March Madness

March Maddness in the Feddema household has always been some pretty serious business. Generally, my family would find it satisfying enough to fill out brackets and laugh at our misfortune as they were shredded to pieces by upset after upset. But recently, things got a whole lot more intense. It all started when my grandparents picked up a trophy from the local hardware store. My family (cousins and all) would fill out a bracket, and the winner would get to keep the trophy until the next year.

Then we found out we could have our names engraved into the thing.

Suddenly the intensity became a reality. We opened an online forum where our brackets would be officially callibrated and ranked. We opened a chatroom to discuss our strategy and trash talk one another. We'd sit through the games together and cheer on our respective teams. At the end of the Maddness, the winner would have his/her name engraved on the trophy, along with the year of the competition. He/she then would proudly display the personal award for all to see until the following year.

Needless to say, March is a time when the Sikkenga/Feddema family experiences much joy and suffering, saddness and euphoria, gloating and mourning for fallen teams. I suppose that's why they call it Maddness. And this year, I'm near the top. :)