Our last league night was the fourth of Season 17, and it was also two days before Thanksgiving, which I predicted would result in a low turnout. This was good, actually, because we needed to even out the banks. We had started with a single bank session, then did a two-bank rotation for the next two nights, so if we could have another single bank night that would get things straightened back out for the likelihood that we would need to rotate the rest of the season.
We were down a few regulars, including Allen (who had gone home to Texas for the holiday), Dan, and Donny, but more people showed up than I had figured on. Just before the start time we still had few enough people to get everyone into four banks, which is our cutoff for a single bank this season, with a couple of empty spots in case anyone came late. I was just about to get things started when we were surprised by the appearance of a couple of new players: Rick K. and Abby D., late of the Indiana scene, but newly relocated to Grand Rapids. We were still all right with four groups of four until Linda made a late appearance. Joseph split himself off from one of the other groups and formed a two-person group with Linda, returning us to the “good” old days of having a group on every game in the bank. There were some backups, but it wasn’t too awful, and at least we can return to rotating banks the rest of the season.
I’m not sure if Rick and Abby are going to come back regularly – I think they didn’t realize that only the overall season results get submitted to the IFPA – but Rick did get the second highest score for the bank. He asked where the good places to play are in Michigan that are within an hour drive of Grand Rapids, and besides the obvious choice of RLM Amusements in Grand Rapids, some of us also recommended the Clubhouse Arcade in Fremont.
Jake and Sam made it out from Grand Rapids again, and one of the first things Jake said to me was “Heather! Take a picture!” This was in reference to the dramatic re-creation photos in the last recap and my asking people to make sure to tell me to take photos next time. He added that he was torn about it because he actually kind of wanted me to forget to take photos so I could do more dramatic re-creations. I admitted that we kind of ran out of ideas after we did three of them.
Todd has been playing his games early this season because of his work schedule, but he was able to play with the rest of the league on this occasion, and even stayed to play in the Smackdown B-division playoff. He said it was his first ever Smackdown finals, since he usually can’t stay for it. Todd ended up beating me in a two-person match on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to win the Undercard. Meanwhile, Tim won the A division championship on Star Trek.
Our next meeting tomorrow is the fifth of the season, bringing us past the halfway point, which means this is the last chance to join and still qualify for finals. I am planning to play a two-bank rotation unless turnout is very low. This will be our last league meeting before the New Year, since our next meeting will be postponed for Silver Balls in the City. See you soon!