European Student Championships?

[Norf]

Canoe polo seems to be growing pretty quickly as a University sport (witness the increase in popularity and playing standard at championships like BUSA - the UK universities champs - over the past few years).

So...

Is there interest out there in organising some kind of European version??

University club funding seems to depend somewhat on "international exposure and opportunities" so it could be a means to get some more money into the game, have a good fun tournament and generally have an enjoyable weekend playing polo...

Any thoughts or comments?

Anyone know of an existing tournament along these lines?

Anyone fancy setting this up?

Rob

[Sebi the Fin]

Ghent University Belgium (RUG) organised such kind of event in 1999. Although we used the wrong name i.e. 'Championship' instead of 'Tournament', ICF was quite happy and after the tournament there was some ICF meetings on which a framework was decided to organise this kind of events and to select which universities could represent their country. In 2000 we (RUG) organised a tournament in line with the ICF framework. We had to cancel the 2000 tournament. The biggest problems in organising this kind of events is finding a date which suits for all European Universities. Summer break is out of question as most student work or travel. Some institutes start in September and some in October. In November it is getting dark too early to organise an outdoor event. December, January and February means exams or semester break. March might work but the water is rather cold in March. April, May and June means exams. So our conclusion was that the organisers need an indoor venue with 2 pitches or some river close the outlet of a power station. Second difficulty is that all participants need to be students to get the event and results of the event recognised by the University Sport Association (Important if you want to receive funding from your university for participating in this kind of events). Only a few universities had competitive student teams. (The University Sport Association describes exactly what a student is).

In 1999 we found it not too hard to organise an event with mainly students (We had teams from Belgium (RUG), The Netherlands (Twente), Germany(Munich), Portugal (Porto), Ireland(Dublin), UK promised to be there but didn't show up). In 2000 we tried to go that extra mile and get recognition from the bodies which are important for Universities. However, the extra mile seemed to be a mile too far for the student teams.

In the mean while we are 4 years further, it might be easier to find 100% student teams. For all details contact Carmel Vikins from ICF how was the contact person. See was involved in the whole process and should be able to supply the required documents and communications from 1999-2000.

Regards,
Sebastiaan