ANN ARBOR– Despite the oddsmakers’ overwhelming pick, the top-ranked Leafs fluttered and fell to Ashley’s Aventinus 2-4 in Sunday’s D2 Round Robin play, putting Aventinus in the driver’s seat moving forward. ” [It] felt good to finally defeat the Leafs in the playoffs!” exclaimed a tired but happy Dave Ferguson.
“The team played great,” echoed forward Tom Colis (2 goals, assist) “I was on a great line with Kurt (Christie) and Bill (McDermott).” Christie and McDermott each added a goal and an assist.
The team now has a much-improved chance to make it to the finals, having defeated the top seed. The possibility has led to players agreeing to play in Wednesday night’s match-up with the Yaks D2 game with no complaints.
“I’ll play hockey on Wednesday,” said forward John Hwang, who has missed several late Wednesday games, choosing to be rested rather than bleary-eyed when heading to work on Thursdays. “Something about being alert and engineering products… blah blah kooky science and math talk,” noted team president and self-appointed “Road” scholar, Anthony Ray of Sir-ment Mix-a-lot’s Driveway and Sidewalk Repair and Resurface, LLC.
Lost in the shuffle was forward Dave Winn, who was locked out of the playoffs by league officials. “I argued with him (director Abe Colwell) for 30 minutes,” said an exasperated Winn, who compared the experience to arguing competing cosmological theories with Professor Steven Hawking.
Officials announced that Winn had only played in four games of the mandatory seven games. “This is all part of our push to keep ringers from dominating in the playoffs,” said league official Dominic “DaChris-miss” DeDonke.
“Eee auh Eeh auh,” added DeDonke, for no apparent reason.
Analysts note that going Winn-less may have contributed to the victory, however, as the extra skater would have made an unbalanced bench. “We’re calling it a Winn-win situation,” said analyst and game theorist Nash E. Quilibrium.