In pictures: Surviving Yellowknife’s adult dodgeball league final

“I’m not this competitive in real life. It’s just the dodgeball. The competitive just comes out.”

Branda Le built an adult dodgeball league for Yellowknife and is now its champion after her team, Get Rekt, won last week’s final against a team from St Pat’s high school named Teach and Destroy.

Following a three-month season, the final became an epic encounter lasting almost two hours inside the St Joe’s school gymnasium.

“It started on Thanksgiving weekend,” said Le.

“People just kept telling me I should start a league. I played quite a bit of dodgeball intramural in university, and so I just really missed the sport.

“It’s super good stress relief and it’s just such a nice time with people, too.”

It’s $90 to register for the season, or $65 if you’re aged 15 to 17.

Advertising the presence of referees and “low-sting foam balls,” the league attracted six teams for its inaugural campaign, most of which was played at the DND gym inside Yellowknife’s multiplex.

The switch to the St Joe’s gym for the April 1 final – the result of a municipal scheduling conflict – was in part responsible for the gruelling nature of the contest.

The St Joe’s gym offered a narrower, deeper field of play than the DND gym. The two top teams tried to adapt their game accordingly, realizing that if they hung back in the far reaches, being struck became harder.

Eventually, the officials had to use tape to shorten the playing area as the game risked dragging on forever. Put simply, dodging became too easy.

“It was a completely different game than what we’re used to,” said Christopher Wong, captain of Teach and Destroy, which has counted the principal and vice-principal of St Pat’s among its players this season.

“I think we needed to change our strategy a bit, play the long game and that would have helped out,” Wong said of his team’s narrow defeat.

“That was definitely the most intense game we’ve played so far,” said Melissa Clark of Get Rekt, “but it was super fun.”

Asked why she signed up, Clark said she did so because of her friend Le’s passion for the sport.

“She’s really fun to watch and invested in this sport. She has real skills that I’ve never seen before,” Clark said, turning to Le and adding: “Everything I do, I learned from you.”

“I’m humbled,” replied Le.

Wong didn’t think his school colleagues meant it when they first proposed fielding a team.

“I let it slide through the holidays and then the new year comes around, I email everyone out – are you guys still serious? – and everyone still was, so we set up a team,” he said.

“We had a good team. So many of our staff members came out to play. It was nice to have that school community.”

One of those team members was Miguel Letain.

Despite frustrations with the way the final worked out – he had gripes about some of the rules and said the two-hour game turned into “a grinder” – Letain said he couldn’t resist being a part of this league.

“I used to play baseball and I live for our staff versus grad dodgeball game. I figured it’s a bit of a time commitment but it would be a lot of fun,” he said.

Le hopes to bring the league back for a second season soon.

“The plan is the fall of this year,” she said. “Probably around September.”