Originally posted by B$MONEY at PBNation
Thanx to all of our supporters for sticking up for us!
First, I don't want to take away anything from the Russian Legion, they are one of the best teams we have ever played! PERIOD. They have a technical proficiency that can't be rivaled unless you take the game as serious as they do.
Max Lunquist from Joy was guesting on the team; he was definitely one of their top 3 players. He won many points by himself and played nearly every game. Max's ability to freestyle his way through the game is something no other member of the RL could really do. They are trained to be robots, not free thinkers. I personally think that the RL would not have made it to the finals without him. Congrats to Max on some outstanding play!
Avalanche beat the RL straight up, then handed them the win. Avalanche was up 8-6 with less than 2 mins. remaining. Avalanche let the play clock wind down and called a time out. Actually a smart move. In 4 mins. Avalanche couldn't field 5 players, some real bad pit management! And the RL took advantage of it and put 2 quick points up on the board and forced the game into overtime, which of course the RL won! A testament to the RL's determination and organizational skills.
Our first game.
One side of the field was better than the other (right handed snake side) for both teams. The RL ran up the points from that side in the first half. And when we got the good side in the second half we came right back. It was a very close game. The officiating mistake was really unfortunate. We didn't even have the option to give them the point. The officials stuck to the rulebook on that one. The RL did get a 5 min. penalty and then we got one the very next game, which was complete crap! It was so bad that after the game Max came over and apologized to Johnny who got the penalty. Max explained that we had gotten the penalty because the officials wanted to even up the teams for the rest of the game and felt real bad about the point they screwed up on. So, they used us to fix their mistake. We won the last 3 games in a row (4 on 4) and sat on the clock to win the game. In that last game we had the positions to win the game should we have needed the point, but since we didn't we sat on them. Even though they knew they had to come at us to tie the game, they sat in their bunkers and took the loss, which I thought was very odd??
The penalty meant that Johnny couldn't play in the last game, so we had to make adjustments to fill his spot in the final match.
During the second game a marker that was being worked on with no barrel did discharge a paintball hitting Todd in the eye. The on site EMT's came in really fast and made sure Todd was alright before letting him continue to play.
In the second game, the RL took the good side first, which we could have taken but we wanted the good side in the second half. I don't really know if we made the right decision on that one? The RL ran up the points like we expected them to and when we switched sides, we ran the points right back up winning 3 games straight to make it 6-5 RL. The judging wasn't great in the first half and it got progressively worse in the second. For instance Ryan got a 2 min. penalty because a judge thought the yellow rubber in his gloves was a hit! That judge did however, apologize later. (I would also like to point out that some very good unbiased calls were made against both teams and that there were many refs on that field that did a great job under difficult conditions. But, there was an equal number of judges that made bad game altering calls. Nobody is perfect and we are all human.) In all there were 4 swing points that should have been ours that went to the RL. Of course one was our own coaching mistake. So, with our coaching mistake what was an 11-5 finish should have been an 8-8 finish with a who knows who, would have won in overtime? The score doesn’t really show how close the game really was.
The RL has definitely set the bar that we Americans have to step up too. I feel that they will do very well in the NXL should that be the place they end up? I heard that the top 4 EXL teams will not be allowed to play against the NXL teams at World Cup. So, we look forward to a re-match with the RL in Orlando. I was actually happy to see the expressions on their faces when the RL won. It was pure joy and proof to them that their strict training was worth it. That win was a long time coming. We figure they have put at least a million dollars into the RL team to beat us! LOL!
Federov was a killing machine and Olinin played really well! In fact the whole team played really well! They are technical perfectionists. I think the only reason we stayed with them was our ability to freestyle down the field and pure heart! I feel we need to obviously get more technical in our training and that will give us the points we need to stay ahead. However, the RL will develop their freestyle game with experience so I don't expect any game with them to ever be easy.
I would like to apologize for our coaches conduct after being heckled by the peanut gallery. And a sincere apology goes out to a specific RL player that tried to get into our pit area when he couldn't get on the field in time. That was very disrespectful treatment by us to a fellow PRO player. As far as Angels alleged conduct, you have to understand that when you approach a guy who's just lost an important finals game and is in the process of mentally berating himself for mistakes he feels he's made, you can't expect him to pretend nothing just happened and be the poster boy you want him to be. I'm sure Angel if not physically, mentally acknowledged anything you might have said to him. I think you should give him another chance off the field.
The venue was great, the grass was great, the layout was great, the games were pretty much on time, and the staff was nice and accommodating.
This of course is my personal opinion and my take on what I saw first hand, and not an official statement by Team Dynasty.
$B-Money$
