Big Deal Selects bounced from Chiclets Cup, still no title

This year's Cup is in Boston at Harpoon Brewery, and the last day of play was October 10. Whitney posted the bad news that afternoon, along with the huddle footage.

Ryan Whitney

@ryanwhitney6

This just sucks. The Big Deal Selects are out. Just a great bunch of guys on that squad. Our sixth @ChicletsCup and they are still searching for a title. I was told this was the best team they’ve ever had. Is it time to have some hard conversations ?

Spittin' Chiclets@spittinchiclets

Another year, another Big Deals loss. A tale as old as time.

Whitney is clearly having fun with it. "Is it time to have some hard conversations?" is what a GM says before firing the coach, and on a beer-league ball hockey team it's a needle, not a scoop. Nothing says the roster is getting blown up. What stings is the part he didn't make up: they've played 6 of these and won 0.

That's a long-running joke with a lot of history behind it. The Selects date back to the Las Vegas Chiclets Cup, when Paul Bissonnette was owner, GM, captain and forward all at once, Trevor Gretzky was in goal, former NHL forward Beau Bennett was on the roster and the team was +550 to win it all. Their contracts paid 1 bottle of Pink Whitney per goal. The team was built as a bit, and the bit never got a trophy.

Then came Buffalo, which got its own multi-part video series, and the stops after that. Every year it's the same: lots of hype, a roster with some real hockey players on it, an early exit and a lot of grimacing on the way home.

Viva La Stool

@VivaLaStool

It happened again!

Spittin' Chiclets@spittinchiclets

HEARTBREAKER. The Big Deals Selects clawed their way back and end up losing OT. t.co/YQXMIoqu4F

"Best team they've ever had" is the part that hurts most. Every tournament the Selects show up with more name value and a better story, and every tournament the result looks the same. When the best version of you goes out like the others did, people stop calling it bad luck and start calling it a program problem. That's the joke Whitney is making, and it works because it's pretty close to true.

So the Selects head into another offseason. Will they actually make changes, or bring back the same 'great bunch of guys' and hope Cup No. 7 goes differently? Either way, the drought becomes more content for the podcast, and nobody brings the jokes faster than Whitney.