2003 West Coast Championships results

[Odo]

Hi folks,

The results of last weekend's West Coast Championships
are attached. Sorry 'bout the delay in publishing this!

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the next West
Coast competition which will be hosted by the UCLA club
at Hansen Dam in LA on September 27th ... a good warm-up
for the Nationals which will also be held there 2 weeks later.

:thumbup:

John O'D.

[Odo]

Think that the file is attached this time ...

[KAP]

Just out of curiousity, what kind of tournaments do you guys play through out the year. Like do they get a large turn out, is the playing level fairly high, or are they just fun little gatherings to play some polo? Also, are there tournaments on the West coast farther North than California? The only reason I ask is that maybe we can increase the number times a year Canadians, and Americans get together to play a few games. It is also to my knowledge that our ponds are frozen over way longer than yours are. It would be cool to play polo in the winter, just not in a pool.

KAP

[Odo]

Hey Kyle,

We started having this West Coast series of tournamments
last year. I think that there have been 3 of these regional
tournaments in California since the start of the year,
and there were 4 or 5 in total last year.

The turnout we had this weekend is typical - with 40 odd
players.

A similar series started on the East coast this year with teams
from Baltimore/Washington, Boston, Rochester and New York
participating. Their next event is later this month in the Boston
area.

There are no teams playing further North at the moment
to bring the series up there. At the West Coast championships
2 years ago we had teams from Washington State (Seattle
area) and Sacramento. It seems that those areas are not very
active since then, although we are getting lot more interest in
San Francisco.

This is the first comp that we've had in the San Francisco
area in a while - due to lack of a venue. The rest were held
in San Diego and LA.

The tournament last weekend was fairly competitive. The 4
teams in Div I had some good battles. If you look at the names
on the team list you'll see some familiar faces. A lot of the GGB
team played against you in GP, as did some of the TEX-DC and
UCLA folk.

However, it is not as competitive as our Nationals, or the
Canadian Nationals. The reason this series was arranged is to
increase the exposure of our developing players to competition.
Teams are often balanced to make the games more
competitive.

These competitions are one-day events, but we usually have
a practice session the day after. Last weekend the pitch was
put up on Sunday again and 20+ of the players were there
to play scrimmage games all day again.

There was also an organized (but informal) referee assessment
over the weekend, with 13 referees assessed and given
feedback. This was a trial run for formal assessments later in
the year.


One thing that we were missing was Spoons. :thumbdown There
was no Spoons at the party on Saturday night - although
we do have a few potential Spoons players. I don't think
that Tyler could beat Sasha - but I bet that one of our guys
could ... Tyler gets first shot though, since he's been playing polo
longer ...

:welcome:
By the way, it gets cold down here in the Winter but the water
never freezes. In Southern California you can often wear shorts
and a T-shirt at that time of year. I think that we had a
tournament down South in January this year ... or was it
February ... So, if you seriously want to think of taking a trip
down here sometime over the winter, or if anyone just
happens to be in the area, let us know and we'll set something
up! I think Darryl O'B. visited San Diego earlier in the year and
played with them. Send Clinton down on his own so we can slow
him down for you ... break his arms or something ;)

John O'D.

[JW Lester]

Kyle,

These are medium/small sized one day tournaments (to allow for travel). The level is as Odo suggests - a small step down from Div 1 Nationals level. Generally you can expect to get about 5 or 6 games.

For the tournaments, we started trying to get together about every 6-8 weeks or so because we recognized that the only way to improve our play at tournaments was to play tournaments - and I think it has really helped those of us who didn't play somewhere outside of North America first. The team we sent to your 2003 Canadian Nationals was ringer-free and composed of people who had learned to play kayak polo here in California (aside from Sergey - the Latvian superstar, though we think his polo has improved a little bit since he moved here).

Previous to this we had only the annual West Coast Regionals (1999 and 2000) and the CAN and USA nationals for competitions.

One of the first of this series was in Nov. 2001 in S.D., and I think there may have been one before that in L.A.

The benefits of regular tournaments is now showing because the San Diego and Los Angeles teams are really starting to hold their own, even as the skill level of SF has gone up. This last tournament didn't see any blowouts except in the final where a tired San Diego team got fast broken to pieces. Los Angeles' players have really gained alot in terms of personal skills, and San Diego's players display the best team skills.

Sadly, aside from the Cultus Lake tournament organized by the BC folks, there hasn't been anything further north than SF (that I know of)... but it would be nice to dream of this tournament series spawning off a league with other interested western teams like Vancouver, Alberta (Pola Bears), Austin and maybe even other beginning clubs like those in Seattle and Salt Lake City. To me, league play (even if only a few times per year) with teams that train together would seem the next step for North Americans to approach the level of play you find in Europe.

So anyhow, for the time being... you Canucks are very welcome to come down to this series of tournaments - and even if you don't have a whole team, we usually have enough spare players to make up scratch teams that are competitive. I know I'd enjoy playing on your side for once.

Cheers,
John

PS - The tournaments range in formality from full competition set-ups to more informal competitions at the lagoons down in San Diego. The competitions usually have about 7 or 8 teams, divided into 3-4 Div 1 teams and 3-4 Div 2 teams.

At first, the level of competition was pretty diverse, and because of the disparity in experience between players we did a little mixing of players between teams. Now, however, we generally do not mix teams aside from accomodating any guests from other clubs who want to play by making scratch teams. Players from Austin, Texas have made it to 2 of these tournaments and we had 3 from Washington D.C. this last time.

[KAP]

Thanks a lot for the info guys. I think that you are right about playing in more tournaments to do better in tournaments. I think that most of the guys from up North here are very keen on getting in some more high level playing time, especially in our perspecive teams. With Worlds only being 11 months away, I think it would be wise to try and get all of us playing together a couple of times. I really think that it will help both of our rankings internationally.

[sp_edey]

Can't break this! :barbell: :matrix:

[Albert]

As the organizer for this last tourney, I have a few more comments to add. This last one was a little more involved and in some ways more competitive that the last few.

www.groups.yahoo.com/group/wckpc2003

The tourneys are low key as mentioned with priority given to getting experience and even competition..

I'd like to make a suggestion:

The weather is fine for outdoor play in Southern Cal. We had tourneys in December and February this past year. Why don't the Canadians get together and figure out good weekends that they want to leave the ice? The Californians would be happy to try to put together a tourney around you. These tourneys usually are planned about a month or two in advance.

Full teams aren't necessary.

Albert
#12
GGB

[KAP]

Albert,
That sounds awsome, I'll have to talk to the other guys, and kind of see what our schedual looks like for the next winter, but I think that we should plan at least one weekend this winter for all of us to play.

KAP

[sp_edey]

I'll drive! :reindeer:

[JW Lester]

Cup of the South???

:-)


John