Hi BD, I play for Boogie Knights (Liverpool) and we have found ourselves improving recently, so we are now fighting in the top half of the B Tour. From my point of view, the Open Tour is the highlight of my ultimate year and I get to see exactly how good we are and how far we've come. We have grown large enough to be able to send a full team to all of the events and are training hard to be ready when everything kicks off. [The team has also attended (is going to attend) all of the Mixed Tour events, although I've not been a part of that team.]
I don't believe that a regional competition will give us the same quality of ultimate that we currently get in the Tour. If the country were split into North and South regions then there would be the full range of skill in both, but not in the same numbers. This means we would sacrifice the large number of games we currently get against teams of a similar level, in favour of playing either much better, or much worse opposition. Those games don't give the quality people want from the main focus of their playing year, so I think it's better avoided. I doubt the travelling would be much cheaper either, because a regional competition in the North would be (rightfully) spread all over the region. The cost of a five hour journey isn't prohibitively more expensive than a two hour journey, if you're all in a car. Maybe the majority of teams in the South region would benefit because they are all based around London, but what about those in the SW? Regionalisation may be an option in the years to come, when there are more teams at the various skill levels, but right now it makes sense for such a small country to allow all of it's teams to find their equals and push one another. That's the best way for every team to improve, what ever level they are at. I think a big problem is that there are not yet enough teams to fill the Tour, and hold alternative regional tournaments. Perhaps a solution would be to stop the tour from growing any more and instead use a qualification system. Basically hold Tour 0, but allow the previous years top 20 (maybe even 25) to qualify automatically and play for the remaining spots. The B Tour could even be reduced to a 24 team event, so a 32 team Tour 0 would have 20 qualifying spots (maybe even 15). This would allow up and coming teams to give it a go, but if they don't make the cut, there should be enough opposition around to hold alternative events and try to improve for the following year. This situation can continue until there is enough call to create a C Tour, with it's own qualification. This could also mean slightly smaller events that would be easier(/cheaper) to host. Yes, Tour 0 needs to be closer to the rest of the tour, but we've heard the explanations for this year and I'm sure it will be different in the years to come. Nick ----- Original Message ---- From: John Armitage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [email protected] Sent: Monday, 14 May, 2007 2:10:24 PM Subject: Re: [BD] Sensible argument for scrapping the Tour Bex, I thought this might come up, and I take your point, as I do know nothing about how the better teams find playing Texas. But for me, in Texas, I travelled (and quite far too, to beautiful Arkansas) to some great tournaments that were enjoyable and competitive, and sure for the top teams life is a bit more tough (as I have just been told). My experience of ultimate is more based from the lower end of playing ultimate, where you don't have the players to play with the big boys in the top part of the Tour. For us lower teams, we have two stark choices. Not bother with the Tour at all, and go to other tournaments (which to my knowledge no club team has considered). Or go to the tour events, which consequently carries a lot of commitment from players. The question is which part of ultimate do you want to develop, the top teams or the bottom teams? The tour is at full capacity and is stopping the sport from growing. It is great for having multiple high quality games at the top end, it is a struggle to keep up with at the bottom. maybe less is more? On 14 May 2007, at 13:33, Rebecca Forth wrote: > > For an elite team texas is an awful example. Doublewide the open > sectional > winners each season suffer at nationals and sometimes at regionals > due to > low levels of local competitions. > > They along with the women's teams have to travel to chicago, emerald > classic, colorado cup to get good games. They have even started > their own > elite tournament texas shootout - that they had to offer prize > money to > attract the bigger teams- because the travelling is so expensive. > > SO if you are using Texas Ultimate as evidence for scrapping the > tour I > think you're seriously barking up the wrong tree. If you spoke to > any of > the players on teams from the southern region competing at > nationals they > would tell you (as they have told me) that they are seriously > envious at > the UK Tour. Infact it was the idea of the tour that sparked off the > Houston CSS (competitve summer series) idea. > > Bex > > >> >> >> Is the tour creaking at its joints? >> >> Yep, it is time to give it up. We can afford to move to warm up >> tournaments, go along to European tournaments, and have our own >> sectionals, regionals, nationals/EUCF regionals and the European >> finals. Why not? Give me a good reason why not? >> >> Here is why it works: >> >> I spent time playing ultimate in Texas, where distances to travel are >> huge but I still went to many tournaments local and far away, and I >> went to Sectionals and lost every game. But the ultimate was more fun >> and there was no pressure to 'have' to go to tournaments. Sectionals >> are competitive events for the smaller teams and a necessary step for >> the big Texas teams like Doublewide. Then regionals is a tough >> tourney for say Doublewide as there are only a very few qualifying >> spots. And nationals is well just tough. >> >> From my experience in America playing with a bunch of students out >> of College Station, playing at the bottom end of a sectionals, >> regionals, etc structure is fine because of the quantity of other >> tournaments that fill the other weekends. >> >> So in the UK we could have a sectionals, which may be an necessary >> step for a big team like Leeds, but not so competitive. Student teams >> could go as a warm up for the student season, fun teams could go to >> play for fun (cos thats what it is all about). Then regionals would >> be the next step, probably the end of a tough season for my club in >> Southampton (there could be only 4 regions, or just 2). Then a >> nationals to select the top teams to go towards EUCF, or nationals >> would be the new EUCF west region and our regionals would feed into >> the EUCF region, whatever, is it so hard to imagine. >> >> There are plenty of open tournaments through the year, and mixed ones >> too. I could go to Paganello, Dive Hard, Windmill Windup, Brugges, >> Copa Cobana, Brighton Beyond and I think I would be quite happy >> (might have miss spelt one of those, but you get my point). If I then >> also went to a mixed and open sectionals plus qualified through to >> regionals that would be 10 tournaments, or almost one a month. Is >> that not a good ultimate calendar or have you all got nothing else to >> do with your weekends? >> >> It is time to move on. >> >> Scot >> >> >> >> >> -- >> ********************************************************** >> John Armitage >> PhD Student >> Geology and Geophysics, NOC >> http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/gg/people/armitage/ >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> >> >> >> >> >> __________________________________________________ >> BritDisc mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc >> Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed >> > > > -- > Rebecca Forth > Colt Foundation Research Fellow > Portex Anaesthesia, Intensive Therapy & Respiratory Unit > Institute of Child Health > 30 Guilford Street > London WC1N 1EH > > Human Performance Laboratory > London Institute for Sport & Exercise > The Archway Campus > 2-10 Highgate Hill > London N19 5LN > > > > __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! 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