Wausau West Stuns ECM in Overtime! Down Goes Moe! Down Goes Moe!

Now that, my friends, was a hockey game. I am as breathless as a teenaged Ivo Knezevic the night Ronnie James Dio flashed him the secret devil sign. What a game! What an effort! And after that wacky bounce off the trampolines that pass for hockey boards at the Alliant Center, you can bet there are a few ECM faithful ready to join me in my crusade to find a better venue for this most hallowed of athletic competitions.

But I digress.

Sadly, I will be on a ski hill during tomorrow's epic championship tilt (yes, another WSHSHP-financed business venture) so I will not be able to officially announce a winner until tomorrow evening.

But here's the poop in my stead:

If Wausau West prevails, Brian Kobylinski is your 2011 WSHSHP Champion. That's right: Koby. Maybe is was a Zen/Art of War thing, but the man kept an incredibly low profile this tournament. But we are now seeing that perhaps there is some method behind that mask of mundanity. Well-played, Mr. Kobylinski.

Koby, proud graduate of the Bud Grant School of Inner 

Charisma, hams it up following Wausau West's stunner.

And speaking of unlikely heroes, if Middleton wins, TJ Hansen, a man whose lack of presence on internet makes J.D. Salinger look like Blake Feist after three Slippery Nipples by comparison, will be this year's pool champion. And the fact that he's backing his alma mater is incredibly nerdy, er, heart-warming.

There are loads of other feel-good stories in the making, and I will get to those as soon as the last WSHSHP dollar has been spent on an apres ski martini tomorrow evening. Until then, God bless you. And God bless Wisconsin high school hockey!