In a past topic on sectionals that was filled with discussion and with a comment by Steve on his blog, I thought it was my turn to give a perspective. I've made comments on this before, but here's how I stand as of late.
The past is the past. We won, and we developed a good program. I'll live those championships for years to come, so let's look to the future.
The future is the UPA. The Canadian College series, even more so than the Club series is more of a hindrance than a benefit for Canadian Ultimate. The reason is, we play in our own season that diverts money to weaker tournaments than focusing our efforts and money on playing against the best. Many teams don't make the effort to get into the UPA series since we have a local series.
In Canada, we have such a great opportunity to be involved in the UPA college and club series, and yet, our college teams are slowly moving into the series. This misses out on a great competition, because other than UBC, Western, UofT, Carleton, Ottawa U, Queens, and McGill , the Canadian teams aren't going to the UPAs.
There are lots of arguments like:
- The winter causes problems in a spring run
- The exam schedules don't line up well
- It's too far to travel
- It costs too much
Keep Canadian Easterns as a tournament, but open it up to the U.S. Make it like the Canadian Open in golf. Then we participate in the UPA series while trying to develop a winter U.S. Easterns in somewhere like North Carolina. That would be the major U.S. open winter championships.
As for eligible players, it's probably time to adopt NCAA eligibility rules (forget UPA or CUPA).
That's my opinion.
PJ
9 comments:
glad to hear your insight. i was worrying we wouldnt hear anything from you
see you in texas
I would say CUUC caries far more weight for some others then it may for you. Even in it's current state it is still our national championship. And I'm sure it was probably pretty great to wake up Monday morning and think: "Damn, I'm a national champion."
Granted the big competition is in the spring south of the border, but there's no reason that you can't have a competitve National Championship tournament (or series) in the fall for Canadian schools. It's not like there is big competition from the American tournaments at that time of year.
Change the rostering and that will go a long way to increasing the competition, fairness, legitimacy, or whatever.
im with john. CUUC is a worthy event, im proud ive won 2 (much more proud of making UPA nats once though) but its the rostering/eligibility rules that must be changed in order to be more fair/legitimate for all teams involved.i know for some teams this is their season and thats why its not fair to have archaic rules that only benefit big schools
And more Canadian teams should compete in the UPA college series to increase the overall skill level of canadian college teams and come on, who doesnt like to beat up on americans. But this doesnt mean we should call it quits for our own series.
Im also not sure opening easterns to US teams would make a difference. do you really think anyone would come???
and lastly who the hell runs CUUC. i want to talk to them and share with them all these ideas. someone speak up
I don't know how some schools actively participate in the spring series. I play for Western and sectionals falling right in the middle of exams aside, by the time regionals come around have 3/4 of our team has left the province/moved home several hours away.
I suppose other schools have a majority of their roster as locals? UFT I can understand but this would not be the case for many schools in Canada.
If you prefer the UPA series in the spring, then great but the timing of the spring series in my opinion is too big a hurdle for any meaningful long-term competition from many canadian schools.
I think the real problem with the Canadian University series lies with CUPA itself. The website last I checked is horribly outdated and I'm not sure if we even have a University coordinator. And yes it all comes down to volunteers and no I'm not putting my name in for volunteering so take that criticism for what it's worth (ie very little).
The fact that there is no destination for CUUC in 2008 as of yet is proof of this and one of the reasons many schools do not take it seriously. There is very little time in the fall for schools to fundraise which is likely necessary if the tournament is being held on the other side of the country.
Keep CUUC just tighten some of the screws.
Gentleman...
NHL, NBA, MLB...
Sure there's the CFL, but globalization is a reality. Closing our series is ridiculous, and comments like this (http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.sport.disc/browse_thread/thread/7d1480457b89fa0f?hl=en#) are the reason we potentially will get shut out of the UPA. CUPA should be looking to fold into the larger organization NUPA being the result. We'd be foolish not to push in this direction. As much as I cherish the National championship what's wrong with being the Canadian Open champion. Sure it might be harder, but making a tournament that you can win is like making an amature sport that we can be top-level athletes in ;)
PJ
Teams who want to play in the spring because they really really want to go to nationals and they make the necessary sacrifices.
They have guys knowing their exam, practice and tournament schedule well in advance and staying on top of their studies so they aren't missing practices or tournaments to cram for an exam. People stay behind at school for an extra week between exams and regionals and practice. I'm pretty sure Queen's has just as many local players as western.
And unrelated, but not having time to fund raise in the fall is a lame excuse. Nationals happens every year and there is pattern they follow alternating the location from east to west. Teams know a year in advance they are going to need to fundraise but every fall you get a team asking: "Wait there's nationals this year? It's not in Toronto? What gives?"
There's no rule that says you are only allowed to fundraise for the one month after tryouts before nationals.
This isn't about the NFL and the CFL. It's about the NCAA basketball tournament and the CIS national championship. I don't see the CIS going away any time soon.
why do you list carleton as a canadian team?
Kieran: the carleton that is being used in this post is Carleton University in ottawa. Not Carleton College in the states
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