I Come to Bury Caesar, Not to Praise Him

UDU 4, DEVILS!!!!! 2
Barbaros 4, Let’s Go Fighting Hawks 2
Barbaros 4, UDU 3 (2OT)

Song will be sung and tales will be told of the glories of the Tournaments of the West, but first let us discuss the final one.

It all began years ago with an idea, sprung like Athena, fully-formed from the head of Zeus. Faced with two seemingly unrelated facts – the NCHC tournament was ending, and Arizona State was joining the league – a prophesy was made. “What if Arizona State makes the tournament in its only chance, and NOM never makes it?” the Oracle Dirty spake. “We’ll wear devilstumes!” “Sexy Devilstumes,” Brian corrected.

Well, NOM fans were spared the indignity of a complete tournament-shutout when they unexpectedly made last year’s tournament and even won a game*, and the entire universe was spared the eight of us in fishnets and red lace, but the rest of the prophesy was realized.

*Drawing UND in the NCHC tournament semis is equivalent to a bye; similar to how drawing NOM in the first round is also a bye.

While the planning first began years ago, it began in earnest a few months ago. This was to be the last conference tournament, and we had to make it one for the ages. Research and concept development was underway before the matchups were even set. Inflatable pitchforks (the better to get by security with!) that came all the way from the United Kingdom were ordered two weeks in advance, before we even knew if Arizona State would make the NCHC tournament oh who am I kidding, we all knew UMD was hosed. Devilstume concepts were presented, debated, and voted on in a completely fair, unbiased, uncoerced process.

Behold, your half-inflated dark lord:

The week of the tournament, the devilstumes started to arrive, and an itinerary began to take shape in Google Docs.

Thursday
Thursday was a travel day for the North Dakota contingent and a work day for pretty much everyone else (except me, I managed to take most of the day off to get a chocolate-themed massage). We planned in advance to attend the fan skate, each wearing a different ‘stume representing an era of our fandom. It was all arranged: I would wear the Tiggerstume; Dan would be Eeyore; Brian would wear our first groupstume, the Redhawk; Biddy would wear the Eaglestume he wore to the USA footy match where all those Honduran players got frostbite; Chester would wear the Cowstume that NOM fans did not appreciate to an acceptable level; Mitch would wear a Sharkstume that his work had for some reason, and Dirty would wear the Beestume that he wore when AIC beat St. Cloud in the 2019 Fargo Regional. We would take the rink by storm!

Some of this fell apart, as Chester was unable to make it (causing the first deviation from our itinerary, as “Pionk Chester” was schedule to occur during the skate), and Mitch, despite giving the impression to everyone else in our Discord that he was going to attend, failed to show up. The rest of us arrived at the X, changed into our various outfits, and took to the ice.

We can all skate, but some of us better than others. And some of us were more aware of our actual skills than others. Specifically, the least aware was Brian, who nearly skated backwards into multiple children and gouged a huge scar into one of the Frozen Faceoff logos while nearly decapitating Dan.

After about 40 mins, we trooped off the ice, de-stumed, and went to Mickey’s Diner for the Gordon Bombay experience, minus the drunk driving.

Friday
Some folks continued to work Friday, but Chester took one for the team and drove Brian and Dirty to Portillo’s to get some fries with that cake shake booty. Or, if you’re Dirty, you accidentally order a non-cake shake because you don’t know how to use the self-serve kiosk. Dirty wanted to get redemption for his previous foray to Portillo’s, when he had to leap out of Brian’s minivan and throw up on the side of the road. The rest of us were skeptical. To give you an idea of how dialed-in our itinerary was, let me provide you a snip:

We were only off by about 5 minutes! We got to the restaurant at about 1:00, and by about 1:15, Dirty was already in the bathroom ruing the day he ordered a chili dog. Just get the beef, you can dip it so it goes down easy. My cake shake was delicious, by the way.

We went our separate ways, Dirty and Brian in the Corgi/barfmobile, the Aaaahj and me to the Har Mar Michael’s to purchase last-minute supplies for sign-making. I bought two pieces of tagboard and three colors of glitter, but was only able to make one sign before I realized we were going to be late to muster in front of the Jesus Freak. You know the one:

So, we were all late to the party, but also: the guy wasn’t there! How could he betray us like this?! Did a bad actor get into our group chat? Lady Wore Black had even made a special sign for him!

I figured he got raptured, but I heard he showed up on Saturday, so I guess he wasn’t ready for the Revelation.

We were everywhere you want to be.

Imagine a father, across the arena, nodding his head with pride as his 42 year old daughter in a onesie attempts to spell H-O-T-T-O-G-O with her arms with the rest of the Island of Misfit Toys, just as he dreamed when she was a little girl.

Admittedly, it was painful to “cheer” for the team that had so cruelly eliminated my own team less than a week before, but I got over it because 1. I love attention and 2. making fun of Denver and their lack of fans never gets old. ASU lost, which was the first time that a team has not been spurred on to victory by our costumed energy.

After a brief interlude at the Loon, where many refreshed themselves with Grape Ape elixirs and Dirty successfully ate food, we returned for the night game. As always, I looked forward to a ribald evening, matching bon mots with the intellectuals in green. Intellectuals who don’t happen to know their own team name, and get triggered like bulls to red capes when they hear it used. I had an enjoyable second period, sitting with my family behind 3 Fighting Hawk fans who did not take kindly to my helpful corrections, threatening to get an usher because I was not in my correct seat and couldn’t afford the tickets. When I returned to my seat after the second intermission, I could see the three fans across the way, wildly gesticulating. My sister in law reported later that one fan was sending a text about me, which she could plainly read since he was using a font size equivalent to the second line on an eye chart.

UND flirted with a second “time out game,” but instead they lost, we saw Brad Berry’s final game, and the people whose night I’d already ruined… well, their night got ruined again. Success.

Saturday
Without costumes to wear on Saturday, we were at sixes and sevens, but regrouped with an outing to Can Can Wonderland. I parked myself in front of Space Invaders and failed to get past the first level, the Aaaahj took over the Iron Maiden pinball machine, Dan went straight for the Dance Dance Revolution corner, Mitch had some “boozy shakes,” Dirty successfully ate again, including finally getting a milkshake, and after about an hour and a half of waiting, we all (except Dirty) finally had our number called for mini golf.

We had dinner at Tono in the Kevinpatesborhood before arriving for the championship game. There were dozens of fans there! Dozens! And the Western band was there, providing true college hockey atmosphere and also saving us from Denver’s band.

It was painfully obvious that the NCHC had phoned in the tournament. There was hardly any attempt to acknowledge the end of the tournament era, minimal in-game entertainment, and the saddest merch table ever, with nary a pin nor a program in sight. They are lucky they had eight dedicated fans to bring the funk.

And yet, we got a dramatic end to the tournament, and I don’t just mean the altercation we had with the three Denver fans that seemed to have taken personal offense to our “WHO LIKES DENVER?” “NOBODY LIKES DENVER!” “NOT EVEN THEIR FANS” call-and-response chants. After a 3 goal second period from the UDU Pervy Petes, with a fourth puck in the net that was ruled offside, I figured Western had become a sure bet for a first round upset in the NCAA tournament. Instead, the Barbaros chipped away and sent the game into sudden unaliving* (my SIL’s recommendation for bringing in the Gen Z audience) overtime and double overtime. I guess maybe fate didn’t really want the tournament to end. Even if the rest of us could not care less about the outcome.

*my SIL suggested this term would help speak to the Gen Z fan base

We spent most intermissions doing loops around the X, meeting up with my family and whoever came along for chit-chat. The loops took longer and longer, to the point that when Western scored to end the game, none of us saw the goal and actually weren’t sure who won until we could get into the aisle and see which team was celebrating. We celebrated too – “WE CAN LEAVE!!!!”

And when we turned around to taunt see how the Denver fans were taking this loss, they had vanished. Were they ever really there to begin with?