Subject: Les Finales

Date: 28 Apr 94

From: Uncle Terry, 73060,2661

Pardon mois for keeping you all in suspense about the last day of play and the play at last. It has been difficult finding time to report all the news since we all were so busy making it. But Mr. Carbo and I are now motoring along at 160 kliks/hr toward the Riviera, so I have some time to write. I may seem occasionally distracted, as we encounter traffic and I have to put my hands back on the wheel, so please be understanding. I tried to write while Mr. Carbo was driving, but the keyboard kept changing lanes amid cries of "Allez outta my way Frogs".

The fans were prepared for the exciting last day of Hockey. The 30' by 3' bedsheets were perfect for banner making, and, although we had been unable to purchase an airhorn before the event, our voices were in full tune. Our women fairly easily dispatched the Dutch, thereby taking fifth place in the tournament. As we prepared to watch the Men's game pitting the representatives of the world's policemen against the pate-eating local boys, we detected unfamiliar faces surrounding us. The threat was clear when we began preparatory cheers and they responded with that Allez Allez shit. We were quite nervous, and attempted to recruit some support from fans and friends of the other free world teams, and quickly discovered that almost everyone was perfectly willing to root against the French.

The cheering effort was helped somewhat by the US players who scored a fairly early goal, as well as the absence of the Everyready Bitch (who apparently was preparing to participate in the French women's loss). But the most stirring effort toward cheering domination was performed by Rich Gray. Sensing that an inspirational move was called for, he proceeded to find a way to enter the penalty box, knowing that the best way to fire up a team or a crowd is to score a short-handed goal. After this move was successful the fans went wild, and we knew that the next 25 minutes of play would generate much cheering pleasure.

The Frogfans tried to defend themselves, but the damage was done (ask Rich to do his impression of the Allez Allez thing). Sue Stanley suggested that we fans could be helpful to those who couldn't see the scoreboard by letting them know what the score was, so we would count to 6 in unison, and repeat it a few times to make sure they were listening. The Frogs thought they could achieve some respect by scoring a goal late in the game (I think Mike Grimm had his head turned while handing a beer to Kendall), but their fans' excitement over this too-late development was dampened when we again counted the score off to clarify the situation.

Asked for a post game analysis, Mr. Banks suggested that the grenouille may have made a tactical mistake by attempting to play a wall game on the assumption that the Americains would be surprised by the move. While the move did surprise our heroes somewhat, it was more than made up for by the fact that our boys had been practicing this style for more than 10 years in the hope that someone would be stupid enough to want to play it against them. Ricardo suggested that the Frogs may have made a strategic mistake by getting out of bed that day.

Meanwhile, in the Masters division, the French Wrinklers were successfully losing to the Aussies to lock up fourth place. And the French women, inspired by the performance of their male (?) counterparts, lost to the Brits, thus confirming the host country's position as fourth best at all levels. Luckily this coincided with my gradually increasing grasp of the French language, so that I was now able to count nearly to ten (un, deux, trois, France, sank, ...), although this was not as useful as I had expected in ordering beers in Paris.

In other play, the South Africans, who had dominated the Masters division throughout the preliminaries, won the final and thus the championship. The South African women's team, which had dominated the Women's division throughout the preliminaries, lost to the Aussies in the final. And the South African men's team, which had dominated the Men's division throughout the preliminaries, lost to the Koala Huggers in the final. It was noted that the 3 Capetown teams only lost 2 games among them in the entire tournament. It was also noted that these two were the games that counted. We can only hope they won't be stewing over this for the next two years until World's are in their ballpark. Could be ugly.

After the thrilling victory of Les Americains, attempts were made to bring a few celebratory beverages into the locker room to allow the players to rehydrate after their game. We were informed that beer was not allowed in the pool area. This surprised us, since they had been selling it at the concession stand all week (but only if you had a participant's badge). While the explanation that "It's Saturday, and you're in France" would doubtless have sufficed for this reporter, they felt obligated to explain that a big gala was planned for Saturday night (more on that later), and they felt that if we started drinking too early we would all be too sloppy by the party, so we would have to drink outside in the sunshine instead. This wise decision obviously accounted for the improved decorum on the closing ceremonies.

Ah, the closing ceremonies. [note: Mr. Carbo & I have arrived in Nice, and we are sitting on a beach on padded lounges while Moss brings us an endless supply of screwdrivers and Heinekens (even the glasses are cold here) and we are surrounded by nearly naked women who luckily speak no English, so if I still seem distracted, again forgive me]. The ceremonies were proceeded by all the teams standing outside the pool for an hour and a half waiting for the preparations to complete. This did not bother me so much, as Assistant Vice President of Fun Dougie and I were on a serious beer run. The Belgians had informed us that it was foolish to continue buying Heineken, as Blonderbrau was a much finer beer, and only cost 26 Froggers per case. Since they were handing us cold Blonderbraus at the time, who were we to argue? So the Duck & I proceeded to the recommended market, Le Mentale or something, and looked for said Blonderbrau. Apparently Dougie thought he was seeking Anchor Steam, because he ordered wheat beer, and we walked our with 8 cases. We weren't too concerned if this was too much, as the total tab was only 207 Froggers (in case you haven't been following my detailed discussions of currency conversions in my previous posts, that works out to about $4.50 per case). We zipped down to the pool, just in time to follow the Brits in the ceremonial parade, and then catch up to the rest of the US crowd.

As you might expect on a beautiful sunny day in Normandy (if you had ever seen one before-- none of us had), the glass roofed pool was quite a pleasant place to be. The Aussies and South Africans were in full dress sport coat & skirt uniforms looking quite pleasant as their makeup dripped down their chins. The Frogs were cleverly wearing sweats, but since they were still singing French children's songs, it didn't matter. Speeches were given, with the sole concession that the non-comprehensible French was also translated into non-comprehensible English. I'm not entirely sure, but it seems that they were presenting awards for various places. An individual representative was called up from each of the non-medalling teams, such as the Belgian Men's, the US Masters, or all of the French teams, then the entire team was called up for each of the medalists. Since most of the teams were wearing their government issued uniforms, Our American Heroes thought they should accept their well deserved medals wearing the outfits which government support had provided them, and so walked to the stand in shorts and barefoot.

By this time, the Brits were feeling fairly frisky, and thought that it was only fair that the teams pass through a gauntlet between them and the inviting pool waters. At this point the wisdom of forcing everyone to do their drinking outside of the pool was clear, as it obviously caused the Brits to behave in a much more mature manner than would have otherwise been expected. Our boys avoided this risk by the good fortune of having been placed between the award stand and the Brits, and the various Frog teams avoided it by not having to collect any medals.

Major chaos ensued. Bodies were flying (and floating). I managed to avoid going in, but did enjoy having 2 Brits and a Kiwi bounce on my foot while one was trying to avoid getting his swimsuit wet. Baldo made a heroic dash across the bulkhead, diving through defenders and under a protective gate. Sue and MoJo had managed to go on a beer run to the car at just the right time, and were never seen again. Dougie, working feverishly on the hockeymentary, was calmly standing in the midst of the chaos like Edward R. Murrow in Vietnam, knowing that his press pass would keep all from knocking him and his videocam into the water.

Eventually we escaped from the pool and, having heard that beer was not to be served at the gala, Dougie and I proceeded back to Mentale to purchase wheat more cases of beer. We drove off to get ready for the big dinner with 16 cases of Blonderbrau stuffing every compartment in the car.

Next issue-- Le Party.