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WARNING: THIS DOESNT PERTAIN TO MADDEN OR THE NFL, BUT IT IS A PRETTY GOOD STORY

So I’ve gotten plenty of comments on my name in the past, and found it funny that no one ever asks how I came up with it. Here’s the old wives tale in all its glory.

One seemingly normal day in the mid-west, three childhood friends are just bursting with excitement. For this was no normal day, this was the day they had been anxiously awaiting. The US release of Halo 2! Three boys went to school. Two boys got sleep the night before. One boy went to Wal*mart at midnight to pickup a pre-ordered copy of Halo 2. This is the story of one of the boys who got sleep the night before.

As I woke the morning of November 9th, 2004 I stumbled to the shower half awake, as I always did. The water seemed extra soothing this day, perhaps it was the coming of the Christmas season, or perhaps the knowledge that my best friend had stayed up all night prior to this morning in order to get us a copy of Halo 2, or perhaps it was knowing that today of all days was a half day at school. Despite the reasoning behind the water being so soothing, this was sure to be a great day.

Block scheduling, makes even half days seem long. In any other school, we would have had to visit each class for a dismal amount of time, however in my school we only go to half our classes each day. So splitting the hours in half didn’t really make a difference. Teachers would continue as planned, and the only thing that got sacrificed was our beloved lunch period. Needless to say the 4 hours seemed just as long as a normal 8 hour day. What followed the seemingly longest half day in the history of half days was the most memorable afternoon of solid online gaming I have ever been a part of.

The name of the game was Big-Team Battle and in those days the most frequently played game type was single bomb, and or classic CTF. (Capture the Flag) We played for hours, and as young boys do we got on our opponents nerves in game, and outside the game. Every time we joined a new match we read over the names of our fellow gamers, every so often stopping to make jokes about them. One name stuck out in particular, it was the name of one of my teammates. I don’t remember his exact name but it had the word Ganch in it. I hassled him for pretty much the whole game simply because he wouldn’t tell me what a ganch was. My friends and I were puzzled by the word also. My interest in the actual meaning of Ganch increased with each match we played after that.

The next day at school I made it the mission of my friends and I to research this mysterious word. My friend Rob (the math wiz) found somewhere on the internet that a Gaunch was the largest fresh water fish in existence. I didn’t believe him for one second and still don’t to this day. I’ve search many times and the only definitions I’ve found were from urbandictionary.com. Anyways ever since then we have been calling people ganches with no really explanation for anyone asking what the heck we’re talking about.

From urbandictionary.com:
1. ganch: 1. A person who talks rubbish or talks too much; 2. To talk rubbish or to talk too much
Examples: 1. “He’s a proper ganch that one”; 2. “All he does is ganch. When’s he gonna quit his ganching”

2. ganch: The stretch of skin between the anus and the testicles. See also ‘chode’ or ‘grendela’
Examples: Dan fell on the ice, did the splits, and tore his ganch.

3. Ganch: That fat part of a cat’s belly that swings back and forth when it runs.
Examples: Holy cow that ganch is hitting the floor!

So last year I lost my login info for my previous gamertag, and when it came time to renew I decided to get a new one. I asked my friends for input but none of them came up with anything good, so I chose Ganchatize Me Captain, as a play on the popular slogan for my favorite cereal. (Captain Crunch!) With Xbox live character limitations it had to be shortened to GanchatizMeCptn. So I guess I’m a trash talker by definition, but if you ever play me, you’ll find out I’m relatively soft spoken, only speaking my piece when needed.

Intro:
Madden 10 is on the shelves finally, and I am just starting to get the hang of the new features. Over the duration of this fall Madden season, I will be participating in a Gamebattles Arena Ladder. I have never entered any gaming tournaments of this sort. (last one I was in was a gameboy link cable tournament for Poke’mon at the mall) I will be detailing the events of my matches and preparations. Hopefully this is helpful to readers who are on the edge about joining gamebattles, or just want to see what strategies other gamers are rolling with.

Week 1 Labbing the Colts
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Offensive strong points:
Peyton Manning 99
Reggie Wayne 95
Dallas Clark 91
Joseph Addai 85
Jeff Saturday 93

Defensive strong points:
Bob Sanders 95
Dwight Freeney 94
Robert Mathis 92
Raheem Brock 85
Antoine Bethea 88

Gameplan:
I’d like to take control of the game from an offensive standpoint. Seeing how I have very low expectations for my Linebacking crew. I’m going into every game expecting to play it safe, west coast style. I’ll be trying my best to make zero mistakes because controlling the game offensively requires an error-free drive. I anticipate having little to no problem picking defenses apart with Dallas Clark lining up in the slot in Indy’s special TE Slot formation. Every now and then I plan on throwing in a pitch or a dive just so they dont start dropping back in Prevent or anything cheesy like that. If I can dominate time of possession, I’m pretty sure I can put up the points needed to win.

In the event I do need to rely on my defense, I will be looking at running a lot of 1-5-5 mainly. Although I’m not so sure putting 4 of my linebackers in is a good plan either. They all seem to be sub-par, even the highest rated one, Gary Bracket is a freaking joke. Maybe I should run 46 or some other type of spread defense. I haven’t decided which formation will be my base but I’ll definitely be using the Multiple D playbook.

Matchups:
Non-Gamebattles Ranked vs Vikings (My PB’s: Run & Gun + Multiple D’s)
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I won the toss, got the ball first, and found that running with Indy isn’t as hard to setup as I thought it would be. I didnt even establish the run, before I started throwing in playaction passes. My first playaction attempt ended in a 53 yard touchdown catch for Joey Addai. The play was Ace PA DBL GO, I motioned the left TE to the right to see if it was man coverage. Once I saw it was zone I kept his route the same. If it had been man I would have hot routed him to a drag pattern.Youtube

My second offensive drive was even quicker than the first, It took me three plays to go 79 yards. Every play of the drive I used motion in hopes that he wouldnt notice i run basically the same routes every down just switching them between WR’s. Here’s my entire 2nd drive on video! Youtube

My defense didn’t really have any trouble except for Tarvaris Jackson evading my nano blitzes in the red zone to score a TD Heres a clip of just that.
Youtube!

I didn’t end up dominating the time of possession like I thought I would. Maybe that’s because both of my TD’s were supposed to be short throws over the middle but the play action blew the safeties outta my way! I was very pleased with my offense, especially my running attack considering that Vikings front 4 are beasts, my D on the other hand was better than expected but still lacking, maybe I just called some bad/risky plays on 3rd downs. Who knows? But I think next match I’m gonna run the 46 playbook. I liked the spread nickel defenses, but not having 3 or 4 down linemen was too inviting for a great running back
like Adrian Peterson.

After thought:
I think I’m ready to start playing some ladder matches on Gamebattles. (Especially because I’m sick of people quitting in the 3rd quarter when I’m only up by 11, you know who you are!)