[dogwood30]

The Dogwood Miniature Football League....DMFL....Commissioner Mike Veliky

I was recently asked how I have completed almost 47 Super Bowl Tournaments with so many teams.

I started when I was about 10 years old. My Dad bought me the Packers vs Colts model 500 game for Christmas and I was hooked at an early age. There were not many teams back then so I was able to play alot. I even used to broadcast the games onto a reel to reel tape recorder. My Sister recently found an old reel and made a tape of it for me. Talk about reliving your childhood memories. I used to keep all my scores , standings , and Playoff records in this big notebook written in pencil. I soon had every team in home and away uniforms and moved up to the 620 boards. My best friend and I used to play so much we broke switches and pulled the wires loose many times. My friends Dad taught him how to solder the wires back on so we could fix our boards oulselves. As the NFC and AFC expanded and so did I. I played about 20-25 Super Bowls with my collection. When I was in high school I didn't play as much. A friend of mine accidently stepped on my 620 board and put a huge dent in it to the point where I threw it away. I packed up my teams in boxes and put them aside. I moved out on my own and forgot about my collection. When I finally went to dig them out I found out there was a major attic clean out at home and my entire collection of teams was lost. At this point I thaught electric football was history. About 10 years ago I was going through an old box of photos and at the bottom I found my big notebook with all my records in it. I was so excited I immediately put them on my computer. That weekend I went out and bought the Rams / Titans Super Bowl Game and was soon hooked AGAIN. Then I discovered that Miggle made all the teams and before long I had all the teams again. I soon bought a bigger board on eBay and my league was reborn. My next discovery was again on eBay when I saw some teams that were custom painted and had 2 color numbers on them. I fell in love with the buzzball figures and started collecting custom teams. I was able to sell my Miggle teams and started replacing them with the buzzball custom painted teams and I am still in the process. I'm sure there are MFCA members that have done teams for me. My last upgrade was buying a Watts board on eBay with a custom 49ers field painted on it. It had different shades of green grass and brown dirt to look just like Candlestick Park. It was ironic because the 49ers have been my most successful franchise over the years. I happen to be a Cowboy fan and I then discovered custom made field covers and bought a Cowboy cover and put it over the 49er field which I play on now. I gave you my league setup in anearlier post including all my expansion teams.

Here is how I do my tournaments with so many teams. This year I had 40 teams ( going to 48 next season ) 5 teams in each division. I start my grid by seeding the teams from the past seasons results. Each division winner and runner-up get 1st round byes I start with a play in round. The loser of last years play in round game is the visiting team. The home team is the 2nd round loser from the previous year who lost by the most points. They play the play in round to determin the #4 seed in each division. The #3 seed goes to the 2nd round loser from the previous year who lost by the least amount of points. Each division has a play in round game resulting in 8 play in games. After this round I am down to 32 teams. ROUND 2-Division playoffs #4 seed plays #1 seed and #3 plays #2 to determine who will play for the division title. This round gets me down to 16 teams. ROUND 3- Division Championship Round. The 4 division winners in each conference gets into the Super Bowl tournament. Up to this point I play all my games with a fastplay system that I have created which allows me to play games in just a few minutes. This system is very random so the league can't be dominated by the best based team each year and it gives my league great parity. Once a team make it to the field games its up for grabs. ROUND 4-Wild Card play in round- This is where I actually play the full games on my board.I now have 4 division champions in my brackets seeded 1 thru 4 but still need the #5 and #6 seeds the wild card teams. The 4 losing teams from each division title game get one more chance to make the post-season. These 4 teams playoff and the 2 winners advance as the 2 wild card teams in each conference. Round 5- Wild Card Weekend. Just like the NFL the #6 seed plays the #3 seed and #5 plays at #4 with the 2 winners moving to ROUND 6- Divisonal Playoffs -The 2 advancing teams from the wild card weekend are re seeded and the lower seed plays at the #1 seed while the higher seed plays at the #2 seed. The winners go to ROUND 7 Conference Championship Games with the 2 winners moving to ROUND 8- THE SUPER BOWL.

Next year when I go to 48 teams there will be 6 teams in each division so I will simply add 8 more play in round games totaling 16. After the play in round I will once again be down to 32 teams and will follow the same format as above.

I am in the process of working my entire solitaire playing style and rules plus the fastplay system into a package that may interest the solitaire league player. I am still refining things trying to make thigns even better so when I get it all together I will let you all know. I hope this thread was interesting and maybe even inspiring to the solitaire player. Expansion teams are fun and it's not impossible to have a 48 team league.

Mike V.