In the olden days, excellent teams making it out of the first day of the Spingold was the proverbial piece of cake.
But; that was then. This is now.
In 2017's world, even the best of the best don't have a guarantee of getting to Day #2 of a major team event.
Three Minnesotans proved that their team had the Right Stuff to make it to the Round of 64.
Keith Connolly, along with teammates Pamela Nisbet, John Laufer, and Dennis Ryan, earned the right to play the tough Jacek Pszczola "Pepsi" team.
Mike Cassel also made it through to the round of 64, with teammates Howard Kahlenberg, Andy Kaufman and Donna Morgen. Mike & Company also had to face a star studded Mahaffey team on Day 2.
While Keith and Mike's teams did not survive to Day #3 - believe me, some pretty impressive teams failed to survive more than one day.
In yet another match, Duluth resident, junior Ben Kristensen played with partner and teammates Kevin Rosenberg, Adam Kaplan and Christian Jolly, the original 93 seed. And they faced one of the top teams in the world: Monaco.
At the end of the day? It turned out that it was Monaco who got the tough draw; the Jolly team moved on and Monaco was on the sidelines!
Jolly, too, did not survive to the Round of 32. Yet, beating such a world class team was a huge accomplishment and a great thrill for all these young players.
Congratulations to all these Minnesotan players who did us proud in Toronto!
(And my apologies as Webmaster for tardiness in posting. Having the Nebraska Regional following the Summer NABC so rapidly presents its own challenges!)
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