Civil Offence: the Aftermath

SO, the people are asking "how was it?" PEOPLE: it was AWESOME. Of course, it would have been more awesome if Brutal Pageant had won but: c'est la vie! Also it means that the final will be a decider and that will be super extra fun to skate in. Oh, and also super extra nerve wracking and super extra good for PR.
A rundown: basically, Smash Malice dominated for the whole game. Coming out of the first half we were close enough in points that we could have made up the gap but we didn't - Malice were really tactical with their speed and control of the pack and we ended up chasing them in an attempt to play their game when we should have played our own. What else... there were some really big hits and I know that members of our team were a bit shaken at the end of the first half. I ended up in multiple pile ups and did one quite spectacular leap over/into a three or four person crash right near the benches (Jed Soane got a good picture of it). I think that it's fair to say that in the end we were simply outclassed by Smash Malice who had a heap less people skating than us and used their resources really, really well (don't kill me for writing that, Pag).

Personally, I think that I skated quite well on Saturday night. I got one or two really good hits on Tuff Bikkies, one of which I know knocked her out of bounds, and that seems like a real coup because she's such a strong player. I also had considerably less penalties - only one at Civil Offence versus my four at Skate of Emergency - although that may be because the referees despaired at pulling up all our elbows. The women on my team played really well and as always I'm super proud of them, but I'm definitely going to miss Goldie and Wax at the next bout. Finally though, the best thing for me is that I know what I want to improve upon before the next bout on the 7th of November. WHOOP!
And then after the bout we went out and drank and I drank tooo much. There was some hanging out with fans ... some of which are a bit creepy but most of which are super fab, much like my gorgeous team mates... (this photo by Mike Roseingrave).

I rolled back to the Boy's house at about quarter to four and deeply unimpressed him by snoring with "three different kinds of noises". After two hours of listening to me (I'm sure this bit is hyperbole), he had to undertake the complicated manoeuvre of falling asleep while holding my mouth open. And Sunday was a complete wreck.

Such is the life of the True Athlete.