Season 8 Intro

As most of you are probably aware by now, Christina Lam was injured in week 2 and will now be out for the rest of the season. Vinh Ly will be subbing in for GTA: SA for the rest of the season. Season ending injuries and subs are all unprecedented situations that BSL has never had to deal with in the past, and we’ve now had to deal with it twice this season. I just wanted to speak a little more on what’s going on and to clear the air on a few things.

First of all, the league was started mostly to come out, hang out, and have fun with your friends. Most of the rules that we have in BSL, like being on time, missing games/make-up games, etc. were all put in place to make sure that players are committed to meeting that objective and show up for their team and the league. Playing without a full team just sucks. The league is at its best and most fun when everyone is present.

We understand that life is unpredictable, and unpreventable situations pop up, whether it’s injuries, emergencies, etc. I don’t want anyone to feel like they are forced to play through an injury and risk aggravating the issue so that they don’t let down their team. As competitive as it can be, ultimately, the league is here for us to have fun. 

Before this season, we have never had a player substitution. We’ve now had 2 this year, one right before the start of the season, and one halfway through the season. There are a lot of things we have had to consider in regards to substitutions. We need a player that has had experience in the league before so that they have an established handicap. This really limits the pool of players that are available to sub in and because of this, it will be really difficult to match a player with another sub that is similar in style and skill. But we have to remember that this is a handicap league and ideally, everyone in the league is on the same playing field and has the ability to contribute to the team as much as anyone else. If we were to use this season as an example,  Christina before her injury was a top 15 player, whereas some of our most skilled bowlers are on the bottom. 

Secondly, the missing spot has been already paid for in full, and we also have players who are willing to fill this spot but were unable to commit to the full season before the season started. Like I mentioned earlier, playing without a full team sucks, and this is the only solution we have to prevent this from continuing. It may not seem like an ideal solution to some, but it’s the best option we have to at least keep the league going forward with at least 4v4 for most games. We’ll continue to hammer out the details in the off season, but for now, this is our resolution on injuries and subs for this season.