Maple Sabotaged in Vancouver?

[dogwoodmaple 380]

In what would have been an absolute disaster to start the coming season, Dogwood Maple was nearly left off the team's official opening day roster.

 

"I was talking to my agent and he asked me if I had seen the official roster that the Wolves posted for this year.  I never really look at that, because I know I'll be on it.  Apparently, @Frank left me off of the paperwork he turned into the league office.  I would like to think it was on accident, but we all remember the helicopter incident," Maple said.

 

When the paperwork was submitted to the league office, that normally locks in a team's roster to start the season. There are strict rules about when a player can be added or removed, but Maple does not qualify for any of those exceptions.  It looked, for a time, like Dogwood Maple would be teamless this season.  That was the case until a few favors were called in.

 

"I know a couple of people down at the league office and I called them panicking about the mistake.  They all knew that I should've been on that list, but just wasn't on it for whatever reason.  My agent started calling everyone, I was freaking out.  And they assured me that all we needed was to get @Frank on the phone and he could clear all this up since simple mistakes happen from time to time. The problem was that Frank wasn't answering his phone.  Me and my agent called him probably 20 times and it went straight to voicemail.  I was sure that his phone was just dead, until I had one of the folks at the league office try and call him from their own number.  And wouldn't you believe it?  Frank picked right up," Maple said with a grin.

 

Fortunately for Vancouver and Maple, the mistake was fixed after just a few hours and he was properly re-added to the Wolves official roster, but the situation did cause a bit of tension in the Vancouver locker room.

 

"I'm not saying that Frank was trying to get rid of me, but I do find it interesting that he wouldn't take my call or my agent's call, yet just picked right up when some random number called him.  What's even more bizarre is that on the official roster sheet, the names were written out by hand and there seemed to be an erased sentence on there. My buddy at the office got me the document Frank turned in and I could see the old pencil marks that had been erased.  So I took that, put it underneath some blank paper and shaded over the relief.  And wouldn't you know it?  It sure looked like the writing said "...ot Maple". Now, I don't know if that was "not Maple" or "I forgot Maple" or what, but it all just rubs me the wrong way, I'm not going to lie," Maple explained.

 

The Wolves start the season soon with hopes of getting another championship after a disappointing early exit last season.  There are unconfirmed rumors that Dogwood and Frank had to be separated after a fight in the locker room concerning all this, but no sources would speak on the record to that effect.

[Gaikoku-hito 2,133]

Of course he answered the league phone due to all the trade requests and trade calls.