Bad Good Luck: How I Won A Trip To Maui By Rooting For Duke
The NCAA Tournament has come and gone. I experienced a great deal of good luck, in a bad way — I won a trip to Maui by rooting for the Duke Blue Devils.
This article is going to dive deep into your emotions for not only your love of the Tar Heels, but hatred of the Blue Devils. Imagine if a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was only possible if your least favorite, most-hated, and absolutely biggest rival had to win the national championship.
That was me throughout the NCAA tournament this year. Here’s the story…
The week of the first round of the NCAA tournament there was an event in my local area that promised a meet and greet with professional wrestling legend, Ric Flair, as their special guest. One of my friends just told me that Ric Flair would be at this event signing autographs and taking pictures with the fans.
I didn’t know what he was even there for, all he said was it was something to do with fantasy sports. So I went downtown, walked into the event, which was absolutely free and I was able to meet and take a picture with Ric Flair.
Exhibit A
After meeting Ric Flair, getting a picture and autograph of him I was all set to go home. I had my fun, met one of my heroes, and only sat back down to update my Facebook page to brag to my friends about meeting “The Nature Boy”.
As I was sitting there the local radio station that was covering the event, Q105.1 Rock began going over the promotion. “Gunner and Chow” are the personalities that were there to give us the low-down.
How it worked was that company known as “Fantasy Sports Paradise” was putting together a promotion for the upcoming NCAA tournament called “Mayhem in the Mancave.”
On a table there were 64 hockey pucks representing the teams in the upcoming tournament. On each puck was a number 1-16 with a corresponding color for each region.
Basically, Gunner and Chow said, “Alright, well there are 64 pucks up here and there might be more than 64 of you here, so hurry up and grab a puck so you’re entered in this event!”
Some guys dashed up to the front, some (like me) lazily walked up there, grabbed a puck and resumed our seat. I knew mine was good with a big #1 on it.
Exhibit B
Knowing I had one of the 1 seeds I was pretty confident in my chances. Once Gunner said, “Alright, everyone with a yellow puck up to the stage you’ve got the south region!”
I knew that was Duke’s region. So this is the scenario. If Duke wins the NCAA Tournament I win (1) one trip for 2 to Maui, Hawaii including round trip air from Fargo to Maui and 7 nights room.
Last night I watched the game at the “Plasma Hall” in Moorhead, MN to see if I was going to Maui, or not. As we’ve all found out by now, the stupid Blue Devils won the game and I guess I’ve got a week of vacation to Maui, Hawaii with one guest.
Watching that game was so hard on my emotions. Duke would go on a run and part of me would see the beach, Mai Tai’s, and a hammock while the other side of me would see those deplorable, cake-eater, rich little brats that refer to themselves as the “Cameron Crazies”.
By the end of the game, I decided that since the Tar Heels weren’t winning, at least it helps the strength of the ACC for Duke to win, plus that whole weeklong trip to Maui wasn’t so bad.
As far as the experience, I can’t say enough about it. “Mayhem in the Mancave” was an absolute success. I can’t say enough about how amazing the night of the draft was by meeting Ric Flair, to having to actually pay attention to not only my beloved Tar Heels, but those awful Blue Devils throughout the tournament.
So even though Duke appeared to be on the nice end of some officiating on top of very poor play from Wisconsin down the stretch and the takeover by Grayson Allen and Tyus Jones, I’M GOING TO MAUI!
For those of you that are fantasy sports junkies, keep an eye on www.fantasysportsparadise.com for online promotions and challenges.