Lakewood Croquet Club

SEATTLE, WA – Former Lakewood Croquet Club (LCC) President and Champions Cup IX winner Brian S. Johnston III took his frustrations over the scheduling of this year’s Cup public with a series of scathing MySpace comments and three melodramatic voicemails left for LCC rival “King of Qualifying” Tom Carmony.

Johnston, along with all top LCC competitors, was surveyed in early July regarding potential dates for the 2006 edition of the Champions Cup, the LCC’s premiere event. Based on the feedback provided, this year’s event was scheduled for Saturday, August 19th at Gas Works Park in Seattle. In addition to the usual cast of top LCC comeptitors, players from Oregon’s Ironman Croquet League are confirmed to be participating and are expected to make the journey from Oregon to Seattle to challenge for the Cup.

Unfortunately for Johnston, a recent scheduling change for a personal commitment left him unable to compete on the 19th. He formally requested a change of the date for the Champions Cup, but after gathering feedback from a variety of competitors, LCC President (and defending Champions Cup winner) “Mr. Fantastic” Kevin Sutton nixed the request, electing to keep the event as originally scheduled, on August 19th.

Needless to say, this hasn’t sat well with Johnston.

He responded with a pseudo-resignation letter that no one took seriously:

The organization has reached an all time low, I can no longer be apart of the LCC. You will have my resignation from the LCC by the end of the week.

Seriously,

Mr. BS Johnston III

Carmony, the target of much of Johnston’s ire in the matter (for his suggestion that the date remain as original chosen to accomodate the out-of-town competitors traveling to Seattle for the event), wasn’t impressed by Johnston’s response.

“You’re such a drama queen,” replied Carmony in a email cc’d to LCC Board members.

Johnston’s frustrations continued to boil over the following day, as he left a series of aggravated voicemail messages for Carmony, then moved on to scathing MySpace comments targeted at Carmony and Sutton.

In regards to LCC President Sutton, Johnston stated in a MySpace comment, “Tell that piece of crap… that he is a punk bitch! I curse [you]!”

His words for Carmony were slightly angrier.

“BACK STABBING HACK LOOSER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE…”

Johnston, however, denies the authenticity of the MySpace comments.

“Someone is clearly trying to smear me and obviously hacked into my account,” he stated. In fact, I’d go so far as to speculate that it might even have been Tom or Kevin themselves, simply trying to make me look bad. I wouldn’t trust those two under any circumstances.”

» Listen to the full audio of Brian’s voicemail messages (977KB MP3)