And the Winner Is... (21 Jul 2008)
The dust has settled on this latest edition of the Altador Cup, and to the surprise of many, the winner of this year's tournament is not the mighty top-ranked Krawk Island team, but rather their scrappy foes from Roo Island. In what will surely be remembered as a match for the ages, the margin between these two island outfits remained razor-thin throughout the contest, with neither team pulling ahead for very long without having to withstand an onslaught by the other. Despite efforts on both sides to pull out trick plays and unusual formations, these highly-disciplined squads rarely allowed themselves to be drawn into the other's trap. In the end, the glory of winning a championship was to be earned through sweat and grit rather than gimmicks. Under normal circumstances, the match would most likely have ended in a tie. However, since this is the finals, the teams were left to slug it out until one emerged victorious. In the end that team was Roo Island, who scored what would turn out to be the winning goal when an intercepted pass by Fenny Vail was followed by a perfect lob to Lilo Blumario that spanned more than half the playing field. Blumario, in a single motion, caught Vail's pass in mid-air and flipped it behind his back to a cutting Jair Tollet, who sent a perfectly-placed shot into the back left corner of Krawk Island's net, just beyond the outstretched reach of a diving Garven Hale. In addition to this year's terrific championship match, fans of Shenkuu and the Lost Desert were treated to an outstanding contest of their own for third place. Unlike the upset in the championship match, the higher-seeded Lost Desert squad came away with the win. As an additional treat, for the first time this year teams that didn't make the finals were able to compete in three additional brackets to determine 5th through 8th, 9th through 12th, and 13th through 16th place. Rather than holding form, there were a number of upsets in the lower brackets, as sixth-seeded Meridell finished fifth, eleventh-seeded Maraqua wound up tenth, fourteenth-seeded Altador came in thirteenth, and the lowest ranked squad, Faerieland, managed to knock-off Brightvale and finish fifteenth. Congratulations to Roo Island on their well-deserved championship victory, and sincere thanks to all who participated in this year's tournament and made it such an excellent event!