It is December the 25th here at Gadget Stadium and the quarterfinals are finished! The Whos in Whoville may be singing "Welcome Christmas" but oh, my stage manager friends, there is no joy in Mudville today. This was never going to be an easy fight for any of the elite 8 teams. We saw low fan turnout this week due to the Christmas holiday, and those lost 10 votes could well have turned the tide in some of these matches. Even so, the backstage world must pause today and doff its caps, for the mighty Gaff Tape has struck out.
That's right, folks, number one seed Gaff Tape has been dethroned. Once pegged as the odds-on favorite to go all the way, it's now out of the running. A diverse offensive from paper, showing its versatility, came from out of nowhere to take the Community Division pennant by 13 points. Meanwhile, the Regional Division Cup has gone to Headset, which knocked out the heavyweight Photocopier in a fairly unbalanced match. Above all this is a win for stage managers who like to value communication over paperwork - this decisive victory clearly shows how we interpret our own jobs, even if the outside may not see it that way.
Meanwhile, the old school/new school debate in the Commercial Division has given the championship to the new school - Laptop wins over Pencil by an extremely narrow three point margin. This means we're spared the agony of a Pencil/Paper final but it does mean that both of our semi-final matches will involve an electronic item up against a paper item.
And of course, that remaining paper item is closing out the University Division final with the three ring Binder trouncing the Stopwatch by an 11 point lead. This means that while we won't see Pencil/Paper, a Paper/Binder final is definitely possible.
The final scores for the quarterfinals:
Gaff Tape 11 vs Paper 24 (W)
Photocopier 9 vs Headset 26 (W)
Pencil 17 vs Laptop 20 (W)
Binder 23 (W) vs Stopwatch 12
Only two matches will run for the next three and a half days - the semifinals. Following that, the final vote will run for a full week from Saturday the 29th to Friday the 4th.