By Tournament Director George Kelln

Before I get into the 2003 CASLO, I would remiss if I did not mention the pre-CASLO blow out in the hotel bar on Thursday night. 12 players showed up and proceeded to drink the bar out of draft beer and Irish Whiskey; in the process using up all of the bar’s glasses. Much fun was had by all and this laid the foundation on which would turn out to be a great tournament.

The 2003 CASLO was first time the tournament was under the stewardship of the newly formed Canadian ASL Association. Previous CASLO have been the hard work of the Winnipeg ASL Club, who after six years found the burden to be a bit much for their club to handle alone. Their hard work and efforts did not go to waste as the strong foundation they had laid has paid dividends to the running of a successful 2003 tournament.

This year’ CASLO saw 24 players from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and a pair of unsuspecting Americans up from Minnesota do battle over five rounds, and when the smoke cleared Mr. Darren Kovacs stood alone, atop the heap with a untarnished 5-0 and cried out “I a’m the one!”

Yes the pharmacist, Mr. Kovacs, who just about did not make it to the opening round, somehow managed to talk his Hutterite bosses in Steinbach Manitoba to let him go early so he could participate this year’. In the tournament’s final round, the Number #1 seed- Darren Kovacs bested long-time rival, Number #2 seed- Jim “the’ Hammer” McLeod in the WCW scenario “The Will to Fight Eradicated” to lay claim the title “The One!” Congratulations Darren on a well deserved victory.

Paul Suderman won the Mini-Tournament while other notable achievements are as follows; (4-1) Adrian Earle took second place and with this finish also took the Top Canadian ASL Player Pennant squeaking out Third Place finisher (4-1) Gerry Proudfoot who finished a close second in the Top Canadian ASL Player race. Other prizes went as follows:

The Box Car King was Russell Williams with twenty-two, while Adrian Earle took the most snake-eyes rolling twenty-one. Lee Misselbrook won had the highest sniper points, with a total of 68 points. The Rate of Fire went to Brent Fedak with 18 with a LMG. The Close Combat Award went to Gerry Proudfoot with +18 CVP while Tom Weniger and Blake Ball took the two new prizes for this year, the Flame-thrower and Wounded Leader prizes respectively. This year’s Good Sportsman went to Mr. Ron Levreault.

The scenario selection was that each round had one meaty, and one short and snappy scenario and all rounds included a flame-thrower scenario. This left the players with a quite a selection of scenarios from which to choose.

There was only one problem; due to the limited amounts of boards 48-51, many players were unable to play their first choice and were forced to play their second or even third choice. Now this situation brought to my attention as TD, why would these players choose a particular scenario when neither player has the boards? I think this could be partly contributed to out of town players who did not want to haul their stuff on the airlines with them. However local players where caught in this situation more than once as well.

There were two pleasant surprises at this tournament and that was Long time ASL journeymen Lee Misselbrook and Blair Bellamy who finished #4 and #6 respectively.

The tournament moment and Lee Misselbrook’’s most surprising victory came at the hands of Mr. Blake Ball. It was during a lull in the playing of Ace in the Hole, that Lee made an astute comment “Blake it looks like you’re pretty close to your CVP cap.” Blake, who was wrapped up in with his plan to steam roll over Lee’s forces, stopped to peer over the board. He then made an inquisitive glance at the Victory Conditions on the scenario card, followed by a quick count of his losses in the dead pile thus far. After a quick second and slower third count, it was found out that Blake’’s hard charging tactic had cost him dearly. Lee had whittled down Blake’’s forces to their CVP limit. Blake could not lose 1 more CVP for fear of losing the scenario. But Mr. Ball or should I say Dr. Ball, kept his cool and his control, and continued on with the scenario. He was near victory and just had to be careful. Then it happened. Blake: Roll to hit, with a Hit! Lee: “That’s my SAN.” Lee: 1 on the die roll; Lee: distance and direction; Lee: WHACK! Half squad dead. Blake: “Shit!”

Yes, fun was had by all and this year there was plenty of prizes thanks in part to our sponsors whom added great flavour to the tournament. So many thanks go out to our sponsors; MMP, Heat of Battle, Le Franc Tireur, Fanatic Publishing, Lone Canuck Publishing and yes the Canadian ASL Association for providing the prizes and sponsorship. It is these such businesses that help tournaments succeed in running each year, so kudos and hats off to them.

As I close the book on this year’’s CASLO, the tournament was in the black. I look forward to seeing everyone next year and hope we can build on the what is the premiere tournament in Canada.

# NAME RECORD
1 DARREN KOVACS 5-0
2 ADRIAN EARLE 4-1
3 GERRY PROUDFOOT 4-1
4 LEE MISSELBROOK 3-2
5 BLAKE BALL 3-2
6 BLAIR BELLAMY 3-2
7 ROBERT MORIESON 3-2
8 JIM MCLEOD 3-2
9 GEORGE KELLN 3-2
10 TOM WENIGER 3-2
11 DWAYNE MATHESON 2-3
12 BILL BIRD 2-3
13 STEFFEN KNIPPEL 2-3
14 NICK HOEKSTRA 2-3
15 DAVID LENTZ 2-3
16 RUSSELL WILLIAMS 2-3
17 MIKE BOURGEAULT 2-3
18 GARY LEHNER 2-3
19 PAUL SUDERMAN 2-3
20 KEN BUTT 2-3
21 ERIC LAIMER 1-4
22 BRENT FEDAK 1-4
23 KEVIN SEIME 1-4
24 RON LEVREAULT 0-5