2017 – Opening Day

It’s almost here! The start of the 22nd season of the GCCGL! We have a lot to talk about so let’s start with the 2017 Draft. Syndrome had the coveted first pick of the 2017 draft which was to start at 8:00am sharp on March 31^st however Syndrome was nowhere to be found. Texts and phone calls went unanswered for 35 minutes until finally a response. Poor Ollie worked the night before, stayed up all night and never left the office so that he could be present for the draft. He kept popping into my office every 5 minutes wanting to know what was going on. “I don’t know Ollie, I’m working here!” It was a very busy morning for me, I was on the phone, dodging email, I have Ollie complaining to me just outside my office door and Lip Gloss skyping me that he can’t get a hold of Syndrome! And it was only 8:15am! All because Syndrome was out late the night before at BW’s, drank one too many Labatt’s and wound up hitting the snooze button a few too many times. Thanks Syndrome!

Despite a 35 minute delay, the draft did take place and by all accounts, seemed to go off rather smoothly. There were some surprises but overall it was a fair and balanced draft. There was a twist this season. This is the first time, in the GCCGL draft era, that a team was predetermined BEFORE the draft. As most of you know by now, Cletus demanded that we have a team of all current and former co-commissioners in order for him to commit to one more season as a fulltime member. These were his conditions and they were met without resistance. The league members were polled and no one shuttered at the thought of a team consisting of a Bimbo, Mimbo, Dumbo and Frodo. I think most of you can connect the references in that last sentence. Now, I love Cletus but the man robbed me of drafting my own team! I plan and wait for years for this opportunity and it gets snuffed out in a NY minute because Cletus wanted his last team to be an all-commissioners team. But hey….that’s OK. I don’t mind. Like I’ve said many times before, the Portuguese are a peaceful people. We just go with the flow.

The teams have been submitted. For all the flack we got for our pre-season predictions last year, the GCCGL commissioner’s office wound up correctly predicting the first and second place teams. Not bad huh? Here are what the experts are predicting for the 2017 season.

Young Guns (1)
Scratch gets his revenge after losing the GCCGL Championship by 1.16 points to an angry but determined Prince Albert and his band of misfits. They are by far the youngest team assembled this season and we think that will be enough to offset the Squints factor. (Relax, I’m just kidding Tucker!)

Roll Over and VanPelt-er In The Eiser (2)
This could arguably be one of the worst team names ever created in GCCGL history, and we’ve had some doosies! It’s a classic example of trying too hard. I applaud the creativity and the thought process but if you think I’m typing out this ridiculous name week in and week out, you obviously don’t know how lazy I am. From this point forward, I decree this team’s abbreviated name to be ROVER.

Strait to Church (3)
First of all, much better team name. Second of all, any team with GCCGL Hall of Famer, Big Donkey at the top and Syndrome at the bottom has to be favored to finish in the money. This team could make some serious noise and win the whole thing.

Birdies, Eagles and a Crowe (4)
Sorry, no repeat for Prince Albert this season. Several newcomers on this team keeps them out of the money. Besides, there’s talk of the Prince becoming complacent after his championship last season. With his motivation is gone and Cletus is on the disabled list, they finish in the middle of the pack.

Just End the Season (5)
The prediction for this team is by the 4^th week of the season they’ll all be begging to just end the season because they’ll be so far in the weeds, they’ll have dandelions growing out of every orifice.

Dropping Deuces (6)
This team has no chance. It was hand-picked by Cletus and doesn’t even have an official A Player on the team, sorry Lip Gloss but it’s true. The only chance this team has is that all the commissioners are on the team. There may be opportunities for controversial rule changes to gain an advantage here and there. They wouldn’t do that, would they?

Who do you think are the favorites and who do you think will be eliminated from contention by the end of April? Leave a comment for Pete’s sake! You don’t even need to log on anymore! What more do I have to do to get you knuckleheads to interact a little with the GCCGL blog? To leave a comment, you’ll need to click on the Title link of the blog post or on one of the Recent Comments:

The schedule is set! We hope to see you on the golf course and as always, hit ’em straight!

George Almeida – GCCGL Co-Commissioner