This past April, 128 players throughout New England competed to be one of the 8 players to go play a mini tournament in Connecticut to try to win a NIB Stern X-Men Pro. This show is the 8-person tournament, or at least some of it.
No spoilers please for anybody who knows how this turned out.
This is in my program guide as “Top pinball players from across New England compete to take home the Speedy Silver Ball crown.”
Let’s go VT!!!
My ESPN2 does not have this. I searched for speedy and pinball, all I got was the Stern event from 2021 that’s being rerun on August 10th. I even scrolled 2 weeks out on the ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNW individual listings and it wasn’t there. Any idea what’s going on?
I assume it’s like the speed events we run here at Ayce Gogi that Karl streams. They’re both fun and intense. I’ve played in several of them (won once, on Stranger Things), and you feel the pressure more than in “regular” pinball. Pinballers aren’t used to being in a rush the whole time (even if it’s only for a few minutes), just the occasional single hurry-up shot. Let me guess, the qualifying was done at Pintastic? How was that handled? And who / how were the speed goals and game to be played chosen?
Took me a minute, but I found it at 10:30 Thursday night west coast time. After the Onewheel world championship and before the Golden Tee golf championship. Should be a fun night.
Qualifying wasn’t at Pintastic. It was done via invitation at separate venues throughout New England.
I know that the event that is being broadcast is all time-based. I think they are going to edit to make some or all of it look like it is heads up and the players are playing different machines against each other like at Ayce Gogi, but there was only one machine on site that everyone took turns on. Round 1 was all 8 players competing with everyone, top 4 times advance. Then there was a semifinal heads-up round, and a then finals heads-up round.
I don’t know how the goals were chosen. Also not sure if the separate qualifying events were time-based. My guess is that Stern specified everything. Note that Stern was not on site, but I’m told the distributor in charge set up the X-Men very well. Extra kudos for that. IYKYK.
Random note: For round 1, it was a random draw to determine player order. All players got to watch the players before them and see the time(s) being recorded. That’s a yikes from me, with the later players having a pretty big advantage.
Sorry @BMU
Just saw your first question. You should be able to search for NESSBIC [edited; thanks yancy] and find this program.
On YoutubeTV, it doesn’t come up when I search “pinball.” But “NESSBIC” [edited; thanks yancy] works.
U-verse calls it NESSBIC (note: two S, one B) in the program guide, and New England Super Speedy Ball Invitational Championship when you click info. Unfortunately the word “pinball” doesn’t appear anywhere.
If all else fails, just force your DVR to manually record at that time no matter what the guide says.
Thanks for this head’s-up. I was able to find it on YouTube TV using that search term.
Congratulations Steve. This is great for pinball, obvs 
If Imoto produced this show (like the last Ocho show), it will be awesome. I can’t wait to check it out.
I’m not in it, but my friend Mike Havens is playing in it representing the state of Vermont, The Pinball Co-op, and @twosev. 
I just watched this show. Well edited, and I think the announcers did a good job keeping some lingo and also making things understandable for non-pinball people.
Good job on the show!
