Cardinals Meet to Decide Fate of COTHL Playoffs

While news media from around the world focused on the Papal Conclave this past week, another story was also unfolding within the secretive walls of the Vatican.

"Any time you get 114 Cardinals together under the same roof" said Vatican spokesperson Guido 'the Hutt' Hutino "you get them to multitask. It only makes sense."

The Cardinals were able to come to a decision quite quickly on who will become the next Pope, choosing Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina to put on the red shoes this time. With that little matter out of the way, it left them with some extra time clear up some other pressing matters.

"We pre-booked our hotel rooms for 3 weeks." said Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet after the new pope was sworn in by the traditional paddy-wacks ceremony "And the voting was going great, so I thought we should try to get some other work done while we're here. I lobbied to have the boys weigh in on the outcome of the COTHL playoffs next week and they went for it."

Black, black smoke.

Cardinal Ouellet was reluctant to reveal the outcome of the discussions, saying only that he and the other lads had had a 'real good chat with the man upstairs'. Keen observers will have noted, however, a certain smoky chimney partway through Pope Vote 2013.

"The black smoke was just a little gag we played on the press" said Ouellet, quaffing a pint of Fin du Monde and puffing a Du Maurier after the final announcement. "We had Bergsy picked already so we fired up the holy hot knives while we were yakking about the COTHL. You should have seen the press scramble! Too funny."

The finals will feature the Black Aces against the Bloor Battlers, after the Aces stunned the Warriors 5-0 in their semi-final game on March 6. Goals went to Gerry (2), Rod, Aubrey and Mike. Raj was outstanding once again between the pipes.

Cardinal O. checks the game sheet: 'Holy cow, 5-0 Aces!'