Template:BoatShoesSecondKleinLoopFragment

While San Francisco Boat Shoes fans expected Klein/Season 7 to open the floodgates, that single victory instead stood alone, and marked the beginning of an almost unbelievable string of failures at the final hurdle. The Boat Shoes became regular-season gatekeepers of the Hot League - dominating the shorter format of 11-game seasons - but faced continued failure in their quest for a pennant. The second Klein Loop was defined by three bitter rivalries with teams that could and did effectively shut down the Boat Shoes, season after season, at the doorstep of a pennant:

• Milwaukee Flamingos (Milwaukee Ice) - The rivalry with the Flamingos was defined by a cold, soul-crushing finality. In Klein/Season 11 and Klein/Season 12, Milwaukee put the Boat Shoes' ambitions on ice, knocking them out of the playoffs, including a painful 2-4 loss in the Championship Series. Every series was like a promising Boat Shoes season hitting a wall of Midwestern winter.
• Alewife Arsonists (the Alewife Firewall) - The Arsonists maintained an impassable firewall, extinguishing the Shoes' hopes in a 4-2 Championship Series in Klein/Season 9 and (even more painfully) in another seven-game classic in Klein/Season 14 where the Boat Shoes had entered the postseason as the #1 seed.
• Sugar Grove Eavesdroppers (the Static Stranglehold) - The Eavesdroppers didn't just beat the Boat Shoes, they completely silenced them. Matchups were defined by suffocating defenses that turned promising drives, patterns, and formations into static ash fields. After being swept in Klein/Season 7, the Boat Shoes fell into the Eavesdroppers' trap, losing a crushing seven-game Championship Series in Klein/Season 10 (where the Boat Shoes had entered the postseason as the #1 seed), ending the Shoes' season with a quiet hum of dead air.