Seven Thoughts on Seven Weeks of BTSH
With roughly one-third of the BTSH season completed, enough games have taken place for trends to reveal themselves and narratives to take hold. BTSH Commissioner and Demons Captain Adam Herman chimes in with seven critical takeaways from the start to the season.
7. Cobra Kai Goaltending Controversy
On paper, Campbell and Sonj may be the best goaltending tandem in organized hockey since Ed Belfour and Dominik Hašek shared the Chicago Blackhawks’ crease in the early 90s. Either would be the best netminder on most BTSH teams and they are one of the few teams who can endure a goaltender absence without then having to figure out wherever Cam is or ask Chris Caron to play his 5th game of the day. Only one goalie can play at a time, however, and Cobra Kai will have to pick one for elimination playoff games.
The early returns indicate that this is Sonj’s job to lose. She’s holding a 0.50 GA/G average after two locked-in performances against Fuzz and Hookers. Meanwhile, Campbell’s 4.33 GA/G shockingly puts him among the league’s worst. To the surprise of many, the literal professional goaltender might be better at this than a Computer Boy who somehow ended up in the crease one day and accidentally became good.
The Blackhawks ended up trading Hasek for scraps despite how much better he was than Belfour. As captain of Cobra Kai, Campbell may be tempted into making a similar decision. GMs around the league are wondering if Russ will be able to keep the locker room from reaching a boiling point by reciting timely quotes from the Tao Te Ching.
6. Skyfighters’ Shua: Rookie of the Year?
The story of the Skyfighters the last few seasons has been this: They’re one of the deepest teams in BTSH and can be competitive in any given matchup, but they’ve lacked the individual difference makers to take them to the next level. That may be changing.
The surprise story for Skyfighters has been Shua. Currently, he sits second on the leaderboard by goals scored, with 11 through seven games. Shua’s most noteworthy performance was his hat-trick against Lbs — his second of the season — that put Skyfighters over the top against their D1 opponent.
Shua, whose full name is Joshua Friedman, paints and aspires to be a stand-up comedian. And he let us in on a surprising revelation; he has never met another Joshua Friedman before in his life.
BTSH reached out to Yehuda Weinbach to find out how this could be possible and whether he knew any other Joshua Friedman’s.
“I had a Rabbi named Josh Friedman,” Weinbach claimed.
After further research into the archives, Weinbach confirmed that his brother also knows a different Josh Friedman and then, while attempting to locate Shua, accidentally stumbled upon a fourth Josh Friedman who coincidentally played hockey with Jo Robin.
Skyfighter captain Jake Kolenberg is happy with Shua’s breakout season but admitted he’s worried that other teams may be catching on.
“Rich, stay away from him,” Kolenberg asserted.
5. Lee Leaves for DC
When celebrating athletes, people often like to say that that person is a “great player and even better person.”
We can certainly proclaim Lee as a better person, given that the last goal I remember him scoring was two years ago, after which he attempted to do the John Cena “you can’t see me” gesture in my face and then immediately tripped over his own feet and fell to the blacktop.
Lee also once sniped Campbell short side like 5 years ago and we can’t prove that it didn’t start a domino effect that led to Campbell’s lost self-confidence that has his starting job with Cobra Kai in danger.
A member of BTSH and the Corlears Hookers since 2016, Lee undertook many roles in BTSH. His most notable contribution came as board member in 2023 and 2024, when he famously became BFFs with the NYC Parks Department. New members of the league won’t know this but we used to rely on the least artistic people imaginable to draw awkward looking creases on every Sunday. Somehow, Lee convinced Parks to permanently paint all of our lines onto the court with uniform dimensions.
His departure to DC means the league will have to find someone else to break everyone’s eardrums yelling about the semantics of the high-ball rule while wearing a fanny pack.
4. Are the Demons for Real?
The Denim Demons have started the season 6-1 and currently sit third in the overall standings; fifth by points percentage. However, many are wondering just how legitimate that early success is. To be fair, they have cannibalized Div 4 opponents. That won’t matter for playoff seeding but let the record show Demons leadership submitted a proposal to balance playoff seeding but were voted down.
The Demons will have to embark on the rest of the season without arguably the league’s best goal scorer in Alex Giummo. Giummo, with 12 goals in 5 games, earned the nickname “Tree Trunks” at the courts for having thighs that are wider than Luca Vellon’s entire body.
He is squatting his way to San Diego and the Demons will have to diversify their scoring in order to compensate for the loss of elite talent. Sources indicate that the team is cautiously optimistic that Matt Bramson, who manages to score a hat-trick in D5 every other game, will find a way to have one or two finally bounce off his shin or something in BTSH.
Ironically, the Demons’ biggest statement game of the season may be their sole loss; a tight battle against Vertz in which Giummo and other critical players were not present. And in a league in which quality (or available) goaltending can be hard to come by, Dan Ridzik has been a separating factor so far this season. The Demons seem headed for promotion to Division 3 but they have work to do in order to convince others they’re a legitimate playoff threat. Members of the organization also indicated that locker room morale has improved now that the team no longer employs 8 different players who take a bunch of penalties every game.
Perhaps the best part of the Demons’ ascension? Almost the entire team has been built out of free agent pickups. It’s proof that there are good players to be had if teams are willing to cast a wide net and give unknown people a chance.
3. Lbs Rebuild
After a multi-year run in which the Lbs were the team to beat in BTSH, winning the Cup in 2023 and finishing first in the league in 2024, the organization finds itself still recovering from a mass offseason exodus. Tom Fitz, Frankie, Cherie, and Rose departed for new opportunities in BTSH while the likes of Sam Feder and Jake Chaplin left the city. In a salary cap league, you can’t keep the core around forever. It seems that too many critical pieces of the Lbs puzzle priced themselves out of the organization. Or maybe just out of NYC rent requirements.
Frey has taken a slow approach to replenishing the roster, trying out a host of free agents rather than the usual BTSH strategy of poaching from lesser teams.
The team has instead employed its usual strategy of utilizing D5 in-roads to feed elite players into the Lbs pipeline. The latest recruit is Craig, who played DIII and looks to be a promising player, having already scored in his debut. The Spectors can also go full Sedin Twins and carry the team during this time of treading water.
Sources tell BTSH Media that, in spite of the impending relegation battle, Lbs have no intentions of committing to a rebuild nor of changing their name to the Ounces. They do recognize a need to replenish the ranks with a long-term vision and have set their sights on a certain internal solution; Baby Zisser, whom the team expects to be BTSH-ready by April 2043 and Gem Saloon-ready by August 2046.
“When it comes to beer pong, Zisser is among the worst players in American history and at times an affront to the sport as a whole. Hopefully the beer pong genes will come from the mother’s side,” captain Frey said.
2. The Weather
The BTSH regular season has been live for 12 weeks and yet teams have only played seven games. If they’re lucky. Timing for certain holidays hasn’t helped but the main culprit has been the weather. I think we’ve only played two Sundays so far in which games weren’t ever in question.
Adding the problem? The uncertainty. A lengthy downpour makes cancellation easy, while clear skies leave nothing in doubt. Instead, we’ve consistently received 50/50 forecasts that have made us wait as long as possible to make decisions, with all captains agreeing with the Commissioners every single time. I think Probie has spent more time begging captains to not force him to drive into the city than he has actually playing hockey this season.
Of course, last Sunday we saw no rain but were instead hit with an insane heatwave. We’ve already used up both rain makeup slots and have games to spare. It’s an anticlimactic start to the season and I am pleading with the rain gods to let us go a full month without my having to monitor the forecasts every 5 minutes with the same intensity as JFK watching a NASA launch.
1. ConVertzion to Contenders?
Heading into the 2025 BTSH season, most people saw Mega Touch and Poutine, in some order, as the top-two teams to beat. Not many put the Vertz in that category. That includes the Vertz’ own Minsky, who published personal pre-season rankings in which he listed a bunch of players like it was a Magic Johnson tweet.
The Vertz have started the season 6-0-0 despite a tough schedule including teams like Fuzz, Cobra Kai, and Anklebiters.
The secret to success? The quiet offseason recruitment of approximately 28 former college hockey players. This team is so stacked with talent that Captain Brian Hicks has benched himself in close games. They send out five-player units who look like they’ve practiced organized breakouts and all of them are shooting threats.
Arguably the best recruit so far has been Uri Lurie, who has six goals through four games despite spending time on defense. A source confirmed that “Uri Lurie” does rhyme but that he has no past or current associations with Dr. Seuss.
The downside is that none of them seem to understand the league’s stickchecking rules.
Hicks is celebrating the fruits of his offseason but shot down concerns that a group of highly qualified hockey players were having any trouble adapting to having to share a bench with Matt Russo.
“Given the team’s lack of post season success, we felt it necessary to get younger this offseason,” Hicks remarked. “Russo has been a great veteran presence in helping the new members acclimate to the bright lights of BTSH while teaching them his patented stick-behind-the-back move to avoid over/under stick penalties.”
The top-two in BTSH should probably be expanded to include Vertz. And with Tim K in net, goaltending could end up being the difference deep into the playoffs.