Coattail Pennant

Rainbow/Season 12 represented an all-time low for Alewife Arsonists - clinching a spot in the Rainbow Cup by finishing second to their bitter rivals, the Boylston Boogers . The final game in the that Season 12 Championship Series got ugly, with fistfights between the Boogers and Arsonists breaking out. The entirety of the final Game 9 was a slap in the face for Alewife, a virtual victory parade for the Boogers, with the Arsonists stuck trailing behind the parade to clean up the mess.

When the final results came in from the mysterious Brake Master Cylinder's pirate radio broadcast, confirming the Boogers had won the pennant and the Arsonists had merely secured a spot behind their snot-nosed uptown rivals, there were no horns sounding the Alewife Salute in the parking garage. It was a rare occasion where a postseason clinch was met with absolute, tomblike silence. The spiritual defeat of being pulled into the finals by their most hated rials was a deep wound that only a Rainbow Cup win against the Boogers could heal. It was a Coattail Pennant.

The healing would not come in Rainbow/Season 12: the Arsonists bombed out of the Rainbow Cup, taking a distant last place with 17🌈, far behind the Boogers with 53🌈. As the mysterious Brake Master Cylinder said in his famous final broadcast: "The Arsonists were not here to accumulate rainbows. They were here to SEND THE BOOGERS BACK TO WELLESLEY. And whether they earned 1🌈 or 17🌈, whether the Boogers put their grubby fingers on the Rainbow Cup or not, it doesn't matter, because tonight, the Arsonists failed at the main thing: to keep the main thing the main thing."

Alewife wouldn't have to wait long: they would get their vengeance in Rainbow/Season 13.