[Truth]

All the fuss could have been avoided if Ashland, since it obviously knew Russell had blackballed Kouns, choose someone other than Kouns to referee the tournament. By selecting Kouns, even though it knew of the blackball, Ashland set itself up to have him call its games. It also gave Ashland an "excuse" if anyone complained about it.

Slick? Absolutely. But no one ever accused the Ashland people of being dumb.

Unfortunately for them, NCC was far superior to Ashland.

But, I agree with most of what Leaping Lee has stated. On the rest, we can just agree to disagree. Nothing wrong with that.