8:02- We’re underway. Mas is playing Eng. Eng is England. I don’t know who Mas is. But we do know that these two teams won Regional Qualifying Matches.
8:03- We have a two-player swing as Mas caught a throw from England.
8:04- I just found out that Mas is Malaysia. They just took the first set from England. I have no idea how this works. There’s a clock for the first half and a clock for the first set. And Mas is up 2-0. My guess on that is because they won the first set with two players remaining (I’m not even sure they had two players remaining when they won the first set).
8:09- They’re back from commercial and we’re tied at 2.
8:10- Malaysia just took a set. It looks like you just get two points for winning a set. I’m still confused about the scoring.
8:11- We have a man down for England.
8:18- I just came back from moving my car and taking out the garbage. Malaysia is up 8-4.
8:20- The first half just ended with both teams having one player left.
8:26- So this is the semifinals but they’re the top two ranked teams in the world. I don’t know who’s playing in the other semifinals.
8:27- England has tied the game at 9.
8:28- The referee just came out on the court for some reason. One of the best parts of the movie Dodgeball was the referee and all the signals he had. There was that little string that he dangled for some reason. They must have had fun writing that part of the movie.
8:29- England takes the lead.
8:33- Malaysia just tied it. There was some quality ducking and dipping by both teams in that last set. There also seems to be a lot of jumping involved, but of course, that isn't one of the Five D's of Dodgeball.
8:34- The broadcasters aren’t as good as Cotton McKnight and Pepper Brooks.
8:36- Malaysia takes the lead with less than a minute and a half to play.
8:37- We have a timeout. England is in trouble.
8:38- England tied it. Is it time for Sudden Death? No, apparently, it’s a one-minute set and then Sudden Death.
8:40- Malaysia wins in a shocking upset. I feel shocked. I was hoping for Sudden Death.
8:47- It’s England vs. Austria in women’s dodgeball. This is the final for the women. We still have another men’s semifinal and the final. At least I think we do. Maybe the men’s final isn’t tonight. Because I don’t think there’s enough time to fit all those games in.
8:49- England took the first set from Austria.
8:51- An Austrian player got hurt on a great effort to make the catch, but it looks like she trapped it. I wonder if dodgeball has some crazy catch rules like the NFL.
8:54- “Austria now have four [balls.]” I hate this silly British English. You hear this in the World Cup also (one of the many reasons not to watch soccer). Austria is a singular noun. Austria now has four or the Austrians now have four. I really can’t stand British English. My favorite student insisted that the past tense of “to spell” is “spelt.” I made fun of her for wanting to be British because in America the past tense of “to spell” is “spelled.” And we don’t put unnecessary U’s in words (color, favorite, etc.) and Austria is a singular noun.
9:00- There are people who feed the players balls after they have been thrown. I don’t like that. You should have to go pick up the ball yourself while paying attention to other balls that could be thrown at you. That should be part of the game.
9:02- I’ve come to the conclusion that dodgeball isn’t a great TV sport. There’s a lot going on at once. Unlike baseball, football, and basketball, you have several balls to pay attention to. Also, they’ve used several different camera angles, but it doesn’t seem like any of them are ideal for showing you everything that’s going on. But cornhole has been on ESPN a lot lately. If you can show cornhole, why not dodgeball? And of course, dodgeball is a much better sport than soccer and there’s way too much soccer on TV these days.
9:06- We go to halftime with England leading 6-4.
9:10- We just came back from commercial and England is leading 8-4. I don’t know how that happened.
9:12- Is there any reason why this isn’t an Olympic sport? I mean, if equestrian is an Olympic sport, dodgeball definitely should be one also.
9:16- England is leading 10-6 with five minutes left.
9:18- Austria was down in this set, but now they have a two on one advantage.
9:19- Austria has cut the lead to 10-8. We have two and a half minutes left. Once again, I’m rooting for overtime and Sudden Death. If we ever got something like the Helsinki Episode of 1919, that would be something. It’s been 99 years, we might be due. By the way, I think I might be out of Youtube clips. There are other good scenes, but I can't find them on there.
9:22- England finishes it off 12-8. No overtime. Nuts.
9:25- It’s Malaysia against Austria in the men’s final. So apparently they were only showing one of the men’s semifinal games.
9:29- Austria takes the first set.
9:30- They just explained the scoring system. It seems like they should have done that an hour and a half ago. I figured it out maybe an hour ago. Also, they say that the balls are thrown 70-75 miles per hour in men’s dodgeball. Wouldn’t Yasiel Puig be the best dodgeball player in the world?
9:32- They just explained that at the start of the set, each team has two balls on its side and there’s one ball up for grabs. But I don’t know, it looks like they’re all on the line in the middle. They also said a couple of minutes ago that whichever side has more balls has to throw at least one within five seconds (I think it was five seconds). Again, these are the kinds of things that they should have explained at the beginning of the broadcast. See, this is why we need Cotton McKnight and Pepper Brooks.
9:34- Austria is up 6-0. Malaysia is taking a timeout.
9:37- 8-0 Austria. This is domination.
9:40- Malaysia is on the board. 8-2 Austria.
9:47- We’re in the second half. Austria leads 10-4.
9:48- So one side of the court has a net behind it and the other side has a hard wall. That makes a pretty big difference. You hit that wall and there’s a pretty good chance that the ball is coming back to you.
9:50- I thought we just had a tied set, but Austria got two points. So maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention. It’s 12-4 Austria.
9:52- Malaysia takes a set to make it 12-6, but they’re running out of time. I think I figured out how they start the set. All five balls are on that line in the center, but it looks like each team is entitled to the two on one side of the line and then the one in the middle is up for grabs.
9:56- We have less than a minute to play and Austria is up 13-7. This is over.
9:58- It’s official. Austria wins the World Cup. This one was a bit anticlimactic. But we did get one overtime game. It sounds like the Dodgeball World Cup is every two years. My final verdict on dodgeball is that it’s not great on TV, but there should still be more of it on TV.
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