Poll Thursday - Club Series Fever

Last week I polled about the awareness of the touring in your respective city leagues. From the results it appears that people in league know of some touring teams in the area. I get the same feeling here in Toronto, and I have some thoughts on the topic for an upcoming post.

I've always enjoyed both the UPAs fall club series and spring college series. Teams are ramping up for sectionals, regionals, and nationals. There's a two tier qualification system to get one of 16 spots (12 in the Master's division) in the finals in Sarasota, Florida.

The fascinating thing about the series is that for many teams sectionals and regionals will be the end of the road. For these teams these tournaments are the big show. They get to battle the incumbents who they may never get to play all season due to the tiering of tournaments. This is their big chance to see how they match up and show how they might fair in the future.

Even for the top teams, the road to Nationals is a long one as every region has up and coming teams nipping at their heels trying to make an Appalachian State like upset that will light RSD on fire. Each game needs to be treated as a legitimate game that will help build a successful run, and yet, each team has to plan how to deal with an entire tournament worth of games.

It's great fun to observe and play in, and my only complaint is the overall lack of media coverage for each of the stages of the series. The poll question this week is what interest do you, personally, have in the series? Make your pick to the right.

PJ