DOING THE HAYDUK BLITZ

No offense to Matt Hayduk, but I’m sure all the pundits were not laying their money on him to win. In fact, if asked, I’m sure Matt would have placed his bet on any one of the other 23 competitors in the Blitz Tournament before himself.

But that is the beauty of this tournament. Anyone can win. Literally. Just ask Matt. Consider the path the he took to earn first prize– and he did earn it. First of all, hurdle one - the group round robin. JB Peabody won all 4 of games to end up first, where Matt, along with two others won 2 games. With 3 players tied for second place, the next hurdle to see who advanced came down to pure, dumb luck: drawing straws. Matt drew first, and from the groans and gesturing of the other two, had drawn well. He moved onto the next hurdle: the knock-out finals. His first game was against Charlie Severn who went on with a 6 point handicap. Perfect. Matt takes the game 15-14. Next in line was Jim Stroh who won his group round robin. Matt started with 9 points which proved to be more than enough. He won 15-11. His semi final was against Ryan Bendzinski. [Photo right: Ryan playing against Bob Rogers] Matt took 11 points into the game, again proving it was more than enough. The 15-9 win had (a surprised) Matt in the final. The other side of the draw could not have been any closer. Every single match ended up 15-14. (Kudos to me for the handicapping!!) Scraping through by this narrowest of margins was JB Peabody – the winner of Matt’s round robin group. Hurdle four: Overcoming a previous defeat. In the round robin, Matt was given 5 points head start on JB (he lost that game). For the final, I gave him 7. Perfect. Matt takes the final 15-14 topping off the faultless evening for the lad. Not only did he win the event, received some very nice prizes for his efforts, he also drank free beer. What more could you ask for? [Photo: Matt and JB in their final]

Special mentions:
Judy Doyle. The only woman to enter into the testosterone filled domain of the squash court arena. And she took it to the boys as well. Judy won group round robin, but was knocked out by Bruce VandeVusse (bully!) in the first knock-out match 15-14. (Bruce went on to lose the 3rd / 4th playoff to Ryan Bendzinski 15-13.)

Mac Nutter. Although Mac did not advance through the group round robin, his entertaining style of play kept us all rather captivated. He must be made of putty as he bounces off the walls and floor, rebounds back onto his feet, all while he doesn’t stop running. In need of 17 band-aids, Mac kindly pointed out that he almost scored the maximum amount points in the group as he either lost or won every game 15-13 or 15-14. Lamentably, that didn’t count.

The tournament took just over 2 hours to complete. We had 56 games played, 24 competitors, 1 keg emptied, zero racquets destroyed… Pat? 964 towels used, and 1 successful evening. Thank you to all who supported and played.

Cheers!!