, B1 vs. C2, C1 vs B2, and D1 vs. A2. Teams finishing #1 in group play will enjoy home-field advantage in the first round. Higher seeded teams will enjoy home-field in the semifinals. The final match will be on neutral ground.

2. DLI teams will be seeded 1-8 and set into a bracket. I'll be setting up a DLI page through Cupmanager to show the bracket.

3. DLI champion will be put into the "top pot" for seeding in group play next year.

4. All of this stuff and official fixtures will be posted here sometime on Thursday.

5. Avalanche has just finished group play without giving up a single goal. The only other team in the history of the B-Cup to do that was Le Tigre, back in Season 21. (Next comes Brooklyn FC and Dirty Ratz who allowed one goal in Season 24 and 25, respectively.) OK, that has nothing to do with the playoffs, but you gotta give credit where it's due.

Another Update

If Bonerfried and I win next week, look who's perfect for the first time ever...........that's me.

Don't look now, but

Congratulations to Maidstone and Avalanche for clinching the top spot in their respective series. For Claus it is the first trip back to the playoffs in some time, and for Stones this is their first series title. Both done in impressive fashion, might I add, and given the road ahead of them in the playoffs either might have drawn themselves a date in the finals.

Well done.