Template:HellmouthIIGadsdenPurchase
The Peppersauce Crown is the rivalry between the
Tucson Butchers
and
Phoenix Freshrolls
. it is one of the most historically significant rivalries in Golly, which makes it one of the Crown Jewels of Golly. it is named for Peppersauce Cave, located north of Tucson in the general direction of Phoenix, or south of Phoenix in the general direction Tucson, depending on who you ask.
The Peppersauce Crown represents an existential struggle for the soul of Arizona. The Butchers, embodying the wild, dangerous, untamed spirit of the Sonoran Desert, see the Freshrolls as usurpers - their human-constructed, perfectly-curated concrete existence representing an affront to natural order. Phoenix, with its sprawling housing developments unfurling like carpet across the desert, the unquenchable thirst for water that isn't there, represents everything the Butchers despise: the taming of the wild, the suppression of the primal, the urge to be outside usurped by the urge to be inside. Most matches are intense, with both teams seeing it as a symbolic battle over the essence of Arizona: between the coyote and the Home Owners Association, between the well-manicured golf course and the hostile wilderness that lies beyond it.
The
Tucson Butchers
experienced repeated losses at the hands of the
Phoenix Freshrolls
in Hellmouth II/Season 22 and Hellmouth II/Season 24, and with the rivalry being so central to their identity, the losses symbolized to the Butchers the encroachment of civilization on wilderness, green lawns and electric blue swimming pools paving a sea of sand and rock.
The Butchers referred to their losses to the Butchers in these two seasons as the "Gadsden Purchase," as the two postseason wins for the Freshrolls coincided with a state-of-the-art upgrade to their stadium, The Camel's Back. The Butchers, meanwhile, are (due to a complicated legal loophole) stuck in a perpetual, unbreakable lease for The Meat Locker, a run-down former slaughterhouse outside of Tucson that is definitely haunted and gives every visiting team the willies.