Wood Bowl 2020

The excitement has been building all week in anticipation of the Wood Bowl. The media has been camped out and interviewing the players and coaches. The fans have been arriving by Canada Goose airlines from across the country. Scalpers are selling tickets for as much as $1500. Local Woodpile businesses can’t keep up with the demand for salted sunflower seeds, vegetarian hot dogs, and hot apple cider.

The weather has been amazingly cooperative. Temps have remained above freezing and the ground snow free. We even have a bit of green grass. We were fully prepared for the worst. We stock piled snow shovels and tail warmers.

The Wood Bowl is a fast paced game. Don’t blink or you might miss an important play. For my human fans, you will probably recognize the equipment as coming from a table tennis set. The rules are quite different. The paddles are set up as goals. A team scores by hitting the opponents paddle with the yellow ball. Each team has 10 players but only one player for each team is on the field at a time. They can switch out players as often as they like but play doesn’t stop for the swaps. Like in baseball, the players rotate through all of the players in order. (Teams spent hours trying to figure out the best match ups with the other teams players). A player can throw the ball over the net and it has to bounce off the ground before hitting the goal paddle to be counted as a score. The other option is the player can nose dribble the ball under the net and then toss it at the goal paddle for a score. If they can get it past the opposing player, it is an easy score. However, if the opposing player steals the ball, it is an easy score for them (i.e. there is no one to defend the home court.) Orange line is out of bounds. No tampering with the ball, no biting, kicking, or brawling. Other than that everything else is fair play.

Who are the teams playing? Believe it or not our own “Woodpile Ramblers” made it to the championship game. They will playing the undefeated “Canadian Lumberjacks.”

Here is the Chippy Stadium already for the big game. Hold on, some prankster has stuck one of the balls to the goal paddle with gum!

The referee inspects the field before the game [removed the ball]

The game is being called by 35 year veteran sports announcer, Roscoe from the “stump.”

The Lumberjacks get off to an early lead. One of the Ramblers was a split second too slow to stop the ball. That's strange, the Rambler player is trying lick something sticky off his paws.

Our very reserved retired school teacher, Mrs. Spot, yells at the top of her voice, “Mr. Referee get the fur out of your eyes! That ball has been tampered with!”

The referee called for a new ball after discovering the game ball had been greased! Mrs. Spot grabs a replacement and checks its herself.

The Ramblers successfully block the next bouncing ball.

The lumberjack team tries to run the ball under the net.

He gets ready to toss the ball at the our goal paddle … this doesn’t look good …

The shocked expression of the lumberjack player after our team stole the ball and scored.

A Woodpile fan tossed Guinness sunflower seeds on the field and the Lumberjack’s player is momentarily distracted by the smell of the tasty treats, and we score! (Like I said there are not a lot of rules.)

Final score. We won!

THE DAY AFTER – The clean up begins … apparently according to the fine print of my contract, in exchange for having the stadium named after me, I am responsible for keeping it looking good. This whole business of marketing one’s “brand name” is a lot of work.