The Road To The Stanley Cup #2: Now With A Healthy Dose Of Awkwardness And WTF
Eli 8.0 and Gloria went to Sea World today, but he was up and dressed by 6:30 and ready to play hockey.I noticed in the playoff brackets last night that Atlanta (#7 seed) beat Toronto (#2 seed) in the first round. Hmm. Toronto was an excellent team, too.
So we're playing Atlanta in the second round, and while we win the first two games at home, the goalie for the Thrashers is outstanding.
In game three, we lose in overtime, and in game four, they jump out to a 3-0 lead. We come back to 3-2, but the goalie is absolutely standing on his head, making all kinds of incredible saves.
During a cut scene, we see the goalie's picture. "Dad, I think that's a girl!" Eli 8.0 said.
I looked at the picture. Definitely girl-like, and the first name was Sabrina. Sabrina Ladha.
"Maybe that's a Scandinavian player or something," I said. Seriously, I had no idea. She looked like a high school girl.
With an overall rating of 98. Ninety-freaking-eight.
She's the best goalie in the game by 4 points overall. Martin Brodeur is a 94.
Given that this high-school girl may crush our dreams of winning the Stanley Cup after 30+ hours of play (seriously, EA, WTF?), I decided to find out who she was.
Apparently, her father won a charity auction with the Make-A-Wish foundation, and he could put anyone in the game he wanted, so he chose his daughter. It's not that his daughter is in the Make-A-Wish program (she's not)--he just won the auction.
That's all fine. I love Make-A-Wish. They're awesome. I think it's great that EA puts a kid in the game each year, and they've done it for the last few years. It's a great gesture.
It's just that EA rated her a 98 and put her in the free agent pool. That's the part that's not so fine, because the team that picks her up is going to be the obvious favorite to win the Stanley Cup. They made her so good that they've unbalanced their own game.
In a later roster update, they lowered her overall rating to 75, but unfortunately, I never went online to update my rosters, so she's the best player in the league.
So now we're faced with having to defeat the the Make-A-Wish high school girl to win a playoff series.
This is awkward.
What kind of smack am I supposed to run after I score a goal? "SHOULD HAVE GONE TO DISNEYLAND, BITCH!"
Like I said, it's awkward.
Fortunately, though, when I called Eli 8.0 in San Antonio to tell him about my bizarre discovery, he thought it was 100% awesome that a kid could get into the game. So for him, it's not a mind-bending, continuity ripping WTF moment like it is for me.
Given the sudden appearance of Superman, I may post results from games 5-7 of the Atlanta series, too. We may not make it out of this round alive.
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