Tag: SJSL

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Adventure Sports

3rd Annual Honey Badger Holiday Party

While the official Honey Badger Holiday Party was a bit later this year, it was still quite an amazing bit of fun! Since it fell at the end of January, we worked in a Chinese New Year theme in some bits. The turn out was pretty amazing, with a steady 18-20 Badgers throughout the entire night.

I was a bit worried since I was hosting this year at my home, but all seemed to go well. I wasn’t sure if there’d be enough room, I still hadn’t purchased a couch, and frankly I’m not the most domesticated guy out there. Once again the team stepped up and chipped in just like during a game and brought folding chairs and countless yummy dishes to contribute to the great time.

We had a games challenge similar to last years, with numerous random activities.

  • chopsticks challenge
  • sticker stalker
  • Chinese Zodiac match
  • Mario Kart
  • push ups
  • drawing a picture
  • dart gun (sadly the gun broke?)
  • Wii Fit luge
  • sudoku

All the games with the exception of the dart gun game went extremely well. Sadly the dart gun broke early on, but not before the Shepherd put on a clinic in accuracy. It was kind of frightening to see, but impressive.

The majority of the guests stayed up until the end when Caitlin and Allen/Scott were crowned champions!

My only regret on the night is that I didn’t take photos! I was so busy keeping track of the events and keeping things going that I didn’t take the time to take any photos.

Overall I’d say it was another tremendous Badger success. I had a great deal of fun and will have to have the Badgers over more often!

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Sports

Opening Day of Fall 2014 Dodgeball

Few if anything things are as exciting to me as the first night of dodgeball. It’s like the first day of school. You see all your dodgeball friends, some I haven’t seen in weeks or even months. It’s pretty great.

This season the Honey Badgers have a lot of change, perhaps the most we’ve ever had. We are without legendary Badger Caitlin, Ginny & Eryn this season. On the guy’s side we say good by to Ricky and Sean.

With all of this loss we also did invite some new faces as well thanks entirely to Bethany who is rejoining the Badgers for dodgeball and bringing what seems like her entire family and extended family. All off seem like amazing additions to the team from what I’ve seen so far.

In a twist last night opened up with an Open Night of dodgeball and not the regular season. That was nice since we do have so many new players, it really give them a good shot at getting a feel for the game.

However a drawback of Open Night is that you tend to play more than in a regular game. I did my best not to overthrow, but did get some soreness as the night went on. Oh well, it doesn’t feel all that bad the next day, but it’s still something to be aware of.

All in all I have to say that this may very well be the best guys squad that we’ve ever had. The addition of Steve and Jacob really brought another solid arm and an abundance of energy to the team. Everyone on the roster also seems to be very intelligent players too. They naturally played off one another.

I’m really interested to see how this plays out.

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Sports

Shorthanded Improbable Kickball Victory

I do believe our victory over Pitches be Crazy last night was the finest athletic team effort I’ve ever been a part of. We were down a guy in the field all game, only started with 2 girls and had to take the out penalty, and played a fairly strong team.
Well in one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen, I watched us all take the field in the first missing 2 fielders giving them Grand Canyon sized gaps to kick to. With some amazing fielding we walked away giving up only 2 runs and would hold it to that until the very last inning. We won I believe 15-4 (though it may of been more for us) and all the ref could do was look at me like how is this really happening.
It was really awesome and I’m so proud that everyone gave it their all and played so well. It’d of been very easy to just assume that we couldn’t win with our lack of a proper roster.
A pretty amazing game.
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Sports

Kickball Opening Day Spring 2014

Easily on of my favorite times of year is the opening day of SJSL Spring kickball. The weather if finally starting to get nice again (even more grateful after this past winter), I welcome back teammates and say hello to opponents whom I haven’t seen in a little while. A great time.

While we still are staying with the majority of our past Honey Badgers kickball core, we do have some changes this season. Sitting out the Spring season are both Geoff and John B. As anyone who follows kickball knows, that’s quite a lot of talent to take from a team. Geoff has easily been one of the best kickers in the entire league, and John B. perhaps one of the best overall players.

New to the team this season are Dave and Meghan. Dave has been a most pleasant addition to our dodgeball roster and should bring a bit more speed to our lineup. Meghan played volleyball with us and as a fierce competitor will surely be a great addition to the team as well.

Our opening day opponent was the Fresh Kicks of Ball Air (clever name). While many of them we recognizable from past kickball seasons, they are a new franchise and we were eager to play them.

Unfortunately just a few hours before game time I found out that longtime Badger Kevin was unable to play. After frantically working my phone, I was able to get John B. to fill in on short notice much to the delight of the team (he’s a well liked teammate of course).

We did start off with a bit of rust defensively giving up 3 runs in the first inning. However, we did answer back rather swiftly tying it up in no time. From that point the game really turned into more of a traditional Honey Badger defensive struggle.

We would pick up a run, they would tie it back up, etc. Eventually late in the game we were able to tack on some extra runs giving us a 8-5 lead. Scarily in the top of the seventh our opponent would load the bases with no outs. With a little bit of luck and some heads up plays we someone we able to escape unscathed and held on for a 8-5 victory!

It was a great team victory with everyone contributing in a big way. Everyone seemed most pleased and seemed to have a good time. I do believe we will have a very competitive team this season and look forward to continued success.

Categories
Development Sports

QR Codes on Honey Badger Awards

QR codeA few years back at work QR codes were really becoming quite the fad. Every industry article seemed to herald them as the next big thing. They were supposed to be on everything by now.

Sadly we had a difficult time not only finding great success using qr codes, but also finding examples of others finding great success with them too.

Well, at the end of every SJSL season I hand out awards to my teammates. It’s a lot of fun to come up with nicknames, haikus, stats, etc. and share them with everyone at the end of the season.

This year one of our dodgeball opponents whom we played twice happened to of recorded our games. He was kind enough to post on Facebook, and I downloaded them all and began to sort and edit all those minutes into personal highlights for everyone on the team.

The really cool part was that I was able to upload a nice little clip to YouTube and then I created QR codes for each clip that were then included on their award. So simple, but also turned out to be a perfect use of the technology.

They can hand their award up with pride on their refrigerators and friends and take out their smartphone and get to view their personal dodgeball highlights right on their smartphones.

This turned out to be such a very simple and effective use of QR codes! I will have to do this again for future seasons.

Categories
Sports

Dodgeball Winter 2014 Season

Sadly the Winter season of dodgeball concluded last night. Tuesday night dodgeball is something that I truly enjoy and look forward too all week long. Though frankly, my body will be glad to get a break. The season renders me imbalanced and I’m kinda like a crab with one big claw (right side) and a little claw (left side) from all the throwing I do each week.

This season was very interesting. The majority of the players had returned from our Fall season, with the loss of Jared due to injury and Ed starting up his own team. While we were gifted with a very favorable schedule for the regular season, I didn’t feel that we played up to our potential overall. Though we really did step it up when we faced former teammate Ed’s squad. Those were some great games and our only regular season wins.

I was very pleased with how I played this season, it was probably my best overall season. I’m still amazed at how I’ve been able to throw a year removed from elbow reconstructive surgery. Not only was I able to throw, but I was able to throw very hard and accurately this season! I was only caught once in the 9 games played! Though my reaction time is not what it used to be due to I suspect age and found myself getting pegged when  a few years ago I’d of gotten out of the way and or made a catch. Damn you age!

Though our regular season was a disappointment to me, we really picked the best time to step it up and play great as a team in the playoffs last night. Our opponent the Banzai Executioners had beaten us twice during the regular season, so we knew it was going to be a tight contest.

We heavily went over strategy before the game, and I was extremely pleased to see how well we were able to follow the plan and execute. However, a huge nod has to go out to the opponents for having an excellent plan and executing theirs as well. This was not only a slugfest, but a chess match as well for both sides.

Banzai got up 4-2, but we were able to answer back and tie it up at 4-4. Each and every match was so close and really came down to who didn’t make an errant throw or came up with a big catch. It was really exciting.

Eventually we were able to get the game up to 8-6, and they forced it to a 8-7 with some gutsy play by their girls. Our guys did not want this to go to overtime and really played a great match game. It’s was intense. Got some pegs early on, then used to clock a bit. They answered back with a massive peg with time running down, only for us to make a huge catch and get the numbers back in our favor.

Victory was ours! An amazing game and a true classic. The SJSL and dodgeball were to the true winners after that contest.

As great as our playoff victory was, we now had to immediately play the 5-time defending champs and rested Ghostbusters.

While we would eventually fall to them 9-1, I was really proud of just how hard everyone played that game. We were clearly spent, and sore from the early battle but kept those matches a lot closer than the final score will say.

It was a really great night to be a Honey Badger, and an fantastic end to our season. Thanks so much to all for such a great time!