Parity Pre-Playoff Assessment: State of The Union Address

Submitted by Christopher Keates on Wed, 2018-01-17 15:17

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Week 9 closes, rosters are final, and we are heading into playoffs! Do you know your team's playoff seed? Your matchup? Do you like your chances in your quarter final matchup? Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?!
 
Standings
 
1. Menace
2. The Sticklers
3. Pirateless Ruddership
4. Huck and Hope Handler Academy
5. Stack Over Flow
6. Sultimate Fight Club
7. 2,4,6,8
8. Save Kindha - The Katy Parity Revival
 
Matchups
 
In one side of the bracket we have:
 
1 v. 8, Menace v. Save Kindha
4 v. 5, Huck and Hope v. Stack Over Flow
 
In the other side of the bracket we have:
 
2 v. 7, The Sticklers v. 2,4,6,8
3 v. 6, Pirateless Ruddership v. Sultimate Fight Club
 
The Season In Review
 
The season leaderboard is pretty great right now. Let's take a look!
 
Goals: Martin is currently in the lead with 37, which surprises nobody. Kate in 3rd with 31 is remarkable given the games she's missed. 5th on the board is Giulian De La Merced with 27, and this is a story worth talking about.
 
Giulian has 27 goals on 56 catches. 50% of the time he catches the disk, it's a goal. This guy knows how to score. 10 back of the league leader might be a bit much to overcome, but I am really hoping for Giulian to crack into the top 3 before the end of the session.
 
Assists: Higgins has 40 (!) on 210 completions. Not bad. Hadrian, Justine and Theriault have 37 on 186, 147, and 119 respectively. Better. Pindur has 36 on 110, which is the best ratio in the league. Best!
 
Notably, Sully, who normally dominates this category, just cracked into a tie for 9th this week! Why is this notable?! Stay tuned.
 
Defense: Kelsey has 23 but at least 50% of these are stolen from Kate Achtell. Hannah has 21! Owen 2.0 has 19 and if he manages to keep his 2-a-game pace to finish with 25 or more, I promise I'll start calling him by his own name again! Adam MacDonald should be more visible on the field given his beard, but people throw at him anyway and he's got 18. Jessie Robinson continues to surprise all the onlookers and sits 5th with 17.
 
Tight race, and I hope that Kelsey steals less and Hannah D's more so we can crown her the champion of the world (of D).
 
Catches: This category is more like "touch monster." Spearin, Hadrian, Haig, Josee and Adam MacDonald are 1 to 5. What's remarkable is that the cap between Spearing (240) and Adam (168) is 8 a game.
 
Completions: Spearin at 282 paces the league with Marcus (221), Brian "Rose" Perry (210), Higgins (210), and Jessie/Sebastian (208) rounding out the first 5 ranks. Spearin is the league's ball hog this year!
 
Throw Aways: Mehmet's 35 is best in class! Kelsey's 33 are a close second. Al's 28 are best in show! He was way behind to start the year but has upped the pace of and flair of his throwaways to get back into the top 5 tied with Kells, Jessie and Magic Mike.
 
Notably, Sully, who has never been in this category before, is 7th. Sully's previous years of Parity have been stand out examples of high assists and low throwaways. Prior to this week he wasn't even in the top 10 for assists for the first time in his parity history, but was in the top 10 for throaways for the first time in his parity history. What is going on, Sully?! Your adoring fans are dying to know.
 
Drops: This is always a difficult category to be a member of because it's rarely about bad hands so much as poor throws you try to save. So it's a badge of honour!
 
And it's one that Jaime Boss proudly wears, leading the league with 11. If she wins the category, I'll have to name this the Boss rather than the Pindur/Bisang (previous winners) and come up with a funny acronym for it. Also in the running are Carrie-Anne, Dom, Bordage, and Allan Godding with 10, 10, 10, and 9 respectively.
 
Week 8 and 9 Highlights
 
Catch Your D's: In the early game this week two different defenders tipped disks to receivers in the endzone because apparently I can't say catch your D's loud enough. I think one was Dave O'Connor tipped to Jay Thor for the game ending goal. I forget the other, but I'm sure the defender doesn't. Catch the D!
 
Catch Your O's: What am I talking about, don't do that. If you catch your O's, you sacrifice glory! Andre Scott cuts to a cone and Hadrian puts it up! Normally this dynamic duo scores it the other way, but Hadrian, good teammate that he is, tries to return the favour. His touch is not quite as good as Andre's, and puts it almost out of reach of Andre and almost in reach of a defender.
 
Andre decides to go up early, hoping to beat the defender, but doesn't quite get the air he needs to secure the catch and the goal. Instead, he tips the disk almost staight up, before it starts to float over to the sideline. He has enough time and the presence of mind to chase it down, making a full out bid to catch the disk, landing just inside the line for the point, before sliding dangerously close to waiting concrete.
 
The crowd. Went. Bananas.
 
Special Award for Making Me, Specifically, Look Good*: This week, Alisha Zhao had an 8/3/3/0 day and raked in the weeks highest salary of $174,000. This makes me look good because I traded for her (smart!) but also because 5 of my 7 assists went to her. Thanks for getting open, Reesh, even on that huck I made where you kind of weren't but you legged it down anyway!
 
Chaos Bounty: The previous bounty was pretty fun! Flick v. backhand, who would win? Turns out, EVERYONE! Sebastien won the matchup, handily. Backhand is clearly the better throw, demonstrated in trial by combat. The crowd won, reading the hilarious forum fallout. And the crowd won again when the trade wasn't tracked right in the app and Seb and Newman were on the wrong rosters to start the game.
 
Of course, on one noticed this because the players were both on rosters, so the first few points of stat keeping were a confusing mess. Passes to Seb were met with "that can't be right, his team is not on offense..." by the stats keepers, at which point the bounty caused the game to stop for 5 minutes while the stats keepers tried to figure out what the hell was going wrong and fix it.
 
And of course, I won the bounty **.
 
iSpike It Spiking Spikecast: The iParty Parity Podcast ran a contest for the best post-goal celebrations! The McCringleberry Award is up for grabs, and Lance and Adam were puttin' in work to win it! As Justine writes:
 
"The two of them put on quite a show including Adam holding the disc like a mirror and running his hand through his Hadrian-esque lustrous locks while Lance mimed being paparazzi, and another time Lance had Adam's foot on his knee and mimed shining his shoes."
 
I'm eagerly awaiting the next podcast to see who won and which celebration took home the championship!
 
Week 8 and 9 Performances
 
We had a number of standout performances over the course of the last two weeks. Let's take a look at some of them! First, the Berry watch:
 
Week 8 Berry: Stephen Close, Lance Blackstock!
 
Week 9 Berry: Luca Lafontaine, parity sub!
  • Dom's last game on Stack Over Flow before being traded was an absurd $145k with 3/3/6/2, but her lack of commitment on D cost her a triple triple.
  • Week 8 Marcus: 7 throw aways. Week 9 Marcus: 3 throw aways and 2 drops. This is late-season leaderboard hunting at its best, putting him in reach for throwaways and in the mix for winning drops, making Marcus above average at everything Parity.
  • Week 8, Lance had 4 throw aways, 3 of them drops. His receivers aren't doing him favours. Week 8, Matthew "Skynes" Schijns had 5 throw aways, 3 of them drops. Week 8, Richard had 4 throw aways, 3 of them drops. I feel bad for all three of them.
  • Week 8, Christine Beals had a solid game with 1/0/2 but the remarkable part is the multiple D's she got with 2!
  • Perfect weeks with no turnovers, Week 8: Edwin Wong, John Haig, Jonny Champs, Kristyn Berquist, Neena Sidhu, Aggy, Nicole MacDonald, Rob Tyson, Thomas Sattolo, Will Reid, Wing.
  • Perfect weeks with no turnovers, Week 9: David O'Connor, Giulian, Jim Robinson, Sebastien Belanger, Will Leckie.
  • Week 9, Jessie have 5 D's, which was more than the assists she threw or the disks she threw away, combined, which basically never happens ever.
  • Week 9, Kelsey triple tripled with 3/4/2/4
  • Wing had a 4 D game in week 9.
Special thanks as always to the stats keepers, and a reminder to everyone to volunteer to stat keep. Alison Ward volunteers to coordinate the stats keeping and statkeep every week, and she's not even in the league. Week 9 she was there from 8:20 to 11:20 making this league possible and not only does everyone owe her their thanks, we all also collectively owe her a break.
 
Reminder: Email me highlights and low lights so I can mock things that happened!
 
* this will be my one allowable positive self-reference in the write up this session!
** okay I lied, but I'm done now, promise.

Justine Price

Wed, 2018-01-17 16:02

After much waiting, the Keates Post is back....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsBByTiKfyY

Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood's picture

Hadrian Mertins...

Wed, 2018-01-17 16:15

Kudos to Al for his determination to climb the leaderboard. Mehmet's put in a solid effort this season, but at Al's current pace and with playoffs raising the stakes, I think he has what it takes to take the lead in Parity's most important and storied statistical category.

p.s. Alisha threw the pass that Andre laid out for, not me.

p.p.s. This correction brought to you by the new 'Games' feature in the Parity app: https://parity-server.herokuapp.com/games/181

Christopher Keates

Wed, 2018-01-17 16:21

... tried to make combined goals and assists the most storied statistical category, because he was often the leader. I am very glad that my efforts to ensure a more ignominious storied parity trophy have been rewarded. The PewPewPew award is always the one to keep an eye on, #PewPewPew4Lyfe

Kevin Hughes's picture

Kevin Hughes

Wed, 2018-01-24 20:27

I'm so excited to see a link to this feature! but then sad because the way I update the stats afterwards if required changes the ID so this link is now broken :(

Chris Sullivan

Wed, 2018-01-17 18:18

As a grade six teacher, I am well versed in the strategy of public humiliation to modify behaviour. Thank you Mr. Keates. I will try harder, or at least cry myself to sleep at night.

Christopher Keates

Wed, 2018-01-17 20:59

A world where I have fewer throwaways than you and more assists than you is not a world that I understand, and the disconnect causes me no small amount of cognitive dissonance.

Simon Berry

Thu, 2018-01-18 00:54

I think that Sullys decline in the last two weeks was missing players and trades. Week 8 he was missing 1/3 of his team due to injury or weather, thus keeping his cap low and forcing trades. After trading for league whale Seb, and forcing players out, his throws that were often caught for points to cutters was lost. Therefore upping this throw aways and dropping his assists. But thats none of my business as I was one of the players he traded, along with Newman. Week 9 saw only one of us play well, and it wasn’t me. 

Justine Price

Thu, 2018-01-18 12:40

At home, last Tuesday:

Sul to me: "Hey, you did the stats for our game last night? How come you gave me six throwaways?"

Me: "What? Did I miss one?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_5sB4foJRg

Simon Berry

Thu, 2018-01-18 21:24

https://memegenerator.net/instance/23527564/apply-cold-water-to-burn-apply-cold-water-to-that-burn

David O'Connor

Thu, 2018-01-18 11:12

I do love these weekly parity recaps Keates but must point out a slight mistake in order to save face. I was stuck marking you the entire game and was therefore watching the painful double tip defensive attempt with you from a distance. Hopefully, we can redeem ourselves on Monday when it matters!

Mehmet Karman

Fri, 2018-01-19 10:41

Mr. Newman completed 32 passes, including an assist and 5 2nd assists all while being forced backhand.  Not _all_ of these throws were breakforce flicks - though I don't recall the % that were. 

Clearly a man _can_ change! (or not be who the internet claimed he was in the first place...)

Also Mrs. Robinson really hurt my feelings by:

A. Defending one of my passes (among the 5 total she got to)

B. Not throwing away a single pass of her own leading to:

C. My ongoing "leadership" of a certain infamous statistical category, one which I had been hoping to inch my way down from.

Amos Lee

Fri, 2018-01-19 15:27

Don't worry, Mehmet. While the column might read "Throwaways", we all know that's 35 teachable moments of "Why didn't you run to that greenspace?"

Christopher Keates

Sun, 2018-01-21 11:33

... the winner of an ignominious category gets the category named after themselves in some way. Mehmet, if you win, throwaways will be known as "teachable moments" until the end of next season (maybe) crowns another category champion.