Keeping Parity Great : Semi-Finals and Semi-Fivals

• an a 6 turnover point, a 7 turnover point, two 8 turnover points and a 9 turnover point, in one game.
• 50% of Stephen Close's throw drops and drops of the season.
• Only 1 player on either team broke 100k in salary (me at $102,500).
• Jason Fraser's first catch D of the year (coached up by the sideline after an early non-catch D by Justine was almost collected)
• 2 Berry's (Krys Kudakiewicz, myself) but 4 near Berry's (Stephen Close, Wing-Leung Chan, David Townsend, Jason Fraser were all 1 event away).

• No Berry's on the score board (although Higgins came close). 
• Alisha was kept in check somehow. 
• Martin was not (he's the tallest man in the world). 
• Higgins dropped 10 dimes!
• Ashlin had 4 Ds!
• Betty White runs a well rounded offense, with every single player having primary offensive numbers (goals or assists) as well as double-digit touches, a testament to how balanced Betty White's attack is.

I will make 7 throw aways.

Seb will throw 4 blade like pindurs.

Pindur will throw 3 regular pindurs.

Michael O'Hare will pull off a Wowchuk (negative salary one week followed by star performance the next)

Thuc shows up to the 7:00 game only to find out his game is at 10:00.

Owen decides he wants a triple berry and gets it.

Amos (missing the game) somehow finds a way to chirp Morgan, Steve Chow, and Hadrian because Amos  is just that good.

Top players on SoHo looks off Seb all night and opts for the throw away instead unless he brings cookies... For everyone.

Ariel still goes undrafted after 12 rounds.

A balanced team, like the one I play on, (Soho) has very little room for error since our top end talent has trouble competing with the rest of the league’s Tier 1 players. 

Betty White had a stunning upset of Soho last week in a 2 vs. 7 match-up. This week they have the daunting task of trying to knock off a team stocked with top tier talent. In fact, Kells Angels have 3 players that can only be described as elite (Higgins, Piper & Kelly) and a few others that are proven playoff winners (Kells & Cloake). I predict that trying to slow down this offense will be too much for Betty White’s more balanced line-up. That being said, I expect a huge game from Betty’s dynamic duo (Young & Zhao) that will probably be contained with some strategic poaching from Kell’s super-duper stars. Both these teams are composed of “strong-link” players but Kells’ links will likely be too much for Betty White (Prediction Kells Angels: 24, Betty White: 21). 

• Betty White did slow down Kells (fairly low score game, and the score was close). 
• Kells managed to contain one half of the dynamic duo, so he is partly right that they had big games (Rachel had a big game) and partly right that Kells contained them. However, because the prediction is semi-contradictory, this is a classic pundit tactic of hedging so that you can't be wrong which I frown upon. 
• He predicted a gap of 3, the gap was only 1.

The Lumlysexuals have 3 of the most athletic men in Parity on the same roster which will be facing off against the New England Patriots of Parity league (99 Problems). Keates is elite but even he can’t cover Rowe, Barford and Lumly at the same time.  Of course we all know that only a fool bets against the Golden Boy (Sully) in the playoffs. If we add a few other strong link players to this analysis (Price, Warren, Kudakiewicz) all on 99 Problems, I’m going to say that these two team’s top tier players are pretty much even and that the outcome will be determined by the "weak-link" players. In the end, I think it will be coaching that will decide the outcome of the game and I predict that Ives (Parity’s Belichick) and Price will coach-up the rest of the roster to victory (Prediciton 99 Problems 22, Lumlysexuals 21). 

• I actually can cover all three at the same time, but not very well (although I did bust out a new tactic on Rowe. I ate nothing but cheese and hummus all day, and then tried to contain his movement on the field with chemical warfare. It sort of worked).
• Ives does none of the coaching which is actually why he likes Sully and Justine so much. It lessens his workload. It's really hard work negotiating trades like that last blockbuster, and Sully allows him to save energy for GM backroom dealing.
• He predicted a gap of 1, but the gap was 2.

• Laura Knowles had 7 goals! She went 7/1/1/0 and had only 4 completions! She was always scoring.
• The worlds tallest man had a similar line: 7/0/0/2 and 6 completions.
• Tyler Mulcock, who is much younger than you think, had a 5/3/1/3 game for a triple triple.
• Four players on Ultra Tide had great games. Carissa Wong (4/0/2/1) Trevor Ryan (4/1/42), Al Colantonio (4/4/1/1), Mark Donahue (4/3/2/0).
• I enjoy the 1/1/1/1 statline of An.
• Andrea Proulx played a tournament on the weekend and still had the energy for 4 throw aways and probably 50 crunches on the sideline per throw away as self-motivation.
• Jay Thor had a Berry! Good job, buddy. You are terri-great.
• Edwin Wong dropped a 3/1/3/2 game, his best of the year.
• Seb continues to get lots of Ds, with 3 this week.
• Fred and Will combined for 16 throw aways (9 and 7 respectively) which is the sort of highlight I really enjoy.