btsh.org

#13 Rehabs at #4 Denim Demons
12:00 PM, Tompkins Square West

This is the week that the Rehabs go from trying to beat their inner Demons to beating the Denim Demons. And compared to shutting down, Rubens and Co., Meth addiction is going to seem like a cakewalk.

The Double Ds have been a force in the league this year, with a 1 and 1A punch of Kamen and Tinkelman  centering a high powered offense. But the real secret to the Demons success may be Aaron “Coach” Pagdon, their veteran netminder, who is notoriously stingy in the playoffs. With all the goalie retirements taking place this season, many have speculated that Coach may look to pack it in at the end of this year as well.

But will he? Longtime league insiders know that Aaron and Adam are two of the only remaining Demons players who took part in a notorious Satanic mass after the Johnson’s Olympics of 2009. A botched attempt to use Brent as a virgin sacrifice (yeah, right) led to the Demons being cursed to come near the championship but never win. The conditions of the curse also stated that any player who quit would be forced to travel the country in a ’82 Dodge minivan opening for Hootie and the Blowfish. Coach may be willing to tank a playoff game in order to avoid this horrendous fate.

Unfortunately for the Rehabs it won’t be this one. Expect Brian and his crew of basic cable channels to put up a good fight but ultimately falter. And expect Senna to be bombarded by offers from other teams about 13 seconds after the game finishes.

#9 Dark Rainbows at #8 Happy Little Elves
1:00 PM, Tompkins Square West

Remember how we said Lbs-Megatouch was a good game for color blind people to watch? Well this game should probably only be watched by colorblind people. Yes, they may have problems telling the jerseys apart. But there are other subtle visual cues they can use to follow the game (hint: rainbows have hair, Elves don’t). Everyone else should probably avoid viewing this game, especially if they’re prone to motion sickness.

For those strong enough to tolerate the gut wrenching mixture of neon pink and green on the court, an entertaining match can be expected. There’s no question the Elves are the more talented team. But Rainbows goalie Ariel Kipnis has been outstanding this year. And the Hippies tend to lose their “Peace and Love” attitude when it’s win or go home.

We won’t be surprised if we see an Abby-Adelle throwdown at center court this Sunday. But we will be surprised if the Elves exit early. They’ve got a date with destiny (aka Math) and every ref in the league will be printing out a rulebook before that one.

PS: Kudos to Rainbows management who took what looked like a shaky team at the start of the season and turned them in to a crew that could hold their own with any team in the league.

#10 Butchers at #7 Gouging Anklebiters
2:00 PM, Tompkins Square West

This will probably be the most high-spirited game of the day. Both teams have great players and more importantly both teams play the game for fun. We could write about how this game will prove if the 2013 Anklebiters are for real. We could write about how this may be Eric Ramirez’ s last game as Butcher (he’s moving to GutRot next season). We could write about whether Schuie will come out of retirement for the sole purpose of arguing with the refs but really there’s only one story here …

WHAT KIND OF A**HOLE VOTES AGAINST EXCEPTIONS FOR PLAYERS WHO DIDN’T PLAY FIVE GAMES BECAUSE THEY WERE PREGNANT?

For those of you who don’t know, Captains had to vote on player exceptions this week. And two idiots voted against exceptions for Amy Donohue and Jen Harlan. These jerks should be glad that the vote was anonymous. Otherwise, the ORG would be campaigning for these Rule #1 violators to be publicly shamed and showered with the cheapest, nastiest cans of malt liquor and energy drinks we could find.

Complete and utter jagoffs.

Of course, that’s just our opinion. We could be wrong.

#16 Gut Rot at #1 Fresh Kills
3:00 PM, Tompkins Square West

It’s Bad Bellies vs. Bad Smells in a game that’s rife with upset potential (of course, that all depends on who plays in goal for the GRs).

The Standoff Hall of Famers were out in force last week including veterans like Liza Watts and Matt Workman. And a full Gut Roster is a force to be reckoned with (it’s also technically four players over the limit but I’m sure Tommy solved that for the playoffs). It’s also something the Kills have never seen and that element of surprise may be enough to give them an early edge.

Of course, they may need to employ a few more tactics to defeat the Junkyard Jivers. Here are some suggestions:

1) Kills Captain Dave Sokol has cleverly arranged for the Steelers to have a bye this week. Counter by getting MLB to move the Pirates game to 3:00 pm. Barch will either pull a no show or be listening to baseball on headphones for your entire match.
2) Enroll all female members of your team in a crash course in Canadian French. Then have them repeatedly yell “Je suis Celine Dion!” throughout the game. Gabe and Alex neutralized.
3) Have Suz or anyone) run across the court in a hot dog costume. It worked for Fresh Kills in the past. Now it can work against them.

Employing these tactics should be enough for you to pull off the upset of the season and become the biggest Cinderella story sing the Elves won the BTSH championship back in the early ’70s.

With all the lime tossing and retirements going on around here, it’s easy to forget that some team will be battling for their playoff lives this weekend. But for the few, the proud, the “Crazy Eights”, Sunday begins  the start of the second season. Some will be dreaming of unlikely championship runs. Others will simply be trying not to vomit by the side of the court (I’m looking at you Claire Weingarten).

Like any smart coach, we’re resting our starters this week.

Monica Russo will be focusing on her match against Gut Rot. She’s been working the phones all week and has guaranteed that six (and possibly even seven!) Filthy Gorgeous players will show up. Meanwhile, Rich and Eli are trying to mend a friendship that’s been torn apart by mocking comments about Derek’s compression shorts and accusations of Glanzer offering Adelle a bounty for certain Mathematics’ players heads. So you can see our intrepid reporters will have their hands full during their journalistic bye week.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a few games to comment on.

#20 Tompkins Square Riots at #13 Rehabs
2:30, Tompkins Square West

It was firewagon hockey when these teams met the last time. The Habs managed to post a season high seven goals but the Riots managed to put a few past the black and red defence as well. Expect both teams to play it a lot tighter with the stakes so much higher.

On paper, these teams match up nicely. Rehabs have a player named Alex who’s pretty good. So do the Riots. The Riots have an experienced goalie named Dave. The Rehabs have an experienced goalie named Showtime (although he never seems to play in net). Bryan Welch tends to go a little bit crazy in games. Laura MacNeil goes a little bit crazy in games. It should all balance out right?

Afraid not, TSR. The playoffs are all about experience. And if nothing else, that’s something that the Black Brawlers have going for them. We wouldn’t be surprised if this one goes to OT. At the end of the day, expect the Riots to join the long list of BTSHers who chant “Rehabs suck!”

#17 Filthy Gorgeous at #16 Gut Rot

2:30, Tompkins Square East

The storyline for this game might be that there is no storyline. As far as we know these two teams like each other just fine. Yes, a couple of former Filthys play for Gut Rot now. And yes, Monica may once have politely asked a soon to be ill Peaches to hastily depart the cab they were sharing. But that’s the extent of the bad blood between these franchises. In fact, both teams lost their starting goalie mid-season so there’s been some off-court bonding about their shared dilemma.

So with an amazingly civil game anticipated, who has the edge? Again, it’s not an easy call since these two teams so rarely play each other. But there is a reason Filthy plays in the Bratta division and Gut Rot plays in the Glanzer grouping. Even with the 2013 version of Gut Rot being a vastly improved side we have to give the edge to the Dirty Prettys. 

Besides, everyone knows that Filthy loses to the Hookers in the playoffs. It’s a BTSH tradition.

#19 Cobra Kai at #14 What the Puck

Will this be Romeo’s last game? Not if Zimm and the rest of the WTPers have anything to say about it. We watched a bit of last week’s WTP game and it brought a tear to our eye. All your old favorites were there. Daryl. Woodsie. Michelle Doucette. Heck, for a moment we thought we’d see Bratta pulling on the orange and blue again (in fact, that’s a great idea. Adriano should play half a game for each of his old teams. Don’t worry about Mega Touch, Mussels. They’ll be fine.) It reminded us that the secret to What the Puck’s success has always been team chemistry. With the exception of LBs. you won’t find a team in the league that’s more comfortable playing with each other. It’s why they’ve made so many finals and semi-finals appearances over the years.

And it’s a big challenge for the dojo. Watching a Cobra Kai game these days is like viewing an episode of GENERAL HOSPITAL after not watching since the glory days of Robert Scorpio and Frisco Jones. Sure you may be able to spot a few familiar faces (Will Kuhns and Gregg Allman are the Luke and Laura of BTSH). But for the most part you’ll just be confused. If Cobra Kai’s players can’t overcome their relative unfamiliarity with each other, WTP will continue their tradition of being the only orange and blue New York sports team that plays meaningful games during the first week of October.

#18 Poutine Machine at #15 Mega Touch

4:30 pm, Tompkins Square West

The best news for Poutine Machine may be that Alex Eben Meyer won’t be able to ref this game. Stripes and Poutine sniper Ashish “Shakti” Nagpal have been feuding for two years now, so expect a lot of chirping in this one as well. Poutine may have won the regular season meeting between these two squads but that was against a depleted Mega squad. Expect BTSH power couple Julie and Adriano to join with the aforementioned Meyer, Eric “Mr. Intensity” Devlin and the littlest goalie to form the core of an “Any Given Sunday” squad that no team should take lightly.

Our suggestion? The Machine needs to employ the seldom used “E.T. Strategy”. Leaving a trail of Reese’s Pieces from the court to the Ace Bar should effectively distract Julie long enough for Poutine to score the one goal they’ve been averaging per game and secure a berth in the next round.

Mega Touch, phone home!