Evil Empire: A Dodge-umentary

A few seasons ago my friend and film auteur Jared Bryer came to every Evil Empire dodgeball game and put together an impressive documentary. It's taken a while, but he's recently got it up online for all to see.


The Evil Empire: A Dodge-Umentary from Jared Bryer on Vimeo.

The difference between you and us? We make this look good...

Thursday night's Evil Empire game was bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. We were playing the Shweaty Balls, a fairly experienced rec team that features a few players from the very first dodgeball season. With practice, they'll be one of the stronger teams in the league, they just have to work on ball control and working in sync with each other.

Unfortunately for them, they're not there yet.

Our first game we beat them 15-10, and this game would be even more lopsided with us winning 20-9. Obviously, playing 29 games (really, 30 games if you include the all-in round at the end of the game) in just 55 minutes shows how fast the pace of the game was. The rounds were, on average less then two minutes long. That's twice as fast as our last match-up.

The high-velocity game, coupled with the very small gym at Blessed John school made for a very exciting game that had some ridiculous plays. One shot went off Tool Time, but before the ball was able to hit the ground, 8Mile got a hand on it, and had the ball roll down his arm, along his shoulders and back before he was able to get his other hand on it for the catch.

I was able to catch a throw from their strongest player by jabbing my elbow into the ball as it hit my side. I managed to pin it long enough to grab it with my other hand.

However, the play of the night goes to My Pet Monster who made the sneakiest carny move I've ever seen. With the Shweaty Balls down to just two players, My Pet Monster wound up and threw a slow, arching lob at one of them. Every member of the Empire audibly gasped. The other player read the ball perfectly, dropped the ball he was holding, and caught MPM's toss. The Shweaty Balls bench exploded and a player ran on to the court.

But MPM pointed at the other player and said "YOU'RE OUT! YOU DROPPED THE BALL!"

You see, TCSSC recently changed their rules so that they clearly state:

4. iv. Once in possession of a ball, a player cannot under any circumstances place a ball back down on their own side of the court. By doing so, that player is out. This includes putting a ball down in an attempt to catch on a second incoming ball. If you drop the original ball (by accident or on purpose), you are out.

What a wily veteran play. MPM knew that this guy had played before and that in an intense, high-speed game would rely upon his instincts. Unfortunately for our opponent, his instincts were wrong. What a play.

It was a wild game with lots of crazy plays, weird bounces and circus catches and a hell of a lot of fun to play. I am concerned though. I don't want a wild and fun game like that to reinforce any bad, lazy habits on the court. In a lot of ways, our loss to Shouldice the previous week was a better game with sounder fundamentals and stronger tactical play. However, the league has announced that this week's game is going to be postponed, so we have a week off. Hopefully, that'll let us clear our heads and focus on the kind of play that makes us such a dominant team.

In any event, it was a crazy fun and exciting game. Observe the orgy that ensued:


That's a lot of dude-on-dude action.

Because Blessed John is such a small gym, the Reg Dunlop Memorial Award was geared toward ball control, a facet of the game that is always an issue in the smaller dodgeball venues. The format was simple: Every time you swept a ball, you'd get a point. Whoever had the most points would win. It was all about the ladies, as Kannah beat out Pocahontas by a single sweep to win the lovely CIBC coffee mug. Congratulations Kannah Hoh, who can now drink a cup of joe.

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Tip your waitress.

No love for the Asian sensation

The differences between my two dodgeball teams and leagues are myriad. Although the recreational league on Tuesday nights is full of confusion and chaos with people being ignorant of the rules, my rec team, the Moth Balls, are quite tranquil in their approach to the game. Our last game, for example, was really laid back on the bench, even though the other team were jerks and had no idea what the rules were. On the other hand, in the competitive/intermediate league everyone is much more experienced and knows the rules. Any unfamiliarity with the rules comes from the captains not properly communicating any changes that might have been made at the last minute to the rules. That said, the teams are vicious and will have a nasty disposition towards each other most of the time.

Last night's game is a perfect example of this: we were playing a team called SLAUGHTERHOUSE, who we've played at least once before. I am also pretty sure that they've played in previous seasons on other nights or divisions. They were very familiar with the old rules as well as the new rules. However, how they decided to apply them was sketchy. The new rules state that anyone hit in the head is safe, but the person who threw the ball is out. One of their players therefore made a point of getting on his hands and knees and tried to get hit squarely in the back of the head every time we had the ball.

He knew the rule, but he chose to use it as a sword instead of a shield.

They also engaged in something I like to call "Wishing someone off the court". Tool Time blocked a ball, and The Deal was able to slide under and catch his ball. However, they insisted that Tool Time had been hit by a second ball. Really, any ball that came near Tool Time they'd call him out, whether it hit him or not.

In particular, they had one player, who we took to calling Asian Sensation, who was a pain in the ass. He'd call "Ready Set Dodgeball" before we had most of our players on the court. He'd then call it again, but this time while he was three or four steps away from the wall. He'd get hit and not leave the floor and he was one of the main perpetrators of wishing off the court. He was generally just a pain. The worst part? He wasn't even that good a player!

Fortunately, we easily beat them 16-13. More importantly, we played a much more relaxed game then the previous week where we got completely out of hand. That is now my going concern - - making sure that we as a team, as a group of friends, can improve our sportsmanship and stay loose for each and every game. It is definitely our biggest weakness as a team, and is more often then not our Achilles Heel.

We take summers off because we love winter beef...

After my first game with the Moth Balls I was really sore. I mean, really really sore. I had picked up a very attractive scab on my right hip from floor-burn from sliding on the floor, and was generally sore from getting back into the swing of things. Also, my new job which is about 90% heavy-lifting didn't help either.

Fortunately, the Evil Empire's game was at Blessed John Elementary School and featured the Tiniest Gym Ever(tm). Seriously, the gym is maybe thirty paces deep. Our game was against the Shweaty Balls who've played a great deal of dodgeball at the recreational and intermediate levels. Surprisingly, we'd never played them before, at least not in this incarnation. Their captain, Jen, had been a member of the Dodgefathers, one of the better teams we regularly play. They also had a player who had been on a team called Chocolate Salty Balls, a team that soundly defeated us in our first season five years ago.

Unlike my game with the Moth Balls, I was feeling little rust, and I don't think many of us on the Empire were. I got two catches, including a low catch where I had to drop to my knees to end a round, and my throws were humming. In particular, I made good use of exiting players to catch our opponents by surprise. Although we were running a short bench (with Vaggio injured, Hot Sauce in class, The Deal at work, and Smirnoff out drinking after a work event) everyone played really well.

In particular, 8Mile played really well. This was the first game of only his second season, but he played exceedingly well. He got at least five catches, and, most impressively, was an excellent striker. I won't get in to too much detail, as I am planning on dedicating a future post to the topic, but in short, a strike a counter-attack. 8Mile was really quick at grabbing a loose ball and running in and pegging our opponents at short range just as they had, or were about to, throw a barrage at our team. He broke up a lot of their plays, and insured that every time they got one of us out, we got one of them out. It really was a masterful performance!

One highlight of the game was that I had asked the other team's captain to call head shots neutral since no one is going to purposely get hit in the head with a ball, and no one wants to purposely hit anyone in the head with the ball. Seeing the sense in my suggestion, she agreed.

We promptly hit one of their players in the head, particularly in his face, at least ten times.

It wasn't on purpose, it was just bad luck. Pocahontas hit him two or three times because the ball slipped from her hand. My Pet Monster and Tool Time were both having their balls spin up and in to his face, and even I hit him at close range when he ducked down low and caught the ball in the jaw. Eventually, he lost his cool and told us that it was bullshit that we'd asked for head shots to be neutral and that we had to stop throwing low.

Much to my surprise, and pleasure, Jimmers calmly spoke to him after that round and told him that we weren't doing it on purpose and that he should calm down. Yelling wouldn't get us anywhere. It was nice to see Jimmers, who in the past has been the most hot-headed member of our team, be the voice of reason.

We played a very tight game with excellent teamwork and communication and won 15-10. We also got full spirit points, putting us in a three way tie for first place along with our nemesis New Sense Presents: Girls' Night Out and our friends on Dodgebull 2.

This season, we're doing what we call the Reg Dunlop Award every week. The Reg Dunlop is, essentially, a prize that goes to someone on our team for completing a particular task. This week, it was to see who could catch the most balls in a game. It came down to Week One MVP 8Mile and Jimmers, both of whom had caught five or six balls. In the end, it came down to a tie-breaker in the final, all-in round. 8Mile was eliminated in the round early, and Jimmers was able to win with a low grab. His prize was a very nice Wilson Athletics Backpack which he decided to give to Banana who insisted she needed a new backpack. (see picture)