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Great series man. You threw everything at me. Momentum shifted a few times. I was almost sure I had it in the bag after a big game 3 win. Maybe too sure. You just did a lot of things right after that, vggs.

xCing1030 takes Vancouver for SNES-B He sent me his pick on AIM as he can't get on the site atm.

annatar takes Boston for SNES-A

It's me and you plabax. Great series c4, that was back and forth. Not sure what happened in the first period of our last game. You were on your game just came apart for you a bit at the end.

Am available tonight to confirm people. Just got SK34 up and running. I know there are a couple other people that posted in one thread or another but haven't been confirmed yet. Let's get that sorted out.

There will be multiple Genesis leagues for sure aqualizard. Probably 3 leagues.

I tried adding you to the group chat. It said a request was sent.

Just to touch on this me and Mikail played some games tonight and his connection definitely works, he has a few lag issues but I think he will still give everyone a run for their money. You are confirmed on the site, we can try to work out the kinks before the real games start but no issues with netplay at least.

Hey SK34 is that your AIM name as well? Someone will get you added to the AIM group. I can't play anymore tonight but we can get you confirmed this week.

Confirmed driver. Test games running great. Didn't see any backhand puck flip goals though bud.

driver I got you added to the blast group. We can do a test game this week. Anyone else new feel free to contact me or anyone else in the SNES chat. There are a few people that still need to be confirmed.

shaftman, schwartz, snesboy, thanks for getting signed up! I will be harassing more people before the deadline. Tell your friends. Let's boost these numbers.

I run full screen, 1280x1024 S FULL. Not sure if that's weird but it works fine for me. I have an old monitor though and that's the native resolution. You might want to disable some of the options like AA or triple buffering if it's not running smoothly.

Really great write up bud. Appreciate the shoutout and I wish we had got to chat more. Also wish I'd known you were in Montreal after! Super impressed with the amount of miles you've put in and the different places you've thrown down, definitely a real ambassador for the game.

Thanks for the ROM Raph and for the games, always a pleasure, the series was closer than a couple of the scores indicated. You had the offense rolling. Just not an easy out.

Me and Raph will try to play tonight. We can make do without a playoff rom, if games go to OT just save state I guess.

There are a lot of SNESers that I want to see signed up. Let's get this going, I will be harassing people this week. I notice we have at least one new registrant some of you might remember from Toronto...

Didn't know you were sick all weekend bud! You're a trooper! That makes your showing even more impressive. Our game was one of the toughest for me, I think I was overexcited a bit from winning my group and I was playing loose... big mistake! Great read. Glad to finally meet you, you are exactly the same in person as online, haha. That signed Sega copy is really nice, great gesture.

Did I really win 10 tosses? I played so many games against the same guy so we were just going back and forth.

I got suuuper lucky at the end of this game. The way you described it is exactly how it went down. How the puck stayed out I don't know. I think it was probably so disturbing I was able to steal the win in OT. I don't remember exactly how I set up the winning goal but I think it was a quick one timer on the right side from Fleury. In retrospect this was not a good matchup for me. Calgary is one of those teams that on paper should be awesome but in practice I never seem to get the most out of them. You like the same teams as me so I should have known you'd take LA. Again I remember nothing from this game except the very end, but it was the least stressful of all the knockout games for me cause I wouldn't have been overly upset if I'd lost. Interesting how you also picked that WAS-BOS matchup. I didn't realize that. Really didn't work out for me in the last game but my team didn't show up either. I would take Washington against anyone... still. I liked your idea to take OTT-SJ against Mikail but those teams are tough on the road. Great write up man! I will definitely have to make the trip to Ottawa sooner rather than later.

Really great writeup Raph, it was awesome to get some insight into the Gens tournament. It's too bad we couldn't have somehow had more free time during the day to watch the other system's games.

I already posted some shout outs but I wanted to put together a bit of a recap while everything is fresh. Instead of running through all the events of my weekend I was inspired by Elliotte Friedman's 30 Thoughts column. So here's my 30 thoughts about King of '94! Obviously this is slanted towards my own experience and the SNES tournament. Hope you enjoy anyway! 30 Thoughts 1. Despite months of thinking about the event, it was still surreal to walk into the lobby outside Real Sports and have to answer the question: "Sega or Nintendo?" I don't think it had really hit home until that moment. 2. I instantly regretted not wearing a retro hockey sweater. I didn't recognize most of the guys in the room but halifax was running through an orientation speech and I was just trying to soak everything in. 3. I think everyone from the forum was a little afraid they would lose their first game. I picked the Kings and Rangers, two consistent teams, and ended up winning comfortably with LA. My opponent was a super friendly guy named Jeff from--I think--Long Island who took the loss like a champ. We wished each other luck and he went on to beat a couple more guys in the loser bracket before bowing out. 4. My second game was a preview of the final. Of course nobody knew it yet. I lost the coin toss and selected the Rangers against Mikail's Montreal. He was gracious when I pulled out an OT win but his hype man was shocked. I had 2 wins from 2 games but I knew then this was going to be serious. 5. The latter part of the group stage went by in a total blur. The bracket says I beat Randy 5-3 in a WAS-STL matchup to clinch the top seed but I couldn't tell you a single thing that happened in the game. My only goal coming in was to make the last 16 and I'd done it. 6. More on teams in a minute, but there was an interesting strategic element to the coin toss. This was something I neglected to study in the buildup to the tournament, and by the time the important games rolled around I was regretting not having my preferred matchups ready to go. 7. There were 366 SNES games played in total. All 26 teams saw action. Most used? Montreal and Quebec were picked 28 times, followed by Buffalo and Detroit at 27. Least used was Tampa who saw action just once, with halifax at the helm. Everyone's favourite super bud won 5-1 against his opponent's Florida. The team selection process meant some of the strongest teams (PIT, CHI, BOS) were middle of the pack as people were afraid to hand their opponent a formidable weapon. I then ignored this rule in the last game of the day. 8. A few players (including Mikail) opted to continuously throw their favourite team into the mix and hope their opponent would choose the other one. Others were handed a gift when they lost the toss and got to pick the team they wanted anyway. See group F when The90Jacket mysteriously gave BoKnows the Sabres and got smoked 7-0. In all, BoK played 3 games with Buffalo and swept his opponents while outscoring them 22-3. 9. Offense ruled the day. Winner Mikail scored by far the most goals, netting 72 in the group stage and another 57 in the final. His GFA of 9 in group G fell to a still more than respectable 6.33 GFA in the last 16. The stingiest player in the final group was BoKnows at 3.5 GAA, but overall nobody was really able to prevent the elite players from lighting the lamp. 10. Mikail also played the most games, at 17, of anyone in either the SNES or Genesis brackets. For a guy like him who was less master strategist and more battering ram, the extra practice might have helped keep his reflexes sharp. I played 13 and it was not my lucky number. 11. Speaking of lucky numbers, in a triple elimination format with 16 teams the most games anyone can play is 9. Although several players did reach the maximum in the finals, with no shows in the mix in the group stages only one person out of 128 (Tom D. in the Hull bracket) went the distance. The number 9 is considered lucky in some cultures but Tom would likely disagree as he lost his 9th game to a determined halifax. The score? 9-0. 12. That moment when you had to explain to your family or significant other that you're flying to Toronto for a videogame tournament. Oh, and the game is roughly 3 years older than the current crop of NHL rookies. 13. I wanted to try to learn people's real names but definitely had some lapses when I wasn't paying attention. Sorry Bob Kudelski. I mean Adam. Bob just rolls off the tongue. His wife seemed to take it in stride though and even asked me what my username was and what it meant. 14. How great was it when someone scored a big goal and it just happened to sync up with a Blue Jays home run? With the horn blaring and everyone cheering you'd be forgiven for thinking everyone in the bar was there to watch us play instead of bandwagoning the Jays. 15. The most in the zone I've ever felt playing '94 was my semi final games against Mikail where I won 2 straight to send him down and propel me to the final. Perhaps it was too emotionally draining because over on the Genesis side kingraph turned the same trick against kgman and, like me, gave it all back in the final. 16. I allowed 11 goals in the last 2 games. I probably needed to keep that under 10. 17. Everyone is saying it, but it bears repeating. Mikey deserves all the credit in the world for making this event happen. I'm also pretty sure I met Evan and had no idea who he was, so I probably looked like an idiot. The whole day must have been an amazing experience for both of these buds. 18. Maybe it's because I figure I have a chance of ending up in the movie, but I'm super excited to see Mikey's finished product. 19. Name tag problems. They kept flipping around so you couldn't see the name. So you'd have people walking around asking a group of people if any of them was called John. Best part? Sometimes the people would look down at their own name tag before answering. 20. I don't think I realized until the event started how different it is playing next to your opponent in a crowded bar versus playing at home. This was the first time I had played seriously in a public venue and the adrenaline rush was unreal. 21. Despite the high level of play, I wonder how things would have played out if some of the top players who couldn't make it to Toronto had been there. Take the people we already had and add the likes of Grayto, Oilers442 and c4outlaws? It would have been a gauntlet. 22. I would have paid money to see Oilers442 take on Mikail. Defense meets offense. Oilers would be almost guaranteed to get his preferred Edmonton every other game and I think he could have taken down the beast. Simpson 3:16. We missed you out there bud. 23. It's been discussed but it seems it's a little easier to play SNES at a high level than it is Genesis. I wonder if any of the top Gens players could have been competitive in both brackets? I think an angryjay or kingraph could have easily snuck into the last 16 in SNES. On the other hand after holding kgman to "only" a 5-2 win in the King of '94 final, I am curious if Mikail might have been able to win some Genesis games. 24. That being said I feel safe saying there is nobody on the planet who could reasonably expect to win both tournaments. 25. It does go to show how far we are from optimizing the SNES game. Outsiders walked in and beat some established online players. There were more than a few humbling moments for forum members who got shown a thing or two by the "nobodies". 26. I spoke to chaos after his second loss and he was looking everywhere for his next opponent (Wu-Tang hoodie). Eventually he was awarded the win by forfeit and quipped, "I would have beaten him anyway". The confidence clearly wasn't misplaced as he ran off 5 wins in a row to get out of elimination bracket hell. That's backing up the talk. 27. File this under: what happens in the DoubleTree stays in the DoubleTree (except when it's on film)--the bludgeoning death of a Sega Genesis console. Mikail didn't look like he wanted to stop swinging the sledgehammer and I was just waiting for him to either take out some of the furniture or punch a hole in the floor. We had to settle for a visit from security. 28. It was funny how you could throw a whole bunch of hockey fans from different places in a room and nobody was talking about their team or taking potshots at someone else's team. Somehow '94 brings everyone together. 29. There's no substitute for puck luck. I had a total of 6 wins by 1 goal including two in OT. Normally goal differential is a good indicator of success but in a relatively short tournament you can get away with it. My barely there +0.33 goal difference in the final was second worst of the top 6 finishers. Mikail cruised to a +2.67 GD. 30. McMarkis (one of the guys I regret not being able to meet) pointed out this week, "You got paid to play '94" which is pretty crazy--but it was never the money and always the pride and bragging rights that we fought for. When's the next one? I have some unfinished business.

Some personal shout outs to buds I had the pleasure of hanging out with over the weekend... Darrell/halifax: You were all over the place, organizing everything, logging scores, and playing some damn good games too. We had an epic 8-7 game where everything was going in. Great to finally meet you bud. John/chaos: Your lucky controller took me nearly all the way! I think at one point with you winning 5 straight to make it out of the group stage we had won 9 or 10 in a row with the same controller. You played awesome. Adam/Bob Kudelski: Classy guy who brought his wife and mother-in-law to the bar, love it! You were stone cold with that focus, we only played once for keeps but of course it went to OT. Congrats on third place man I wish you had somehow found a way past Mikail so we could have had an all-forum final. It wasn't meant to be. The boys from S'toon, tylerdeanhill, The90jacket/Cory and stheds/Brian: Hell of a time hanging out with you three, great buds, great players, this is what this forum is all about. I just need to come out to SK sometime and play for the jacket now. Mike/snesboy: Rocking the Super Nintendo Chalmers Jays jersey, we didn't cross paths in the tourney but it was great to meet you and it looks like you played some super solid games, congrats on the top 10 finish! Mat/schwartz: Straight outta Winnipeg, one of the most genuine buds out of a whole group of great buds, he bought me my shirt and had a bunch of the SNES boys sign it so I have a pretty sweet memento. One of the most dangerous players out there too with a top 5 finish, looking forward to crossing paths with you again. Also one of the funniest moments was Darrell just shutting down that guy who tried to crack a joke before the King of '94 games and me and you were losing it. You had to be there! The other Adam/BoKnows: Your energy was contagious man and you were a tough opponent as always, I was thrilled to get past you in the final. Sweet Ron Francis jersey too. Etienne/etevans and the Quebec crew, we didn't get to talk a lot but we had a great game and you guys looked like you were having a ton of fun, glad you made it! Top 10 finish for you too, congrats on the super solid play. Shaftman: Rumor has it he does have a real name but after this weekend it's officially just Shaftman. Super nice bud and a solid player who had some bad luck in the group stage, sometime we will have to try to organize a Montreal meetup to get some games going. Who else am I forgetting... On the Genesis side with the schedule being pretty compact I didn't get to watch much of your games or hang out too much but have to shout out to Raph, Brutus and angryjay/Greg cause it was great to put faces to names for these guys who have been known to slum it with us SNESers on occasion. Raph was my mirror image in the Genesis bracket and his tough loss in the finals somehow makes me feel better about mine. Brutus/Doug also may have been responsible for the destruction of an SNES console but I won't hold it against you. The best part for me was just how the SNES crew came together and supported each other against the pretty strong contingent of non-forum peeps, I was feeling it down the stretch and it definitely helped me go as far as I did. There was honestly nobody I talked to from either system who wasn't a great guy. Unless that dude in the Wu-Tang hoodie is reading this, you were kinda sketchy man.

I'll do more of a writeup when I'm home but just wanted to say it was awesome meeting all the buds and the whole event was beyond amazing. Kudos to halifax, chaos, Mikey and everyone else involved. I'm still salty about losing though. Need to lick my wounds.

Mikail was good. I played him six times yesterday and went 3-3. So that's almost a best of 7. I didnt lose to anyone else. He had a straightforward style but no obvious weaknesses and didn't make a lot of mistakes. Solid with the goalie. Good recipe for success. Yeah I gave him too good a team in the last game. I had two chances to win though and didn't. The fact that someone can split games with me isn't surprising. There are a few guys around that can do that any day (some not at the tourney).