2003 Continental Cup

[Roberto]

In 2001 the Continental Cup was held in Edmonton, Canada. In 2003 it usually heads south to the states. I left emails at the USA Canoe Polo website but no response, so I will ask publically.

Anyone from the states interested in hosting it? I heard some runmour that the Texans are interested.

Let us if you are so, we can pick a date.
Best Regards,

Rob Kerestes
CCPC Chair

[Odo]

Hi Rob,

It looks like the 2003 Continental Cup will be held in Southern
California in October. Planning is in progress now, and further
information will be coming your way when we know more.

At the Worlds, this idea was mentioned to the Brazilian and
Argentinian Contingents and, although not yet committed, they
have expressed interest. Hopefully the event will attract teams
from other (non-Pan-American) nations too.

The timing is intended to coincide with the US Nationals which
will also be held in Southern California on the weekend before.

So, please expect to have some formal correspondence about
this in the near future, as the planning progresses.

Regards,
John O'D.

[Roberto]

Thanks John. October in SoCal sounds very good to me. I think having two events on back to back weekends will help bring other American continental teams to your event and will certainly help us all out with travelling expenses.

There is talk about a August tour of Europe for many Canadian Polo players, so being back for 1 month before heading to the states would fit very well.

Thanks for letting me know and feel free to contact me rak_acl@agt.net if you require any information from us.

Best Regards
Rob K

[Patrick]

Roberto,

The current dates we're looking at are tentatively October 11-12 for the U.S. Nationals and October 18-19 for an international competition.

We sorting out where the venue will be (Los Angeles area, San Diego area or somewhere in between).

[niall]

Hey, when you get the dates finalised please post them on the site calender as I will forget to look back here. Thanks

[Patrick]

Niall,

Will gladly post dates in calendar when finalized.

[dany]

Any news about this matter?

Thanks in advance.

Dany

[steffers]

I probably dont have much say in the matter, but having two competitions back to back weekends may be easy for some, but i think that's going to really limit a lot of possible competition. it's real hard to schedule two free weekends in a row, not to mention the traveling cost of two round trip tickets or one week's lodging in S. cali. why not have the pan am's in the summer again??? at least school is out and people are more liable to take vacation time then. what's the reasoning behind this schedule??? someone please clue me in. :confused:

[MegDawg]

Gotta hold it down with Steffers,
I love polo, and live for competing, but holding both PanAms and Nationals in SoCal over 2 successive weekends means for all us juniors either two round trip plane tickets, or missing a week of school (which really isn't an option).
For those of you in Cali, I realize it sounds great, and its convenient, but also holding competitions so close in together means that the competition will probably be very similar both weekends.
A longer time span in between would give some of the teams who are still in more developmental stages time to experience competition, learn from better teams, practice, and be re-evaluated at the later competiton date.
Just thought Id put in my two cents, bc you cant complain about something if you dont try to change it.
MegDawg :bunny:

[Racer X]

I'm going to have to side with my team mates, the double weekend would pretty much mean that I wouldn't be able to go due to a lack of resources of both time and money, a tournament in the summer would work better giving us a chance to pick the US Team a week before the international compitition, and it would allow more people to come. on another note, there are plans being made to have a tournament here in Texas sometime this spring, with two Tornado teams, maybe one from UNT? one or two from Austin and one from San Marcos. nothing is final yet so if any other teams are interested please contact myself or David Lamb.

-Joe

[Odo]

Steph, Joe, Megan,

Having the Nationals and Pan-Ams on consecutive
weekends makes the trip more worthwhile for foreign
teams. The chance to play at 2 competitions within a
week of each other is an attractive proposition for teams
that have to travel a long way to play here.

Usually in the build-up to a big competition, the US teams
will go through a period of intense training in the week
or two prior to the event. Scheduling the competitions
this way is more economical for the majority of people
who will be participating from around the US.

With regards to the timing of the competitions, I think
that October was probably chosen for a few reasons :
- The rivers aren't flowing (polo competes with
whitewater for people which is why some
teams haven't turned up to recent Nationals.)
- Weather - October is usually just right in
Southern California. not too hot and not too
cool.
- Less chance of conflicting with other events on
the calendar - either paddling or otherwise.

There might be other consideratins too - I wasn't involved
in the decision-making process so I don't know. I do think
that it makes sense to hold the events at that time of year,
and over 2 consecutive weekends.

I don't think that the convenience of people from the West
Coast was a factor - certainly isn't convenient for me since,
if I can't take the week off, I'll either have to fly twice like you,
or, more likely, drive 6 to 8 hours each way, both weekends.
Same goes for everyone else from San Fran, Davis and
Sacramento.

Anyway, I hope that you can make it work out with school
and everything, and I hope that we get a lot of foreign teams
to join us at both comps.

John O'D.

[Roberto]

John,
Thanks for bringing your team up to the Cup of the North. We had some good games (too bad we came out on the wrong end twice). :(

I have been doing some thinking about the Continental Cup regarding teams. Looking at the numbers availible I see Canada sending; Mens A, Mens B, Womens A, Womens B and it is looking like we could have a U21 mens and possibly a U21 womens team. We could also entertain the idea of a mens masters team?

In any case I wanted to get you guys thinking about fielding U21 M and W teams if you can. It would be a great developement event towards Japan 2004.

Best Regards,

Rob Kerestes

[Odo]

Rob,

We were VERY impressed by the Wapiti team this year ... and
relieved to come out on top!! Your younger players, Clinton,
Kyle and Lee have come a long way! I missed your game against
the Welsh Dragon on Friday - seems that you gave them their
closest one of the tournament! :D

We definitely want to have the U-21 teams playing at the
Continental Cup - no question about that. There'll be a US
Committee meeting on Monday where we'll be discussing the
plans for the competition. Adding a Masters division sounds like
a good idea, so, we'll include an item to discuss that.

John O'D.

[Lee]

Originally posted by MegDawg
holding both PanAms and Nationals in SoCal over 2 successive weekends means for all us juniors either two round trip plane tickets, or missing a week of school (which really isn't an option).
:guns:come on megdawg.... i missed three weeks of school to go to the worlds. and i am a junior too. i mean i missed three weeks of my senior year of high school. i'm sure you can miss one and go to nationals. but that is my input i guess. you can do it

:scratch: Lefty

[mrkeeg]

Hey Cool!

Joe, keep us posted about the Texas tourney.. I would definitely be interested in coming down from Alberta if I could make it.

Visited Austin/ San An area once and liked it. Loved the live music.

Keegan

[steffers]

Originally posted by Lee
:guns:come on megdawg.... i missed three weeks of school to go to the worlds. and i am a junior too. i mean i missed three weeks of my senior year of high school. i'm sure you can miss one and go to nationals. but that is my input i guess. you can do it

:scratch: Lefty

ill represent for megdawg and myself here:
missing high school is one thing but it's harder to do in college and still keep up. but its all where your priorities lie i guess.....

[Patrick]

It must be tough but I imagine this is what many collegiate athletes go through every year from campuses across the country. Good luck.

P.S. It's also tough for folks who have full-time jobs. ;)

[Monica]

Ok, so I know it has been a while since anyone typed on here. But now that a lot of the dates and whatnot are set, who is actually planning to stay the whole week in between and who is going to have to come back to their respective schools/jobs? I was just wondering at what kind of possible camps are going to be held during the intervening week. I am undecided as of yet to wether I will be in LA or back in Dallas for that week. Have to see what the attendance policies are in my classes.
Monica.

[sp_edey]

I think there is a lot of keen Canadians wanting to hit up the bars in Mexico midweek. But I think we may be there for the camp.We're all really pumped about roadtripping it there too :music:

Clinton

[JW Lester]

At most US Unis these days, they won't even miss you from class. Its only the TAs who might notice you aren't there - and 90% of the time they won't care unless you miss something important.

My first year, I skipped every single class in Bio 1A except the first day, the midterm and the final. I still got an A- Of course I did the same thing with some stupid music class I had to take and got a C so there you go...

So IMO, find out what you'll miss - if nothing big, then who cares - get someone to copy their notes. If you'll miss something important, talk to the instructor/TA and sort it out. Having TA'd extensively for many instructors and also been in charge of a class, I can tell you that if you want to do the whole week you can probably work it out - generally speaking instructors and TAs are pretty lenient if you have a halfway decent reason.

-JL

[JW Lester]

OH! and BTW TJ is 3 hrs from the Nationals venue, so it isn't really a matter of either/or... :drunk: :headbang:

Just don't get arrested and its all good.

[mrkeeg]

For the record we will be there (4 cottonwood-ers).. providing we make the teams.

I am too old (yes... 23 and a scared hairline) for a week in Tijawana, and others from my club are too young.. so we will be there for the week, ready for training camps and disneyland, the beach, whatever. I have heard there are actually some good hiking and biking trails in the Santa Monica Mtns... LA guys might be able to fill us in more on cool things that we can afford with our meager allotments of pretty (pretty useless) canadian moneys.

Keegan

[lambdapro]

Rachel will be there for the week. Alan will fly back with me on Monday night and return with me on Friday.

David

[Monica]

Hey I am sooo happy to hear that Cottonwood is coming! Y'all gave us some really good games at your nats! I can't wait to play you guys again. Who from there would be coming?

And in general I wouldn't be too concerned with regular class attendance. It is just that with any art class (my major) that I take, I have a 3 absense rule before my grade is docked a letter. So I will have to see. Talk to the TA's and all that.

Monica.

[Howie]

The Dragon Boys from Wales :wavey: will be out for the week looking for some bars to prop up.

Any Suggestions????


Howie :cheers:

[sp_edey]

Howie, just head to Mexico :scratch:

[KAP]

Clinton, I will give you 20 dollars (US even) for every disease you can pick up in mexico. Not including food poisoning, or other digestion related illnesses.

[steffers]

im planning on being there all week as well :bunny:
-Steph

[sp_edey]

Hey Kyle,
what about alcohol poisoning? :drunk:

:bfire:

[Jason]

Im still working on how im going to work all this out. Most likely i will be flying down both weekends, but if i can find some lodging for the week that is fairly inexpensive and work out the absence thing with my teachers, then i could probly work it out to be down there the whole week for the camp.


Jason

[mrkeeg]

I wasn't ignoring the question of who would be there from Cottonwood.... just trying to figgure it out for myself, actually!
(Keegan, Tyler, Heather.... Alli? A couple slalom guys? In some combination...)

It won't be the same team from nats, but you should see a few familiar faces!
( :silly: :frosty: :thumbup: :rolleyes: :cool: )
(recognize anyone yet?*lol*)

We had a good time playing the Tordadoes too! And everyone else. See ya'll there!

Not sure what we'll be up to for the week in between.

Keegan

[Monica]

Yeah, the first face was you right?

[mrkeeg]

Sure that's me (back before I started going bald...)... and I think the one rolling her eyes must be Heather.
*L*
Here's Tyler practicing for all the polo balls that bounce off his head in practice.
:bang:

[tyler]

I'm sorry Keegan but the only reason that poloballs keep boouncing off my head is because you delibritly aim for my face :matrix:

[tyler]

You really are bald :waah:

[sp_edey]

Tyler, after your head starts to be in extreme pain you'll just learn to put your hands there and you'll catch the ball every time :music: Works like a charm


:bfire:

[KAP]

Isn't that how Brad tought you to catch Clinton?

[tyler]

ok hears the deal, if he aims for the back of my face when I'm paying attention to something else thiers really nothing I can do about it (except throw one back) :gun:

[sp_edey]

Actually the thing you can do about it, is to pay attention.

Kyle the way I catch Brads' passes is by catching them behind my back after he throws it 45mph. :karate:

[tyler]

I still don't think you understand the situation, we'll be sitting there doing nothing and then all of a sudded WAM!!! a ball hits me in the head even if all I'm doing is spunging water out of my boat. :waah:

[Monica]

Man Tyler. All I can say is that you Canadians have a whacked up way of training then. That or someone painted a target on the back of your helmet and you can't see it. Which would be pretty funny. :hump:

[KAP]

I don't know Tyler, every thing you have said about getting hit in the head with a ball sounds really familiar. Only I wasn't on the recieving end so much.

I think that Clinton is right, you do need to look out for the ball more. There is no excuse for getting hit in the head with a ball.

[Brad]

Thats the truth! And if Keegans arm is getting tired I would be happy to help out. :barbell: Maybe Keegan isn't throwing them quite hard enough for you yet? :bang:

[sp_edey]

Originally posted by tyler
...we'll be sitting there doing nothing and then all of a sudded WAM!!! a ball hits me in the head even if all I'm doing is spunging water out of my boat. :waah:

Hey Tyler, by any chance have you tipped over after he hits you in the head while your spunging your boat out, because that would be really funny :thumbup:

[Monica]

Do you know from experience Clinton? :karate:

[tyler]

sorry clinton hasn't happened yet but I'm sure that now since you've mentioned it every time I go to sponge out my boat (which is verry often) there will be a ball flying at my head.




thanx alot :rolleyes:

[sp_edey]

Wish I could be ther to see it :)

[tyler]

no doubts you'll be the one to cause it.



:bang: jackass

[sp_edey]

If you haven't noticed, I don't neccesarily enjoy hurting people or humilating them like that but if someone else did it, I don't think I would ever stop laughing. :D