Condors Blogs

Getting muddy (bartls blog)

Monday, June 22nd, 2009 | The Many Faces of Bartl

Saturday is a great day to sleep in.  i usually don’t get up until around 9:30 or even 10 if i can pull it off.  but last Saturday i was up around 7:00, so that i could make it to the annual Epilepsy Society mud volleyball tournament.  the drama started early when one of our two required females bailed on us and we were left scrambling before our first match.  luckily our other one had a friend, but they both bailed at 11.  Took the first match, 15-9.

we found two replacements for our second game but they could have been these two and we still wouldn’t have won.  final score: 15-1.  because we lost, our team captain had to stay and ref the next match while i went to get a hot dog and doritos.  man, i love hot dogs and doritos.

for Game 3 - pivotal in a double-elimination tournament, we stole two ladies from the KRAB Radio team (who got pasted, by the way, in two games) and struck paydirt.  A challenging team who took every opportunity to argue points and splash around in the muddy water, pushed us hard, but we came up with a clutch 15-12 win to move on.  Thanks to Crystal and Kelly for helping us out.  B-Rad was feeling it in this game.

Game 4 was another triumph, over the Muddy Rotten Scoundrels, i forget the final score.  but sunburn was starting to sink into my cranium and boil away the sunblock on the back of my neck.  i also dove down in the “mud” for a shot and scraped the heck out of my shins and knees.  it wasn’t the nicest mud i’ve ever been in… lots of gravel and sand and grass and other assorted roughage…  by this time we had been out there in the sun and muck for about four hours.  the ladies were key, as was Zach “Lenny” Cravitz, who had two kills working the net.  i know, it surprised me too.

By the time 2:30 rolled around, team Condors had a solid 3-1 record, which meant that we were guaranteed of having a winning record on the day.  only 27 of the 99 teams remained - 52 had been eliminated - an impressive feat considering we had a makeshift roster most of the day and we were just a rag-tag bunch of amateurs.  but our fifth match proved to be our final one, as we were taken down 15-2, but we put up a good showing and had a lot of fun.

There’s always next year.

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Player signings will start this week.  you never know when their contracts will come in so it’s hard to have a solid plan for the releases, but we have two that will be announced in the next couple days.

rookies are usually the first ones to get under contract, second or third year players coming from other leagues are usually next and the vets are typically waiting on offers from their current teams or waiting to see if they are put on protected lists or qualifying offer lists.  from our roster as they finished last season, only Mike Wirll, Jay Langager, Andrew Ianiero and Scotty Balan are veterans by ECHL rules, which still state that only four can be on the active roster.  it will be interesting to see if any of them are back for this season, but Marty Raymond has indicated that this year’s team will be a much different squad.

it looks like maybe a rookie and a third or fourth year guy is on the dockett for this week.  we’ll see.

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The NHL draft is this weekend and there’s a lot of discussion over who will go first to the Islanders, and who will trade up, and what the Leafs will do, and what the airspeed velocity of an unlaiden swallow is.  Maybe the Isles will pass on John Tavares and take the big Swedish defenseman… 

i guess they have to do what they feel is best for their organization.  but consider this: nobody will blame the Isles if they take Tavares and he turns out to be a bust.  but if they pass on him and he turns into a superstar, people will remember that for years.  it’s tough to have that hanging over you while you gaze into your crystal ball.  it’s not easy being an NHL GM is it?

 

Kevin Bartl is the VP of Communication and the “Voice of the Condors” entering his 7th season with the team.  His blog comes out every Monday, or whenever else he feels like it.