Donnie Mills -- a gentleman and a professional
good performance Donnie,
too bad for me but I only caught this match just about to 8-8,
what did I miss between Mika and Donnie earlier?
I heard there were some hand signals exchanged? what happened?
I didn't see that. In fact, when Mika made a bad miss on a ball in front of a pocket, and that ball went around the table three rails into another pocket, he walked over to Donnie, and with the "I'm sorry" motion of the hands, apologized to him. Mika was actually more of a gentleman in this match, than when I last saw him play (in person) at the Predator World Straight Pool tournament at Comet Billiards in NJ. (Mika was over the top and out of line with some of his commential mutterings in his match with Oliver Ortmann.)
What you may hear, and will be completely untrue, is a misunderstanding about "Donnie making a swipe at Corey Deuel when Barry Behrman announced last call for the cue raffle over the P.A. system, where Donnie made a comment that Corey should purchase a ticket, for he might win a cue he can actually win with." (This comment was made, but it wasn't by Donnie, even though Donnie got back up off the table and looked over in Corey's direction when it was made. The comment was made by Barry himself, and he later grabbed the mic from Scott Smith and publicly apologized to Corey.) I mention this, because I got a personal email from someone that said "did you hear that comment Donnie made to Corey?" which was obviously the start of a rumor mill. I quashed it, because folks might've misunderstood Jim Wych in how he recounted the comment immediately after it was said.
Donnie is truly a class act, and didn't deserve the cruel fate of 9-ball that he was dealt (i.e. scratching on the break in the case game, with an anyone-can-get-out Cosmo pattern, *TWICE* -- one in each of two successive matches).
Donnie, if you're reading this, you showed the world the professional that you are! Third is nothing to sneeze at, and I know we're going to see you run deeper into subsequent events!
Congratulations!
-Sean