 |
| Cambridge owner Dave the Animal is confident of a playoff berth for his team. |
By Ariel Mutha-Tafoya
FSN Sports
With half the season remaining, the league-leading Cambridge Animals have already placed on sale playoff tickets — and then sold out Methlon Stadium within two hours.
Team officials say the decision to make the unprecedented offer — no franchise has ever sold playoff tickets before December — was based on the team’s sweep of four Linardo Division opponents. In fact, according to Animals owner Dave the Animal, “10 wins minimum is a done deal. It’s guaranteed. The only certainty greater than this that I’m aware of is that Snoop Dogg and QCurl Sharif will roll out some Tropic Thunder this weekend.
“We have four more games against the L Division,” explained DTA, who was asked, after the team’s practice on Tuesday, why the Animals were celebrating a playoff berth. “That’s four more wins in the bank, for a minimum of 10. You do the meth, I mean, the math.
“No team with 10 wins has ever missed the playoffs in this league, unless you count the 2004 Bakers, who didn’t show up for their playoff game because everyone was still recovering from the Bacchanal two weeks earlier.”
After DTA left, when reporters asked Wilder the Animal about the secret behind the team’s success, the Animals’ wunderkind GM dropped a bombshell. It has been no secret that WTA has assumed a greater role this year in the team’s operation than in previous years — even making moves of which his pioneering father disapproved. What Wilder revealed, perhaps inadvertently, and what the media did not know until now, is that majority ownership in the Animals was obtained in early September by publishing kingpin Jarry McCohen.
“Mac, I mean Mr. McCohen, told me to take the ball and run with it,” Wilder said. “But please don’t tell my dad. He thinks he’s still the big baller around here.”
Team officials say the decision to make the unprecedented offer — no franchise has ever sold playoff tickets before December — was based on the team’s sweep of four Linardo Division opponents. In fact, according to Animals owner Dave the Animal, “10 wins minimum is a done deal. It’s guaranteed. The only certainty greater than this that I’m aware of is that Snoop Dogg and QCurl Sharif will roll out some Tropic Thunder this weekend.
“We have four more games against the L Division,” explained DTA, who was asked, after the team’s practice on Tuesday, why the Animals were celebrating a playoff berth. “That’s four more wins in the bank, for a minimum of 10. You do the meth, I mean, the math.
“No team with 10 wins has ever missed the playoffs in this league, unless you count the 2004 Bakers, who didn’t show up for their playoff game because everyone was still recovering from the Bacchanal two weeks earlier.”
After DTA left, when reporters asked Wilder the Animal about the secret behind the team’s success, the Animals’ wunderkind GM dropped a bombshell. It has been no secret that WTA has assumed a greater role this year in the team’s operation than in previous years — even making moves of which his pioneering father disapproved. What Wilder revealed, perhaps inadvertently, and what the media did not know until now, is that majority ownership in the Animals was obtained in early September by publishing kingpin Jarry McCohen.
“Mac, I mean Mr. McCohen, told me to take the ball and run with it,” Wilder said. “But please don’t tell my dad. He thinks he’s still the big baller around here.”
