The first major tournament of 2017 kicked off with the ever popular Annual Metro Pool League 2-Point Tournament. 75 league players were in attendance at Dooly's Portland to vie for the 2017 title. Entry to the event was only $10, the Metro Pool League added $1000 to the prize fund, and the winner also receieved paid entry to the 2017 CBSA National 8-Ball Championships. Chip in quite a few door prizes, a free lunch, and a well oiled organizing team, and you have yourself a day of pool value that you would be hard pressed to match.
The format is double knockout, best 3 of 5 races of 8-Ball. With plenty of tables to accommodate the number of matches in the early rounds, the results poured in fast and furious. Both of last years finalists, Dwayne Thompson and Rocky Johnson, took early trips to the B-side, proving this can be anyone's event to win.
Once action boiled down to the A-side final, leaving two undefeated players, there stood one player who already held two previous titles, and one that was forging his own bit of personal history. On the top half of the draw Brian White (Burnside Dooly's 'C') steamrolled his competition, beating Pat McNeil, Kirk Otterman, Mark Lahey, Greg Lockwood, Jason Ross, and Colin Maloney. Meanwhile on the bottom half of the draw, Derek Sloan (Supercue) was turning aside his competition with wins over Steve Joyce, Jose MacDonald, Yarnell Arsenault, Zac Amorim, Chris Goodie and Glenn Nickerson. In the hot seat match, the ol' David and Goliath story would not play out this time, as experience won out over eagerness, with White overcoming Sloan to reach his fourth MPL 2-PT final
There was still lots of story lines to be played out on the B-Side. Former Champion Brad Doyle (Dooly's Portland 'C') beat 9-Time champ Pat Briand (Buddy's), leaving Briand in a tie for 9th, and then beat another player having a personal best result, Roger Mercier (Supercue), placing Mercier in a tie for 7th. Doyle's day would then come to an end in a tie for 5th, dropping a decision to Glenn Nickerson (Dooly's Burnside 'A"). Also on the B-Side, having finished 2nd each of the past two years, Rocky Johnson (Dooly's Portand 'A') had fought his way from an early loss, to keep his hopes alive of bettering those results. In a clash of titans to get to the final 6, Rocky got the better of another league legend, Dave Boone (Dooly's Rockingham 'B'). Johnson's march would be ended just one match later by Colin Maloney (Buddy's), to place Johnson in a respectable 5th place tie.
The final 4 players were now set. The first two to lock horns were Maloney, and Nickerson, who had reached the final 4 for the 2nd time in 5 years. For this meeting, Maloney was in full force, taking the match, exiting Nickerson in 4th place. Maloney then made it through Sloan, who had an excellent tournament and was very pleased with his 3rd place finish.
In the final, Maloney would have to win two sets for the title, while White only needed to capture one set. In the first set Maloney came out on top 3-1 to set up the winner take all final best of 5 games. They each traded games to back and forth to sit 2-2. Maloney broke dry in the final game, and White did his best to run out. With two striped balls remaining, White had to feather a cut shot into the upper left corner, and thread the cue ball into a narrow strip of real estate along the long rail for shape on his final object ball. He executed it with almost perfect touch, but yet the cue ball ended up hooked by just a hair by one of the solid balls. White attempted a pot by going rail first with the cue ball, but was not successful. This left him at the mercy of Maloney, who cleared the table for his 2nd MPL 2-Point title.
The players that took part owe a great deal of thanks to another well executed event run by the Metro Pool League Executive committee of Dale Brimicombe, Don Matheson, Glenn Nickerson, and Norm Bennett. The Metro Pool League 1-Point tournament is slated for February 4th at Rockingham Dooly's, and the MPL Partners tournament will be held March 4th at Dooly's Burnside.
Metro Pool League Tournament Archives can be found here.
Safety First! Colin Maloney transports his winner's hardware home.
