Of groundhogs and unicorns

Last night’s final Red Wednesday of the season was, paradoxically, as typical as it was atypical. On the one hand, Brandon Fogel ran his board-topping total to a gaudy 6.5. He now has a real shot at tying, if not breaking, Peter Lokken’s longstanding record of 7.5 board tops in a season. That one has held since the 2010-11 season.

On the other hand, we had two new recruits, which is something of a rarity in this down year for new blood. But even more significant, both were female, which is as unusual as it is welcome. Not for lack of effort, our progress at diversifying the player base has been inconsistent at best.

Back in November 2013, we had three female players in a game at the Lion. It seemed we were on our way to fielding the mythical Board of the Valkyries. But that turned out to be our highwater mark (although we duplicated the feat a few months later). Two of those players moved away, and we lost steam.

But that’s ancient history. What matters now is that Staci Slattery, who works with Ali Adib, and Shelley Hoover, who used to work with my wife, Meghan, played last night in Game No. 307, both for the first time ever, and both seemed to enjoy the game. It would not surprise me at all to see one or both at a future bar game.

The game ended by time limit after the Fall 1905 turn in the following center counts:

Austria (Bryan Pravel): 3; 3.629 points.
England (Brandon Fogel): 11; 48.790
France (Staci Slattery; Jim O’Kelley in Spring 1905): 7; 0.000 points.
Germany (Brian Shelden): 0; 0.000 points.
Italy (Matt Sundstrom): 2; 1.613 points.
Russia (Ali Adib): 4; 6.452 points.
Turkey (Shelley Hoover): 7; 19.758 points.

Note that I took over for Staci in 1905. Per club rules, neither one of us scored the position, but our square counts toward the sum. Therefore, the total score for this game is less than 100 points.

The supply center chart is here. Players, what really happened?