Where Will Boing Boing Land? Mascot Deathmatch Edition

[slothfacekilla 75]

Unfortunately I am on vacation in sunny Winnipeg right now without access to photoshop, so I’m going to have to do a little writing this week instead of a graphic.  With the VHLM draft approaching and scouting starting to pick up, I knew I wanted to do something related to Boing’s potential future destinations.  I must confess that I still do not know the league landscape too well, so things like team needs and available prospects is not something that I will be able to talk about.  With my ignorance limiting how I could go about this I figured it was time to bust out the tried-and-true sim league media topic: the mascot deathmatch.

 

Each team’s mascot has been thrown into a tournament bracket where they will be fighting each other in this tournament over a single night, Pride style (Pride never die!).  I used a website called challonge.com to generate my tournament bracket.  Apparently, I am “challonged” myself because I could not figure out how to force it to not give bye’s, maybe because I’m using the free version.  But here is our initial bracket in all of its glory:

 

The Philadelphia Reapers and Miami Marauders were the first and second seeds respectively and were onto the second round with a bye.  Somehow the Houston Bulls and Halifax 21^st automatically played each other in round two, along with Saskatoon and Las Vegas squaring off in round two before the first fights have occurred.  It seems like a weird way to run a bracket but what do I know!  I tried to do it without byes, but I couldn’t figure it out.  We ride anyways!

 

Our first fight of the night is the Number 8 Ottawa Lynx versus the Number 9 Mississauga Hounds.  The randomization gods actually partnered up two animals here thankfully, so I will not have to get too out there with my imagination of the battle.  Wikipedia tells me that a Lynx is medium-sized cat, with the Canada Lynx reaching up to 31 pounds in weight and up to 22 inches in height.  Pretty sizeable!  Their opponent the Hounds was a little harder to nail down, but based on the logo and a quick comparison to Google images I’m going to say it is a Bloodhound, a large scent hound that can get up to 160 pounds, wew!  With hounds largely being hunting dogs, and the size difference here, I am going to have to say that the Mississauga Hounds are going to pull off the upset and move on in the bracket to face our top seed the Reapers.

 

After cleaning the ring, the Mexico City Kings will step into the ring to face the San Diego Marlins (Boing’s first ever team!).  Now here is where it starts getting weird, at least we got one animal battle to ease into this I guess.  For Mexico City, I wasn’t sure where to go with it so I googled “strongest king of Mexico” and Google has chosen Moctezuma II, the ninth emperor of the Aztec empire!   While European aggression and colonization was not kind to him, the Aztec empire was the largest during his reign, mainly through warfare.  So, I imagine he’s going to be pretty handy in a fight here.  I should have thought of this before I started writing, but the opponent here is a fish!  Someone is going to be at a huge disadvantage in this fight depending on the locale.  Well, since in my mind this was a Pride type tournament, I’m going to say they’re fighting in a ring, sorry Marlins.  Unfortunately for San Diego Mr. Moctezuma II is going to just stroll across the ring and beat the Marlin senseless after San Diego throws it into the ring.  Mexico City is moving on to face Miami!

 

In the interest of giving the two mascots who have already fought some rest, the next bout will be between number 4 Houston Bulls and number 5 Halifax 21^st.  I was dreading getting to this matchup because truth be told….I have no idea what a Halifax 21^st is!  I’m just an ignorant American I apologize!  So, I’ll start with the Houston side, with Google telling me that bulls can get up to 2,600 pounds.  Talk about a heavyweight in this tournament!  I think we have all seen videos of bull fights and running of the bulls to know that these dudes can really do some damage if they want to. The bull will be a formidable foe for our mascot from Halifax.  Time to dig into what a 21^st is!  The first few results on Google seem to be from the VHL so that isn’t much of a help unfortunately.  Scrolling down a bit I think it is….a pier?  It looks like it was a big port for immigration back in World War II, which honestly is a super cool lore for a team and I love how it ties the team to the city.  Who doesn’t love an outside of the box mascot?  Unfortunately for this exercise, a pier isn’t going to be very deadly unless bulls are especially affected by splinters.  After the Halifax coaching staff dumps the pier over the top rope the bull is going to charge and splinter it into a million pieces, winning the contest.  Houston is already onto the semi-finals!

 

In our next contest between bye teams it is Number 3 Saskatoon Wild versus the 6 ranked Las Vegas Aces.  After scrolling through the Fauna of Saskatchewan’s Wikipedia page and comparing photos with the logo, I am going to say that their mascot is a swift fox which is a protected species in the area.  It appears to be a pretty small fox, and while it looks to be pretty cute I am not sure how deadly it is going to be in this tournament.  Its weight only gets up to seven pounds, so it is not going to be winning against any heavyweights.  Fortunately for Saskatoon, the diminutive fox is going against an Ace for our second inanimate object in the tournament.  Once the Ace is dealt into the ring, the Wild will make quick work of it shredding the card to pieces and moving on to the semi-finals as well.

 

Finally we have now reached our top seeds, with the top seeded Philadelphia Reapers facing the victorious Hounds from the first round.  When I saw that Philadelphia was the top seed, I at least felt like it made some sense because I went to law school out in that area, and I really like the city.  Fortunately for them, their mascot the Reaper probably is going to do quite well in the deathmatch.  This shepherd into the afterlife is not only super creepy (and probably tough to kill being some sort of skeletal creature I would imagine) but also comes equipped with a weapon in the scythe.  No wonder they had the top spot.  Unfortunately for the Hounds, I think Death is going to win here.  Between the supernaturalness of the Reaper, its weapon and the fact it can send the Hound to the afterlife makes it so Philadelphia comes out on top.

 

The second seed, Miami Marauders, then would take on the Mexico City Kings.  Fortunately for Mexico City, the Marlin did not put up any fight last round so Moctezuma II is well rested going into this fight as well.  For Miami, it appears their version of a marauder is some sort of undead pirate that would appear in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  Mexico City could be in trouble since we’ve seen the supernatural can definitely help in this tournament.  While Moctezuma II has proven himself to be a fierce warrior, the undead nature of the Marauder is going to render his blows with his weapon ineffective.  The Marauder’s sword will prove to be too much for the King to overcome and the second seed will also be moving onto the semi-final matchups.

 

Our first semi-final fight will be between the Reaper and the Bull.  Can Houston upset the top seeded Philadelphia to make it to the finals?  Unfortunately, the answer is going to be no (according to me!) since the Reaper will send the bull to the afterlife as well.  Animals must die too you know.  With no upset here the top seed is going to be waiting in the finals for the victor between Miami and Saskatoon.  As mentioned previously, the Saskatoon mascot (at least what I’m guessing is correct) is quite small.  This may be fine against a playing card, but the Marauder is going to easily best the Wild mascot.  I hope the betting population liked the favorites because it is the top two seeds meeting for Boing supremacy.

 

The crowd is very tense as both mascots enter the ring for the final time.  Who will come out on top in this supernatural battle of teams?  Well….I wish I knew!  Since they both don’t seem to be able to die here, I am going to say that this battle is still going on as you are reading these words (is anyone reading these words?).  The crowd can be heard yelling things like “I want off Mr. Bones wild ride”, which Mr. Bones they’re talking about nobody knows but it could apply to both teams.  If you listen closely enough you can hear Boing Boing in the back of the arena sobbing, as he just wants to know what team he is going to end up on, but the battle just continues and continues.  For a player that styles himself as a power forward he sure is a big baby.

 

I guess we will just have to wait to see where Boing ends up in the VHLM draft after all, maybe this fight between the Reaper and Marauder can be entertainment for the draft.

 

 

 

1646 words, using for PTs weeks Nov 24 - March 2 and March 3 - March 9.