Before going any further, here’s where some basic, technical stuff about American hardcourt bike polo might be of service to the reader. Teams comprise three players, each carrying a three-foot mallet, usually made of light metal and outfitted with a hard plastic head. One end of this head is hollowed out and intended for ball handling; the other is flat, for shooting. Players ride free-wheel bicycles with a front brake and one low gear for prompt acceleration. Games are to five, or to whoever holds the lead after 12 minutes elapse. The sport is played on a regulation-sized roller hockey court – and would in fact resemble hockey, to some degree, if hockey players wore fewer pads and were capable of reaching 30 miles per hour in about three seconds. Each match begins with a “joust,” a sort of macabre hybrid of a jump ball and a game of chicken in which the speediest member from each team sprints from behind his goal toward a resting ball at center court. Player-to-player contact is permissible, which in most cases works to The Beavers’ advantage. They describe their style of play as “gritty, slappy and grabby.”

For better or for worse, tonight’s final is a textbook example of Beavers polo. Dillman, who is six-five and deceptively agile, boomerangs out from behind his own goal and scores first. Kremin, a six-two defenseman, follows up 30 seconds later. From there, Dillman goes on a tear. He scores twice more, putting The Beavers up 4-0 with two minutes left to play. At this point, The Guardians tumble into full-blown panic mode. All three of them swoop toward the Beavers’ goal, but it’s a desperate miscalculation. Halvorsen, the smallest and quickest, scoots a pass behind his opponents, setting Dillman up for a fast break. He coasts across the court and taps in the tournament-winning goal. The Beavers hop off their bikes, discard their gloves and hurtle into each other’s arms.

Here’s where something bizarre happens. In your average sports team victory montage, this is where you’d cue the legion of friends and love interests to stream onto the court, doling out back slaps and cheek kisses. Instead, as Kremin cracks open a bottle of champagne and begins spraying his teammates with foam, the crowd goes silent and sort of dissolves. No one rushes in.

The Beavers, now the best bike polo team on this continent, are left holding only each other. They rejoice at the top, kings of a tiny, specific kingdom. They appear fatigued and ecstatic and achingly, unequivocally alone.

If you are like most Americans, you’ve probably never heard of The Beavers, The Guardians or competitive bike polo in general. You are very likely unaware that the sport, in its first iteration on grass, was featured in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. You didn’t know that its modern, hardcourt version was developed in Seattle 90 years later by a cadre of off-duty bike messengers looking to kill time between assignments – or that it’s now played in dozens of countries, including Ukraine, Thailand, Lumbourg, Belgium, France, Brazil, India, Japan and Australia.

Perhaps most crucially, though: you don’t understand why thousands of people across the world would forfeit their own time and dollars (in the Beavers’ case: most of it, and about 15,000 of them every year, respectively), to compete in a sport that’s basically unknown, unappreciated and perpetually penniless.

It’s this last question that The Beavers are grappling with tonight. A month after their win, we’re sitting in the offices of DZR Shoes, where Dillman, 27, daylights as a sales manager. Located above a Chinese restaurant in a tucked-away alley near San Francisco’s financial district, the place is some combination of retail space, dorm room and tree house. There’s an enormous roll-down projector, rows of carefully positioned sneakers on raw wood shelving, and a cluster of pricey-looking bikes tucked into a rack. There’s also a generous stock of liquor atop an old fridge, a “repurposed” street sign or two, and a grimy fish tank burbling in one corner. The Beavers sip Tecates and review Vimeo footage of their championship win, which Dillman is projecting from a nearby computer.