The Overnight Marathon League Summary:
At its best, an overnight marathon league (playing all 28 regular season matches, and playoffs) that began at 9pm was a bad at idea. Even when everyone signed up, they signed up knowing it was going to be miserable, but hoping it would be fun. Lo and behold, the participants got both.
At 9pm, 12 of the 14 participants began warming up (to be explained later). After warming up for a very short period of time, everyone realized that that was a silly thing to do. They were about to throw for approximately twelve hours, they would be plenty warm. At 10pm, the actual matches began. For a while, there wasn’t anything particularly interesting happening. A bunch of 81s. The norm. But then, the participants noticed that everyone in the league had at least one 81—except the owner of Total Axe, Chris Ross. A little bit of added pressure for Chris through the next few games, but he did hit an 81. Eventually. There haven’t been many leagues to have all participants throw at least one perfect game, and Total Axe’s Saturday Pink Marathon 4 league is one of them.
The fun stuff:
After that, there wasn’t much to report. People continued to hit 81s. People continued to go to big axe. Martin Van Os and Phillipe Lachance continued to play Super Smash Brothers on a wide-screen TV mounted on the wall (they’re the two that weren’t warming up). On this front, it should be noted that Lachance was giving Martin the business for the entire time. Martin probably didn’t win a round. Bummer for Martin.
To break up the monotony, Martin and JMAL (Jordan Maloney) decided to have some fun/tank their averages and throw an underhand match, which ended in a 31-29 finish going to Martin. Absolutely refusing to accept defeat, Jordan challenged Chris Ross to an underhand match as well. While Jordan did take the win this time, the highlight of the match was the double, underhand clutches they threw in unison. We were all very impressed. It’s a shame they missed so many regular clutches in the other matches, though.
At the end of the regular season, the league hit 169 81s, beating the previous record of 162, set by BATL London’s Tuesday Red League. Some other impressive numbers include Lachance and Bishop (Niko Givas) both throwing over 2200 points in the regular season, Runaway Jim (Steven Middleton) for throwing his first two 81s, and Captain (Ben Edgington) having a 78.4 average, despite this only being his fourth time looking an IATF target in the face.
Playoffs:
Playoffs were a mess of an ordeal. The fatigue really began setting in. Aaron Gerard made the excellent decision of opting out of playoffs, so he could stop the madness/save his body. In an unfamiliar, unexpected, and unprecedented turn of events, Jimmy WarPigs (Jimmy Bagpipes, at heart) was the A bracket champion, defeating Stubs (Ryan Gustin), Bishop, Marcus Brown, and Lachance on his way to the finals, representing the NeuroGum brand and product well (the gum really proved its value in this overnight tournament).
In the end, Bishop fought to the finals through B bracket, and won two matches again Jimmy WarPigs, and became the Marathon League Champion—an incredible feat. Bishop took home the trophy, the prize pool, and the pride. Bishop also drove Jimmy back to where he was staying, and made Jimmy hold the trophy during the drive. A final display of dominance.
Aftermath:
So what happened afterward? As some people were eliminated, they decided to depart. Some people stayed until the end to see how it all finished. The next day, Jordan Maloney got brunch with his ex. He said it went well. Ben was so tired, that when Jimmy said “have a good flight, Ben” to him in the airport, Ben completely ignored him. Jimmy had a nightmare so bad while on the plane, the man next to him had to wake him up. Chris Ross is still the owner of Total Axe, for now.
Overall, the event was a success. Everyone had a good, exhausting time. Chris is already planning the next marathon league—a mistake he can’t wait to make. He doesn’t know if it will be an overnight marathon league, but a marathon league nonetheless.