The 1999 Halloween Foosball Tournament was an event of epic magnitude. Corey lost his first game, Greg was also denied his threepeat again, Pat actually beat someone other than Jon, Jim continued to feel the effects of the 96 series curse, Angel and the Day Care champion Chris faced in a true David vs. Goliath match, and Steve shocked the world by winning the 4th annual Halloween Foosball tournament, even if he did have some help along the way....
Steve got really lucky when he got a bye in what was to be a first round match vs. Nick L., the tournament had started so reshuffling the brackets was impossible and no suitable replacement was found. The fact is that Greg only won his championships when he had to win 3 games, once he needed to win 4, he couldn't do it...Steve was in the position where he needed to only win 3 games.
Now Steve's second round opponent was Nicky, a finalist from the year before....the difference from 98 and 99 was there was a lot of pressure on Nicky, a hero to elementray school students in a middle school dominated tournament (look at the stats and curses section for more on that). With all that pressure of a repeat, Nicky just couldn't handle it. Plus Steve had some revenge on his mind.... So Steve became the first older Ostis brother to win vs. a younger one.
While Nicky had pressure, Greg had an ego. Greg definitely looked past Steve completely, as he was definitely looking for a rematch vs. Corey in the finals. Definitely. Greg may have been "humbled" a year earlier, but he had too much overconfidence from a long history of beating Steve... And it came back to haunt him (OH the irony...Haunting on Halloween), as Steve would make it to the finals.
Now Nick L. left, Nick O. had too much pressue, Greg had too big an ego...but Steve had something more important on his side. A whole freakin team and whole audience. First there was Greg, who has as much foosbakk knowledge as anyone else in the game, who would be damned to see Corey win and tied him for alltime championships. So Greg was Steve's trainer...but is Greg's stargety and training didn't work, there was always Plan B. James Higson didn't want his legacy to be the kid who lost to Patrick so he joined Steve and threw goldfish at Corey throughout the match, distracting and disruting the defending foosball champion until he lost.
Or maybe it was the Ptolemy costume.....
Now thats not to take away from Steve, he did win, with help or not, you have to have talent to win the Halloween Foosball Tournament..... But he was definitely very Lucky.
Coming Tomorrow: another look back at the other big things that happened in 1999.
