We were all supposed to meet at the bus at 8:30, to catch a 9am to D.C. for a pre ESPI’s scouting mission. I spent the morning procrastinating with Boomerang and ended up running out of my apartment at 8:09. Made it to the bus stop a little after 8:40, including an ATM stop.
Doug was the first one there and pointed out the appropriate chinese lady to buy a ticket from. Chombo showed up, Zack shortly after, I got breakfast. So far it’s a normal Chinatown bus trip, but then the fun started. They announce the D.C. bus but tell the four of us to wait. Everybody but us gets onto a bus that then leaves. WTF, another bus shortly arrives and we get on that one. The bus then sits there while they cram it over-full, finally pulling out at 9:50. We’re already and hour late. It then makes a stop in Philly that half the bus didn’t know about, detour to Philly, about 30 minutes, wait time 30 minutes. We’re now 2 hours off schedule. We finally roll into D.C. around 2:30, Dave Tink graciously meets us at the bus and plays tour guide. A quick stop for pizza and we’re at Rush rink, home of the 2008 ESPI’s in two weeks.
The court itself is pretty nice. It’s no Pit, but few things are. It used to be a tennis court that has had boards put up all around it for hockey. They’re banked in the corners, and only (maybe) 3 feet high on the left and right sides. So I’m sure we’ll see a few players go over the walls during the tournament. 8-10 foot high chain link fence right against the boards on three sides, with benches along the western side of the court. The size is not too big, not too small, all in all a good size. The only real negative that I could see is that it is sloped with the northwest corner being the low point (the goals are at the north and south ends of the court). That corner had a lot of dirt in it that made the surface a bit slippery and ball tended to roll that way. D.C. has placed their goal post 6-10 inches farther apart than NY does with about 2 feet behind the goals. So slightly wider goals with no real room to play the ball behind them. Oh, and they have nice bright white lights that actually turn on and make it easy to see. We didn’t have time to stay and play at night, but the lights came on around 6pm and the difference was noticeable.
Across the street from that court they have the ThunderDome. As Doug said, “so awful it’s awesome”. It made me think of lost Aztec ruins. It’s a sunken basketball court with concrete bleachers on both sides. The whole thing is grey and very angular. The court surface is completely beat, all cracked and bumpy. Lots of “character”. It might be that every team has to play at least one game there during the round robin.
How does D.C. play you ask? They’re definitely better than they were last year. Like everywhere, they have a mix of players, some are ok, a couple are great. They all seemed very solid. They certainly run screens better than we do, it can be difficult to get the ball past them. From what I saw, they’re not as fast as a lot of the NYC players, but it’s a smaller court and that speed isn’t as big of an advantage (except for Zack who seemed to be everywhere at once). There was one player Bruce who I kept underestimating, he a bit older so my mind wanted to equate him to Frank the Tank, then he schooled me a couple times. Not all older players wildly hit the ball.
We got a lot of games in for the short time we where there. We got to play at least every other game. I don’t think that Sunday is their big game day, so the number of players might have been thiner. All in all a good day of play.
Thank you D.C. It was fantastic.
Septic, I did put septic in the title of this post didn’t I? We rode back to the bus around 6:20, quick stop for provisions, and big line to board the coach. Chombo and I loaded the bikes while Doug and Zack ensured our seats. We ended up in the very back next to the toilet which smelled like it hadn’t been emptied in a month. It was foul. Like a port-a-poty on the last day of a Phish concert. It was tolerably at first, but then people started using the damed thing. F@!&ing vomit inducingly awful. Why?? Everybody could smell it every time the door was opened, couldn’t you just hold it? Seat mates, one would use it and then the other. You’d think that the first guy would warn the second one off. And some poor girl got bus sick (probably from the smell), and spent an hour in there! That’s why she was sick, why go in there, why open the door and subject the rest of us to it. I hate the damn Chinatown busses. Late getting us there, and vomit inducing ride home. At least the guy to the right of us was watching Death Proof, he fast forwarded to the extended lap dance scene, and then skipped ahead to the final chase. No unexpected stops on the way home thank god.
