As if waking up from a deep much-needed slumber, its hard to believe the kickball regular is already over. It seems like only yesterday when there was so much anticipated and excitement for Opening Day. Now the excitement shifts over to the post-season.
In past seasons, this would be about the time we would enter into a confusing 3 divisional inclusive playoff with weird, convoluted seeding. However this season the seeding is much more straight forward as there are just two main divisions, the King of Kickball and the Wreck Division.
In addition, each group now sports their own 8 team playoff and championship title. However in all honesty, the King of Kickball title is obviously and undoubtedly the more coveted, celebrated title. While the new Wreck title serves as a good pat-on-the-back for the 9th best team in the league. Not to take away anything from the Wreckers, but it's supposed to be a "fun" league, no?
I would be remiss though if I didn't admit that there were some interesting story lines from the Happy Land known as the Wreck Division. Starting off with the fact that going into the last week of the regular season half the division had a losing record. The only teams that had a productive season were the four more experienced teams. Kickball Nation would argue these 4 teams are essentially "sand-baggers" with no business playing in the Wreck Division. However I would argue that playing Wreck is more a state-of-mind rather than a specific skill level. But it is evident that teams Just Kickin' It, Pitch Please, the Kickballaz, and Pitches Aint Shit are considerably better than the rest of their Wreck colouges.
Which may be a cause for some concern, because this kind of trend often leads to team participation problems. Experienced teams beating up on rookie teams on a weekly basis results in discouraged players. And discouraged teams and players are less likely to register for future seasons. The solution may be creating some sort of higher-tier level within the Wreck League? Or creating a lower-tier division within the King of Kickball. Either way, I'm sure the off-season will be filled with many debates and coaches meetings to determine a fair and prudent course of action to group teams in a way that will lead to teams becoming discouraged less quickly.
The new rules implemented for the new Wreck Division were initially supposed to "level" the playing field between experienced teams and rookie teams. Although the rules were a nice change, their desired effect was not achieved. The experienced teams still had a strangle hold on much of the division. However the amount of offense created by the division was impressive and a good indicator that, at the very least, the games are fun and entertaining.
On a side note, this will be the first season that SCK's original rule of the "Gentleman's Pitch" will be used in post-season play, but only within the Wreck group. Which means their is still hope for even the most inexperienced team to have a shot at a championship title.
Well that's all for now, until next time
Good Luck and Happy Kicking!
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