Lessons in Defeat

Writing by shinda on Tuesday, 18 of July , 2006

“If it Involves winning or loosing, then its more then just a game.”
- malton proverb

Last Friday, a group of us went paint balling, and we lost. There I admit it, and now that I got that of my chest writing the rest of this should be much easier.

Now I wont make excuses as to why we lost nor will I try to take the easy way out and say that when ever Singhs get together regardless of jatha affiliation etc, we all win. End of the day we lost, and it sucks.

I’m not going to sit here and try to make excuses as to why we lost. After all saying things like,

• “our team was full of first timers”,
• “our guys didn’t have near as much cash flow, so could’t afford to go insane on the paint like you guys”,
• “they cheated and wouldn’t play fair”
• “it was hot”

All put together don’t justify the 1-4-1 record we finished with. (1 win, 4 losses and 1 tie). End of the day we didn’t loose because of things that we can make excuses for, we lost because we made mistakes and therefore by any standards we got blown out, put down, buried, humiliated and shamed.

Now if things were closer making excuses may help make a difference in at least justifying a game here or there, but that wasn’t the case. Our team went into this game cocky as ever, after all we brought out more guys, and what we felt was a much stronger team then the last time the 2 sides had faced off, when we won that one. However, fate chose not to repeat it self and we were handed our asses to us on a platter.

Now like all teams do after being humiliated the way we were, the only appropriate course of action is to look at what went wrong, so to not let the same mistakes repeat themselves the next time out.

Bad Trades

It wasn’t as much as bad trades as much as it was letting the wrong people go. We showed up with us having 22 people and the other side only brought out 11 of there own, so naturally we had to let 5 people go, evening the teams up to 16-17 players a piece. Now off course having that extra gun on the field would and should in almost all cases by considered a positive asset but for one reason or another it just wasn’t. Of the people sent over I think the biggest mistake was sending over Balzy of the Ottawa Family. Considering he single handedly won a fair number of games for them, giving him up without a second thought really came back to bite us in the ass. Shamsher was another person who may have arguably tipped the scales against us, but then again all this is pretty subjective, and only reason his names even being mentioned was because of his constant bickering to be called out. Now something I’ve been trying to come to grips with is, did they really out play us and therefore get all the shine and glory, or was it just our lack lustre performance which helped make them look good? End of the day its in the past.

Weak Players

Now I wont chew our guys out, we did enough of that on Friday. End of the day for some reason or another our guys were just too afraid to get hit. Even those who shined previous years and who make you believe that they got Superman’s genes running in there veins, dared not leave the protected confines of the bunkers at the start of some levels. Leaving for weak front lines with no backup support.

Lethargic Players

This best describes my level of play. I didn’t run, dive, get my face in the mud type thing, heck in most cases I got tired from kneeling down that I found myself doing Kamikaze missions that never seemed to work out this time around either. After the first few games it got to the point where I didn’t even bother trying to take cover. More then anything this was in direct result of me being outta shape, but sitting around at work behind a desk all day and then coming home eating and going to sleep does that to you.

Lack of Leadership

Clearly there was a problem on our team when it came to getting and taking orders. Not to say we didn’t have those who tried to lead the team, but a leader is more then someone who can devise a plan, a leader needs to be someone who the rest can rally behind and support, which clearly the leader(s) of our team didn’t have. It was for that reason I often found myself taking a few guys to the side with me where we often devised our own mini plans rather then follow the game plan that a few agreed upon, simply because there was no faith in our leader’s abilities. Now its not like I didn’t try giving our team a chance. But when the plans you get the first two times don’t really work, you tend to loose faith in the play maker.

Lack of Execution

Now not all plans we made were horrible in my eyes. Some actually made sense. However of these plans again we had the whole weak players problem. For some reason or another some players felt that by staying alive the longest by taking cover in a bunker, while everyone else was systematically slaughtered offered them some sort of bragging rights, for being the last one standing from our side.

Now with that said its only fair to give shout outs to the other team for there performance.

1. Sunny and the rest of the Ottawa family.
   Yes you cleaned up shop and made quick work of many on our side with your heroics, you made all the difference in those 4 games and I think clearly it was a mistake to have given you up so easily.
   
   

   

2. The Ghosts.

   

   I’m talking about none other then Gopi and Tinda. Not only were these guys invisible on the field, but I can’t remember one time when they were eliminated. Even after seeing these guys having some of the most paint stained outfits, I’m sure that it was nothing, and that it was all just splatter from the tree’s that they spent most of the games hiding behind.

3. The guys who got shot and left the field then sneaked right back on.
   Ya ll know who you are, end of the day its not a crime as long as your not convicted, and if you can sleep at night with a clear conscious, then hey, more power to you. Congratulations on being a key part to your team winning this one.

4. Lastly a shout out to Mandeep. Vote Mandeep Dhaliwal.
   Clearly by putting your constituents and business first, your heart is in the right place and you truly mean business. If only your constituents knew about the sacrifices you make for them on a daily basis, attending those meetings over paint ball, even when it means watching your boys get systematically slaughtered. Actually now that I think of it, do I smell conspiracy theory, considering that nearly everyone on the other team is a constituent in your ward??

On another note, going 3-0 in the singles showdowns, is always ill. But then again, “If anyones down to hit up dragon fly let me know, I’m down for whatever.

End of the day “No intensity, no victory.’. (Any Given Sunday)

Anyways thats all I had to say on this one. I added some pics below, but for the rest of the pics from the day check out the Google Gallery (thats right, why use Flickr when you can go with Google) .

Maybe it was this weak pose that set us up for defeat…

You can just feel the love…

Me… hit?? What you talking about..thats just splatter…

Category: Events, Fight, Images, Jokes

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