Not All Olympic Heroes Wear Capes
The inaugural Stool Streams Olympic Tourney was a big success on Monday afternoon. Once again our esteemed Commissioner Henry Lockwood ran a fantastic event inside Stool Stream Stadium. I actually managed to help make it quite memorable too.
The last couple of months before the event I have been in a huge funk inside the Triple S. Hubbs destroyed me in my final two Olympic preludes and morale was down. I even got rightfully called out last week for making excuses about not running.
After this beatdown by Hubbs, I vowed to get it together to make a run in the Olympic tourney. I got out of my exercise funk with a 5 mile jog and have been eating healthier again. I was feeling a lot better as the day finally came.
In the 1st round I was matched up with familiar foe Marty Mush. I was the #8 seed entering the tourney and expectations were low. Marty came in as the #9 and for the 3rd time this season we battled into game 3. I got ridiculously lucky on this key point to take a 19-17 lead in the 3rd game because of the live ball rule!
Marty fought back to tie at 20 and force deuce. He then missed a key serve and I closed out the next point to win a thriller 22-20 to advance to face #1 seed Jake Marsh in the next round.
In the next round I battled valiantly against Jake Marsh early but he put his foot down in the 2nd half of the match to smash me 21-10. This loss sent me tumbling into the losers bracket. There’s obviously no shame in losing to the “Best In The Office” Jake Marsh and hope was not lost.
This video of me playing defensive against the brick wall went viral when Dave Portnoy and Big Cat retweeted it. I can move my feet pretty well for a bigger guy and it always surprises people. I was a former state tennis champion in high school too. When I am playing well, my style is a lot of fun for the fans and announcers inside the Triple S and that definitely happened in the Barstool Olympics.
I made pretty quick work of Smitty in my next round of the Losers Bracket setting up a match against #5 seed PFTCommenter and his funky serve. PFT has gotten the best of me all season as I have struggled against that serve. I played one of my best matches of the year and finally beat him 21-15!
After 3 wins as the #8 seed I felt like I was on a total free roll in my next match against the #3 seed Commisioner Henry Lockwood. Hank has more than gotten the best of me in our matches before but I did push him to a 3rd game once. I came in playing loose and confident. It turned into a helluva match with high drama. I had him nervous down the stretch but he ended up pulling out a close one 21-18 to send me home.
Thanks to Jake Marsh, Jeff D Lowe and Hank who all did a great job announcing the matches. And thanks to Spider too for officiating. I have enjoyed table tennis inside the Triple S so much in 2021 and have gotten to know Jake Hank & PFT because of it. I may have not won a medal but 3 wins in the Olympic tourney in exciting matches is a big positive in my book!
Congrats to Jake Marsh who won the gold medal by destroying Jack McCarthy (silver) to once again prove why he is the best in the office. Hank ended up taking the bronze.