Item #33 - Interstate Video Game Tournament

"Fuck this game. I'm going to Linda's"  -Matt B

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Not to sound too much like an 80's stand up comic, but there are certain things that most guys just seem to hate or avoid, with seemingly no rational reason as to why. For me, one of those things has always been feminine products. I mean, I've been working in the medical industry for almost 6 years. I've worked in a gynocology division. I've become intimately familiar with the inner working of a 70 year old woman's cadaver torso. And after enough cadaver labs, I got used to it (at least as much as one can get with a 70 year old dead woman's vagina). But when I agreed to live in an apartment with 2 girls last year, my first rule was that all feminine products had to remain out of sight (and they eventually were, tucked away into “the cabinet which I do not open.”). No rational reason as to why I was freaked out by the idea of a cylinder of cotton . . . but I was.

Another harmless thing that I, and many guys, seem to despise is the idea of meeting new guys. I'm a fairly friendly fellow. It takes a lot me for to actually dislike someone. But despite the high odds that I won't have any problem with a new male, I have no desire to meet any more. My quota of good guy friends has been met. Actually, it has been exceeded, thanks to having seemingly 3 different lives and circles of friends that continue to exist, and that occasionally overlap (high school, college, Boston). My quota for guy acquaintances has been met. I don't need any more added to my life. So I have no desire to meet any more dudes. No mas.

A Random Sampling of the Friends Venn

But recently, my inner nerd-dom actually trumped my distaste for meeting more guys. (WARNING – if you have any preconceived notions about me actually being cool, please stop reading. Go elsewhere. Go to Facebook. Go look up porn. Just leave. Leave the mythical Cool Alan in your mind while you can, because you're about to get all up in my nerdiness).

Background: In college, we had a thing for playing NHL95 on Genesis. At the time, it was already 4 years old. But, it was OUR game. Nothing to do on a Friday night at The Red House? Get drunk and play NHL95 while watching Matt get so pissed he pulls the cartridge out of the Genesis, throws it into the toilet, and flushes (the game couldn't be flushed. It was recovered. It still worked). Good times were had by all.

We played that game throughout our junior and senior years. However, after graduation, we started the tradition of The Baseball Trip, in which at least 6 of us get back together and get drunk at various ballparks throughout the country. I'd talk more about it, but I'm hoping there's a list item that covers the inner workings of the trip later on. For now, we'll concentrate on the fact that instead of taking in whatever local culture there is in a given city, we typically go to games . . . and then come back to the hotel room, drink Keystone Lights and get loaded while playing some hardcore NHL95 games. This tradition had continued for the past 11 years. Oh by the way, I'm 31 (yet how am I single?).

And despite being 31 years olds playing a game made for pre-teens on a game system made popular in the early 90's, we take our NHL95 very serious. And a couple years back, while researching the game, Walter stumbled across a website made by some kids in Minnesota (Segathon.com). They apparently had 1-2 big ass tournaments each year in which they gathered 10-20 of their closest friends and just got drunk and had marathon sessions of NHL95 on multiple TV's. True dorks . . . and we had to beat the shit out of them if we ever went back to Minneapolis on the baseball trip. And this year, we went back to Minneapolis.

So 2 months prior to the recent baseball trip, while drunkenly watching the Bruins playoff game, Walter emailed them and challenged them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Walter
Subject: NHL 95
Date: Saturday, April 2, 2011, 12:06 AM

Hey Rookies.  We love your site.  We've been following it for years.  Great jerseys! Me and my friends from Boston go to different baseball parks each year.  We play NHL 95 all the time.  This year we are going to Minesotter and would love to play your best opposition in a tournament and drink 1000 beers.  We are tentatively planning  the weekend of June 17th and would love to meet up and play.  Are you available? All the best! Walter

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

From: The Commish

To: Walter

Subject: Re: NHL 95

Date: Monday, April 4, 2011, 5:12 PM

Walter,

As soon as I saw you were from the Boston area my heart filled with RAGE as you have stole David Ortiz, Kevin Garnett and Randy Moss but then gave Randy back.  But I remembered you are a NHL 95er and looks like you are a fellow pollack like me so we're cool

I have sent out an APB to fellow Segathoners to see if we can do a tourney and will get back to you.  Let me know your guys schedule for that weekend and if you were looking to do a day "gentlemans" tourney or a night "worst hang over ever" tourney.

Thanks,

Nick 

ps - if this is some type of trap, us Segathoner's carry under $20 and are certified in man-rape self defense classes

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And just like that, it was on. And just like that, for the first time I can remember in a long time, I was damn excited to meet a group of guys, because based on their website, all we could assume was that these guys were us, except that they probably spoke like they were in Fargo. Granted, there was a 1% chance they were a bunch of sexual deviants looking to tie us up in a basement and go all Pulp Fiction on us, but we were willing to bet on the side of good natured Midwesterners on this one.

Despite the fact that the majority of us traveling to Minnesota were actually from Detroit, in the emails leading up to the battle, we played up the whole from-Boston aspect of the challenge. We used names like Butchie, Sully, and Tommy. We proclaimed the greatness of the Bruins. And I eventually walked into the tournament wearing a Red Sox Trot Nixon Jersey. In the words of Jon Lovitz . . . ACTING!

And they were good natured Midwesterners. They booked the backroom of a bar for an entire Saturday. They booked a keg. They booked appetizers. And they drank like champions with us. So let's go to the pictorial diary, because I know you're all just DYING to know the results of an video game tournament held in some dive bar in the middle of St Paul for some obscure video game made 17 years ago.

2:00pm – Walter and company go to Target. They buy materials to make a lifesize Stanley Cup to bring to the event to award to the team champion.

 

There were 2 competitions that night. One giant tournament to determine a single champ, via round robin format and double elimination tournament. The second was a team challenge, in which they had their 9 guys play our 9 guys in single games. Ryder Cup-esque.The "stanley Cup" would go to the champs.

2:45 – We take a stretch limo the 10 miles to the bar. Classy? . . . classy.

 

3:15 – We arrive at the bar and . . . they aren't sexual deviants. They are 30 year old professionals that like to get drunk and play a kids game for hours on end. They are us. Nerdy enough to be hardcore NHL95 gamers. Cool enough to get drunk and talk shit all night, without sounding like douches.  We bond immediately and feel like we've known them for years. It's delightful.

4:00 – Game on. You would think that a hockey game made in 1994 would be pretty straight forward, but when you play for 17 years, and play the same people for the last 12, you learn a shit ton of intricacies. And going into the tournament, we had no idea if their style of play would match up with ours. Would we be the only ones that know that taking the goalie vastly improves your defense, or would they know some tricks of the trade that would put up 15 goals a game against us? MY GOD, THE ANXIETY! MY GOD, THE NERDINESS!

In the first game of the round robin, our #1 ranked player Walter (yes, we each ranked our 9 guys. Deal with it) takes on their #1 guy Nate. Walter ends up winning 2-0, and team Minnesota is in shock. We're riding high.

For the next 3 hours, 54 games of NHL95 are played in the round robin tournament across 5 TV's. It's truly glorious.

 

7:00 - After the round robin, Team Boston is taking care of business. Our top 3 players have dominated the round robin play by going 6-0, 5-1 and 5-1 (I was one of those 5-1 records. Hooray). Team Minnesota is still stunned. They're like Rocky taking on Drago . . . at least in the early rounds.

 

But instead of deep down and finding their intestinal fortitude like Rocky, they resort to fighting back via another method . . . drinking.  They order a round of car bombs for both teams. We line up in waterfall fashion for a flip-cup style race and . . . .we're soundly defeated by 1 length. Momentum begins to change.

8:30 – The Ryder Cup challenge ends with a crash and burn. It was 3-3 after 6 games, with me, Matt and Walter left to play. Our 3 horses. Our studs. . . . and we were soundly beaten 3 games in a row. I went down 3-1 to their leader, Nick. Team Minnesota takes home the aluminum foil Stanley Cup. Egos are badly bruised.

 

9:30 – I get some modest revenge, and I knock out the aforementioned Nick in the winner's bracket of the double elimination tournament. Luckily for me, that sets me up to play Nate, their #1. We give the fans a little something special, and put on in epic 9-8 showdown . . . which I lose. Down to the loser's bracket. Another loss would end my gaming night.

10:30 – In the only ever Baseball Trip sanctioned NHL95 tournament back in 2005 or so, I went undefeated, finishing off Walter and Matt in back-to-back games to take the title. History would somewhat repeat itself, as I eliminate Walter and Matt once again in back-to-back games. In doing so, I'm now the only Boston rep left in the tournament. I am The Chosen One. Walter has passed the torch.

 

10:45 – The Chosen One has had way to much to drink to concentrate on team strategy, and The Chosen One is absolutely destroyed by Nate in a game that was over at the first drop of the puck. Team Boston, and its collective ego, is no more. In terms of hardware, Mighty Casey had struck out. Nate would go on to beat Brandon and take home the singles title.

 

Trophies by damned, I did alright for myself. 5-1 in the round robin. Against their 2 best players, I won once, lost 2 one-goal games, and suffered 1 red-headed-stepchild-esque beating. But, I did get to knock out both Matt and Walter, which means I'll get to hold this over their heads for the rest of their lives. I'm 31 and sans girlfriend/child/pet – this is the glory I get to cling to.

But, I also get to cling to the fact that as sad as it may be for a group of 31 year olds to get drunk and get overly worked up about a 17 year old video game, at least there's a group of Minnesotans, our brothers in NHL95 arms, that are just as pathetic as us.