We are the champions, my friends!

I've been playing basketball with the same team (with slightly different teammates) in an after-work charity-focused basketball league for more than a year. Though a few teammates have come and gone, I refuse to consider the thought of ever playing with any other five people (who've been on my team - Hoop Doggy Dogs - for the past few seasons). Albert, Beth, In-Ho, Matt, and Rob are, to put it mildly, ridiculously awesome people whom I've grown to absolutely adore.

To start, they share one of my great passions: basketball. I know I'll see them all at least once a week for games, and I live for that day - not only because I get to play basketball, but because I get to hang out with these five people. But because we jive so well, we will not only hang out at the bar after (and sometimes before!) every game, but we usually hang out once or twice a week on top of that.

During many of our hangouts, we've talked about how awesome it would be to (finally) win the final game and be the league champions.

The camaraderie may have played a part last night, but I'd like to think that our victory was wholly due to our top-notch athleticism.

We won the league championship!

Woo-hoo!

OK, so technically we won because in the championship game, the other team had to forfeit, but still, we DID win!

Let me back up and explain that we were in the top 4 teams out of 10 in our division, which put us in the semi-finals. After two hard-fought battles in a best-of-three elimination round - in which I feel I played rather well - we beat the other team in the semi-finals and had a chance to rest awhile before the championship round.

We took this golden opportunity to - what else? - each dig into our bags for our deodorants and simultaneously freshen ourselves up before the big game while laughing that we all had the same idea at the same time.

We won the first game against the purple team pretty easily. I again was playing rather well in part, I'm sure, because when I was on offense, my counterpart on defense was a maybe-5-foot-tall girl with one move (fake left and drive right).

We were well on our way toward winning the second and final game when I got slimed. And by that I mean I helped guard the big guy on the purple team and his wet, sweaty, slimy arm rubbed right up against me. Y-UUUU-CK!!! Dealing with sweaty guys is definitely not a highlight in this league.

But I put that past me and our team was up by 10 with just two minutes to go. Victory seemed inevitable, but then a collision caused a guy on the other team to go down to the floor with his hand over his eye. After he removed his hand so we could see if he was OK, I wish I had looked away before he did. All I saw was blood coming from a slice that started in his eye and went above his eyebrow.

The refs immediately told him that they wanted him to go to the hospital and his teammates of course wanted to go with him. We helped his teammates pack up all their stuff and then were left by ourselves on the court still in the midst of the game with no team to play. The ref came up to us, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Well... you guys win."

We all looked at each other and were like, "Yay... I guess." Yet we still went to our favorite bar, Mad River Bar & Grill as planned and sat at our usual table between the kitchen and the fireplace in virtual silence.

"What's up with you guys?" asked our favorite (and hot!) bartender, Patrick, at our gloomy demeanor as he brought us our usual two big pitchers of water.

"Well," I replied. "We just won the league championship."

"What? You don't look like it," he replied. After telling him the unfortunate story, he replied with pretty much what we were feeling: "Wow. That sucks."

After a couple of (pitchers of) beer, we started cheering up and timidly celebrating our victory.

"Hey, a win is a win," In-Ho reminded us. While it's a bit tainted, well, we did win, which means the charity of our choice gets a portion of the proceeds. That's awesome.

And what other charity would a basketball team with a name like Hoop Doggy Dog choose? Why, Mighty Mutts, of course!

Regardless of why or how we won, we'll be helping some of the stray pups of NYC. Now that's something to celebrate!