Disclaimer: This article is published under the Charlatan’s satire section, the Partisan. All quotes and names have been fabricated.
Success in sports requires resilience. But every team has a breaking point.
For the Carleton Ravens men’s soccer team, it was a colossal mix-up that sent a third-grade class to the U Sports men’s national championships.
And all because of a homonym — football.
The Ravens soccer team, fresh off their OUA championship win, found themselves in London, Ont. on the morning of their first match, nearly 1,700 kilometers from the host venue in Sydney, N.S.
London just happened to be the site of the 115th Yates Cup, the OUA football championship game. While Carleton’s football team has long been eliminated, that didn’t stop another “football” team from crashing a game they weren’t invited to.
“I swear, this will be the last time somebody confuses American football with real football,” said Ravens head coach Marcelo Plada.
Carleton travel co-ordinator Derrick Shenless had choice words for the Ravens.
“How pretentious of them!” Shenless said with palpable anger. “How am I supposed to get them to the right place when they call themselves a football team? Wankers!”
With no time to spare and options running out, tournament officials looked no further than a third-grade class kicking a ball around in the neighbouring school yard at Sydney’s lone elementary school.
As it turns out, the “next man up” mentality doesn’t work so well when the replacements are plucked out of recess. But don’t tell that to Ms. Libby, the third-grade teacher and interim coach of the Carleton Ravens soccer team.
“I think we got shafted,” Ms. Libby said. “If the refs did their fucking job we’d be playing for the championship right now. Instead, we’re back to learning fractions with snap cubes.”
Although Ms. Libby’s third grade class fell short of several U Sports regulations, the officials in Sydney, N.S. turned a blind eye.
“I just wanted to see what would happen,” said Zebra Stripes, the head referee of the tournament. “Crazier things have happened.”
Montreal Carabins players said they were shocked to see who was representing the fourth-ranked team in Canada.
“I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but man, they were just small,” said team captain Jacques Clouseau.
Try as they did to stay competitive with the Carabins, the physical differences proved too great for the third-grade Ravens to overcome.
“Give those kids credit, they played a hell of a game,” Auguste Gusteau said following a record-breaking 27-0 win. “They made us question our own motivations for being here.”
Following the loss, Ms. Libby was none too pleased to be going home early.
“That was the earth telling me I’m supposed to do something great,” Ms. Libby said.
“I’m not stupid, I know I’m just a grade school teacher,” Ms. Libby added. “But for 48 hours, it felt really real. And when you find out your third-grade class is gonna play in a national soccer tournament and your first thought is, ‘Great, I don’t have to teach fractions tomorrow.’
Featured image by Vaughan Merchant/CBU Athletics.
