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June 15, 2008
Force Football - My Predictions for the 2008 Chicago Force Regular Season
Regular readers know that I never predict the future, I just predict the past. So, the fact that I'm making predictions about the 2008 women's football regular season means the season is, in fact, over. Fortunately, the Chicago Force is going to be in the playoffs this year, so it's not all over.
The Force closed the regular season yesterday at home, defeating the Wisconsin Wolves 42-7. The Force have won every game this year. In the IWFL Eastern Conference, the only other undefeated team is the Pittsburgh Passion. According to the tie-breaking rules of the league, absent any games between the two tied teams, the leader is determined by the number of points allowed in regular season games. The Force only allowed 35 points and the Passion allowed 81, so the Force seeds at the top of the conference. This means that they get the home field advantage in any playoff games, and since the championship is in Chicago this year, there is a real possibility that the Force could play three post-season games right here in Chicago at Holmgren Field. (Note the convenient link I'm providing so you can get directions.)
Rest assured that if this happens, I will predict it. In the meantime, here's more about yesterday's game.
Veteran fullback Bridget Fahrner's parents were in the stands this time, and as a result, the cheering got pretty rowdy. Bruce and Peg-Eye Nate chose a short bench in the front so that the vibrations from the umbrella-banging wouldn't bother people, but Nate was so excited that he still got complaints. Fortunately, his new umbrella, which is a steel-shaft reinforced 62" Gustbuster Pro Gold Series, survived the heavy banging. This was a new thing for Nate.
The Wolves made one touchdown, in the second quarter of the game, a long pass to Wolves Wide Receiver McGee Steffes. Steffes evaded a last-ditch diving tackle by Force safety Linda Bache to get into the end zone; however, as I predicted late last night after the game, it was the last touchdown the Force would allowed all season.
The most intense part of the game came in the last minute of the first half. With no time-outs left and the clock running down from 30 seconds, the Force ran three plays in rapid succession culminating in a touchdown by Melissa Smith with only 8 seconds left. It was the team's fourth touchdown of the game and Smith's third. This has been an incredible year for Smith, who has a rushing average of 84 yards per game (a feat which I will be predicting later today).
The Force has been stressing its passing game in the past several weeks. Notable passes yesterday include a 30-yard throw from quarterback Sam Grisafe to Patricia Harper and a second-quarter touchdown pass to Angie Bandstra. I have on a previous occasion talked about the sheer insanity of the forward pass in football, which involves plucking a ball out of the air while running away from it and avoiding a cluster of angry defensive players. Bruce himself experienced a little of this during the after party when a giant poster of veteran Tight End Trish Nelson fell on top of him. As I could have predicted, he completely agreed with me about the whole insanity thing.
Also, regarding the after party, Bruce would like to point out that if you are going to make a candle holder that looks like a drinking glass, then it should not drip hot wax out of the bottom when somebody accidentally picks it up.
Finally, I would like to give a shout-out to Conservative Cat reader KentuckyJim, who stopped by to talk to Bruce and Nate at the game. Jim is a quality control and management consultant who lives in Kentucky but occasionally works in Chicago. Normally, when Bruce meets with quality control experts, it ends in violence and death threats, but fortunately, Jim's area of expertise is nuclear energy and environmental management, so he didn't make the mistake of criticizing Bruce's work.
Anyway, the first playoff game is June 28-- less than two weeks from today-- at the Force home stadium, at 3pm. The Force will be playing their arch-enemies, the Detroit Demolition. We absolutely must win that game in order to proceed to the championship, so if you're going to be in the area, be sure to stop by and cheer them on.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Sun 1:20 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (0) | More Force Football | Tags: Angie Bandstra Bridget Fahrner Chicago Force feminism football humor IWFL Linda Bache McGee Steffes Patricia Harper Patricia Nelson Pittsburgh Passion predictions Sam Grisafe Wisconsin Wolves women
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