Playoff Eulogy: The Bizarrohawks

In honor of teams being eliminated from the playoffs, I present to you the seventh in a series of eulogies for those teams, as written by a peer.   Here, Everett Silvertips GM Court Watson pays his respects to the Bizarrohawks.

Bizarrohawks – RIP 2015

This team finished first loser.  Not bad.

I am not sure what to make of this team, nor the rookie GM, Luke Mackinnon.  Certainly he showed his time in the other JV leagues he is in has given him some skills, but what skills are those?    It isn’t like he inherited a bad team, with Tarasenko, Giordano, Bishop, Crawford, Zetterberg and Pacioretty all handed to him on a silver platter.  He made some great trades along the way, but were they great trades, or is he the beneficiary of the new guy phenomenon?  He certainly used his newness to take advantage of Bert, trading Pacioretty for Getzlaf and Pacioretty.  One wonders if those kind of trades will be available to him in the future (knowing Bert, the answer is probably yes). 

One just has to look at Luke’s active posting on the message board and emails exchanged with GMs in trade negotiations and they quickly get this image in their heads:

Maybe his best skill is sitting right beside a guy who is also in this league and working the hard sale all season long on someone with maybe a bit less knowledge of fantasy hockey (side note, Luke made zero trades with any team in the playoffs).  Having a boss in this league who allows you to spend as much time running hypothetical trade scenarios as Luke does is a great thing.  Maybe he can keep this up, taking advantage of those teams at the bottom.  Maybe Fatty will set his lineup one day.  Solid maybes.  Except the last one.  Quit Fatty.

Regardless, winning the President’s Trophy and Anze Cup is the same year is an amazing feat.  A feat that Luke failed to accomplish (it has only happened once, ahem, thank you).  But I enjoyed his passion, his random bizarre posts when he was off his ADHD medication, and his lengthier rants when he was on it.  While Scott Freeland may be have been quiet, he still spent a lot of time on this league, so I wouldn’t say having Luke is better, it is just different.  And maybe in a good way, because fantasy leagues all have expiry dates; they run their course over time.  New blood can help keep them going, similar to machines keeping a technically dead person alive in a comatose state.  Jesus, that was a horribly depressing analogy. 

Speaking of horribly depressing, the performance by Bizarrohawks in the finals was about as bad as it gets in a championship.  Like Peyton Manning in the Super Bowl bad.  The only logical conclusion from watching that match is that Luke was horribly out managed by Anzoolander GM Jesse Cook.  It was like a Shaolin Master teaching his pupil by beating him with a stick.  I hope Luke took notes and learned something from that embarrassment.  Blaming injuries of guys on the bench?  Just sad. 

Better luck next year.  Looking forward to seeing you in action again.

Court