Polo Season

[Aaron]

Hi All

In recent years I have come to the opinion that canoe polo should have a set season and that should played over the summer. The unavailability of indoor venues and the unsuitability of outdoor ones over the winter months only convinces me further. It is hard the motivate yourself to go out on a cold wet winters evening particularly if you are playing in an unsuitable venue.

Therefore I am having the winter off and won't be playing until daylight saving is back. I understand that this means I miss out on interregionals but I don't really like that tournament anyway as it is boring. I may still be available for the occasional reffing etc though.


See you in the Summer
Aaron

[James]

Aaron,

this point has been talked about on and off for a few years now. How about looking at it seriously and making a proposal (or just some points to work with)?

Things to remember:

3 major Competitions and their place in the Structure of NZ Canoe Polo: School Champs, National League and Inter-Regionals.
How teams are made up: are some areas effected by transient populations (i.e. students)? How do we look at dealing with this?
Competition structures in major centres. how are they set up and why?
Do we care about conflicting sporting interests?
AJ has a good point though.......seasons should be defined. But our elite players are always going to have large demands on their time unless we take them out one one or more levels of our competition structure.

ta

[Juno]

And here's me thinking polo is a year round sport?

[vish]

This year we had a number of Japanese players visiting during their winter. I also noticed that the players in Essen had the winter season off, and cross trained instead. I think it is a reasonable decision to make if there are no indoor facilities available.

[Dusty]

yeah isn't polo all year round?

[vish]

Imagine a world, a world without indoor pools, a world without shelter from the Southerly winds, a world exposed to the biting rain, a world where the fog off the warmer water hitting the cold night air obscures any vision a referee might have, a world where there are no referees because it's too d_a_m_n cold, a world where there is light from a neighbouring street lamp and something the boys have rigged up on the roof, imagine all the people, living for today... sing along now, lighters at the ready...

You might say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope one day, there are indoor pools
And the world will be as one
(and people will not ask rhetorical questions that are supposed to be ironic but are really annoying when you don't have an indoor pool to play in with lights and heating and all that fancy smancy stuff they didn't have in the good old days. Ah, the good old days, when you got the missus to wade out into the pond and chip the ice off the goals before you launched your goatskin polobat in amongst the bergs; when you used an inflated pigs bladder for a ball, a pigs bladder that you had to zealously defend from the other wildlife like the pterodactyls overhead; damn it was hard to fit a helmet over that protuding browline but then, what with the hairstyles in those days it was easier to pass scrutineering even when you weren't actually wearing one, wasn't it?).

[SeanT]

Who reckons Vish was drunk or stoned when she wrote that??!! :D

[vish]

:D

Neither!!!! I've been doing an English course at university, you can expect worse in the future.

[guest]

hahaha excellent, bring it on Vish
Eoin

[Aaron]

Vish,
Just because these southerners are a bit slow doesn't make them neanderthals. Well not all of them at least.


Anyway, Imagine a world where polo comps happen on a fine weekend. Where courts are set up on a river, a lake, an outdoor pool or a canal. Where 3 or more full sized courts are running at the same time so games don't have to start at 6am and finish at 10pm. Where people turn up and camp beside the venue. Where everyone hangs around after the days play to socialise. Where they even have spectators!

Wel ladies and gentlemen this world exists. Many of us experienced it on the 2002 worlds tour in Europe. We have even had glimpses of it here with tournaments such as Atahura and Art deco. I personally much prefer that to the current state of affairs where the major comps all happen when it is too cold to enjoy it. We either spend the weekend freezing our butts off or we sit from dawn till late in an over priced over heated indoor pool/sauna and are grateful to be allowed the experience.

So I would prefer to play when I can enjoy it. I hate training in winter so I won't bother. I could give a spiel about what to do with those people who have other sports commitments or what to do about the students but as far as I'm concerend they can play whenever they want. Just don't expect to see me shivering along with them.


My season is in the summer
See you then
Aaron

[troy]

Thanks Aaron for rekindling this issue which has been smoldering for years.
I've attached below an article I extracted from the Feb 1997 NZCPA newsletter. When I wrote it back in 1997 I was trying to be unbiased and objective and just provoke some discussion and resolution of the issue - it provoked some more debate but ultimately nothing changed!!!

I think my personal view has remained unchanged - I want a well-defined national season and I want that season to be focussed around summer, so I share your sentiments!

Maybe now is a better time to re-broach the issue.

Summer or Winter Sport?


This issue has been broached in the past and is likely to rise again in the near future. It is a complex issue as each district has its own bias.

This article is included to make participants more informed and sensitive to the needs of other participants, and to prepare participants for future direction regarding this issue.

The main consequence of any national consensus on a canoe polo season would not be to dictate when each district should run their local competition, but rather to schedule national competition so that it best suited the future of Canoe Polo in general.

The following facts and thoughts should start you thinking.

Pro-winter

Canoe Polo originated as a sideline for river paddlers keeping them paddling during the winter.

‘There are few participants that take canoe polo seriously enough to make it their main sport and give up other outdoor opportunities.’

It is often stated that ‘the majority of current players play in winter’. This is debatable.

‘In Dunedin, winter or summer - it’s too cold to play outdoors.’

Centres relying on University students for their participation lose their players in summer vacations.

‘We’ve always played in winter.’

Pro-summer

There are very few centres that have the venues to run reasonable competition in the winter.

Training would be more easily pursued at a range of summer venues.

NZ Schools host Nationals at the end of a summer season.

Canoe Polo has lost participation in the past with players in areas such as Wairarapa excluding themselves from Nationals with no winter training venues.

In the Nelson province, there is one suitable winter venue, yet a dozen available summer venues.

‘We’ve always played in summer.’

[Squirt]

Some may think we have it easy here in Hawkes Bay when it comes to facility selection, we have ample pools available to use and all within 25mins drive and fairly cheap. Although the Hawkes Bay teams never get a look in when it comes to booking any of the appropriate centres because of the high number of school paticipants. We all have it hard.

We don't complain about the cold and we make do - try an outdoor, duck "infested", green/brown water (we think its water) hole with a goal. Plus there is a digital read out of the air temp on the way to the "pool" and a usual reading for 8pm is approx 2-3, yes thats 2-3 degrees celcius. (this may have been noticable in our most recent performances :()

As for the European leagues, we play at the same time as them, Northern/Southern - Summer/Winter. So therefore giving our international representatives an advantage because of the simultaneous structure. Much better than going to worlds in our off season don't you think?

As for Santas visits - Do we just have a hole in the middle of the league? What about being unable to travel before and after Xmas and New Year because we spent all our $$$ on loved ones and Liquor? (not that I drink)

When it comes to the comments about students and our National League. I feel that people should get there abacus out and count the numbers of students (and 'adult students') that play major roles in each of the teams and add them together for a nice surprise. The NZ National League is not as substantial as other sporting events, so having the students "play whenever they want" (quote:Aaron) would have dire consequences on the newly established League.

There are many more comments that could be made but then this post becomes to long like Troys and people like me can't grasp all the words at once so I will stop there. Thanx.

[Juno]

Sorry Squirt this could take a while,
Now for some serious comments,

I view the current positioning of the National League perfect for what I think should be our/are my main objectives :
1. To be competitive on a world stage
2. Participation
3. Clear career paths

1. as Squirt said the NL is placed perfectly for players to continue on to worlds, what better build up for our National representative players than to play in the top New Zealand competition one month from the start of the Worlds tour.
2a. teams that are based on transient players and players drawing from school teams would not exist if NL was placed diferently ie. the Squires who would not compete if the League was held earlier due to their commitment to their school teams.
2b. In the North Island the summer months are used for schools and social comps and the same could also happen in the South Island, the Wellington teams would be one of the first to put their hand up if a competition was held across the strait in Nelson during the summer. How many schools teams exist because they have access to an outdoor pool during the summer? The social tournements are a great build up to the more serious National League.
3. well this doesn't really apply as much but the current season helps define a career path. Schools - B-grade/Social - A-grade - Regional Representative - National Representative.

My personal training takes advantage of the summer months on the harbour; having fun at social comps. Then to team training during Autumn/NL when the waves and wind drive me inside to a more appropriate venue for polo training a pool.

Therefore can we not define the major polo season as being from the start of February though to the end of May/start of June a whole four months, four months is a season??? Do we just need to look at the positioning of inter-regionals? And for all the National representatives, I guess they look forward to year round polo, well they should do if they want to stay at that level.

Well the harbour is looking pretty flat, I might rush home and get my kayak and go for a paddle, I might have to wear a couple of polyprops but who cares.

[vish]

I don't have a problem with playing in a number of leagues throughout the year, but I find, at my delicate age, that the body could have done with better care over the previous decade. This probably means that I shouldn't have been sleeping draped over the porcelain in Taupo that other weekend, but I digress...

What I have publicly objected to in my club (not on this forum, obviously, because I have been keeping myself amused rather than anyone else informed...), is an assumption that it is the athlete's responsibility to "harden up" and cope with the outdoor facilities on offer. In my opinion, it is the responsibility of the clubs and governing bodies to ensure that venues are safe for athletes.

Outdoor facilities are not as safe during the winter as they are in the summer, because the athletes are at risk of getting sick, particularly in aquatic environments, particularly if they really are playing at 100% and therefore are more likely to have water gushing up the sinuses when they dive on the ball or are pushed over.

I know that there is a difficulty in booking pools, but if we don't get what we want, we need to lobby the councils in charge of the facilities to ensure that their policies allow us reasonable access to pools. We need to complain about narrow minded managers who won't negotiate or provide solutions to users. It does help if people get their bookings organised early.

What I generally find is that the quality of polo is not as high when the facilities are inhospitable to players. The spectator value of the game is reduced when there is no shelter and when there is scrappy unskilled play. The ability to referee is decreased, which can result in dangerous play or retaliatory behaviour.

If we must debate seasons, we must think about the ideal situation for facilities, which would be for canoe polo organisations to gain funding and assets that would give us ownership or part ownership over indoor facilities, and some form of guaranteed access. There are successful sporting organisations who own their own facilities and clubrooms, as the clubs do in Europe, and I feel that this is what we should be aiming for.

Summarised for Squirt:
Let's buy some pools. I'll go buy a lotto ticket.
Aaron:
Whatever do you mean? :eek:

[David Peter]

Another thought to ponder is dates for the big competitions like the national league finals being the weekend before Uni exams

[Mich B]

The finals weekend was a pain in the butt for uni students. I couldn't play in the finals myself because I had early exams, and a team mate had to leave finals a day early to come back for exams. I guess the timing was good for NZ players but didn't really suit a majority of the players.

If canoe polo was to become a summer sport, Dunedin would lose it's NL team as all the players are based in the North Island over the summer holidays. Would these players then be able to slot in to North Island teams? I think NOT as the teams would have already been selected and under way with their training, and dont forget the uni students will be working hard so may not have time for polo.

[caleby]

If Canoe Polo was in summer I'd have nothing to live for in the winter. Plus, there are so many other leisure activities to do in the summer without worrying about canoe polo, but it's perfect in winter. Besides, everyone goes away. I'd probably think differently if I had to play outdoors though- our summer friendly league at Burnside high is cold enough at times AND they cancel it if it rains :(