Yesterday was the St. Valentines Day Massacre Tournament at Carter Park in Breckenridge. The weather was normal for the mountains, with the sun out and 35° in the morning, and snow flurries, wind and much cooler in the afternoon. The tournament consisted of 12 men’s teams, and 9 women’s teams, with the match format being 10’s rules with 7 minute halves. No points for penalty kicks or conversions, only for tries. The 2 pitches were groomed snow, lined with Kool-aid, and no posts. The western pitch was quite odd shaped, with the in-goal area as shallow as a meter in places. Each team had 3 qualifying matches, with the four teams that did best playing semi-final matches.
The Flamingo’s first match was versus Metro State. Fort Collins scored 2 fairly quick tries dominating the first half. Fort Collins traveled extremely well to this tournament, having as many as 27 players including several players from Glenwood, and visiting players from Fort Collins past like Mike Coco. So in their matches they were able to completely replace all the players at half time. So the second half of the match against Metro State ran a little differently, with two interesting moments. The first was an issue with the previously mentioned lack of depth on the in-goal area, as Tom Behr, on a break away, with no opposition, ran straight through the dead ball line nullifying what should have been the third try for the Flamingos. Metro State put a try on the board somewhere in this half too. Off a 5-meter scrum with Metro State close to scoring, the ref indicated that the next stoppage would be the end of the match. It was Fort Collins put in, so a play was called to get the ball back to the fly-half and kick it out of bounds to end the match with a 2-1 win. However Donny Slager, playing scrum-half, chose to kick it himself, attempting to kick it out of the back of the try zone. He slipped and the ball wobbled into in-goal, and Metro State recovered it for a try, ending the match with a 2-2 tie. Both Donny and Tom were rewarded for their bumbles at kangaroo court that evening.
The second qualifying match was against DU. The Flamingos dominated the match and ended with a 4-0 win. The elevation of the pitches should be mentioned at this juncture. Carter Park lies at about 9,615 feet above sea level based on USGS topographic maps (9,600 as stated on the tournament t-shirts, and 9,652 based on this reporter’s GPS reading when arriving at the pitch). So while 7 minute halves sounds like it would be quite easy, this reporter found that the way he felt at the end of the half to be about equivelent to how he feels after a normal 40 minute half. Surely running through the snow adds to the fatigue factor as well.
The third match was against Western State. Fort Collins was awarded a penalty try midway through the first half. After a pop kick by the flamingos, Jeff Brundage and a Western player were chasing the ball down. Jeff was beating his man, and soccer kicked the ball toward the try zone. Jeff was obviously going to recover the ball for a try when the Western player tackled him from behind. The referee justifiably awarded the penalty try. This turned out to be the only score of the entire match, and Fort Collins won 1-0.
This win against Western State secured second seed for the Semi finals. A win against Metro State would have assured Fort Collins first seed. Second seed would play third seed, so Fort Collins would face Queen City in the semi-finals.
The semi-final match was a hard fought match with Queen city scoring 2 tries in the first half by exploiting overloads and a missed tackle or two, and Fort Collins scoring once with hard driving forward’s play. Of course the on going rivalry with Queen City drove passions on both sides, and the Flamingos were raring to go in the second half. Queen City was held scoreless, but the Flamingos were able to push in another try to tie the game at 2-2 when regular time ended. The semi finals have to have a winner, so the game went into sudden death overtime with 5 minute periods. Overtime was back and forth until Queen City was able to create and exploit another overload, and ran the ball in for a try withing inches of touch, but enough of a try to secure the semi-final win.
Queen City faced Breckenridge Blue Geese which was a very heated match a Queen City player sent to the sin bin and a Blue Goose player ejected. With 1-1 after regular time, this match went into a double sudden death overtime, with Breckenridge scoring about 8 minutes after regular time, giving them the tournament win.
This was a great start to Fort Collin’s spring season. 25 participating players this weekend, new commitments from a total of 22 players to be Core players, will hopefully translate to a very active club this season. This reporter was not able to attend pre or post game festivities (except for Kangaroo court). Perhaps someone else can fill in some details?
Feb 16, 2005: This reported has been corrected about the score in the semi-final match against Queen City. Apparently the score was 1-0 with the Flamingos in the lead going into the half, and Queen City scored twice before Fort Collins tied it up right before regular time ended. As this author was only a beer imbibing spectator for this match, he begs forgiveness for his PBR induced memory loss.
Also with 2nd seed going into finals, and no consolation match, its apparent that the semi-final loss would put Fort Collins in 3rd place on the tournament out of 12 teams. In retrospect Fort Collins should have boat raced with the Highlanders for 3rd place. Next time.