Open Letter to Tournament Directors

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I opened the door,but in a non qualifier,who would YOU want to play-1st or worst?I think i know the answer...but if I'm wrong,I could just up the fee $35 and give all a 1st place trophy?Bet you enjoy not being criticized this year?haha!Got love for ya Mike.

Chris, sounds like you had a successful tourney don't fret about it. You know I am all about trophies for everyone . BTW, no fair playing games on Friday and using the Monday holiday 'in case of rain'.

 

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Panther

If your goal was to get these elite teams to the finals, good job. My ? Was why wasn't there an Xtreme heat team in that pool. Your 99 team has been very successfull against some of the teams in this pool. Shouldn't they have had had the opportunity to take on the tough competition all weekend?

I didn't know how the pools would shake out when Chris made them but I gave him two requests. First I asked for two Friday pool games because I knew I would be short players on Saturday. Second, I asked not to play Buckeye Heat 99 in pool play because we had already played (and beaten) them four times and we wanted somebody different!

As it turned out, from what I understood three of the expected top teams were coming from a long distance and did not want to play on Friday so although I was puzzled when I saw them in the same pool the distance was what I understood the reason to be for why they were pooled that way.

I was looking forward to getting a shot at Championship or Stingrays but as it turned out we did play Buckeye Heat on Monday in brackets and they beat us in the second round so we didnt' get to face either team. I guess fifth time was a charm but not for us! No complaints though. They outplayed us and our kids are exhausted. We've been on a 19 game run the past two weeks and are looking forward to a week off.

 

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See all this stuff about asking not to play a team in pool. I guess I always knew it went on, but I'm kind of surprised at such open statements about pool placements based upon the TD's desires or evaluations of the teams. Think I'd just prefer a blind pool draw with adjustments fame before pool draws were announced to address travel problems.

 

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Seems like there are at least 2 schools of thought about seeding pools. I was surprised when I read posts a couple months ago about pools being formed unevenly (i.e. with teams of similar strength) because I was accustomed to pools being seeded to spread top teams across pools, but I appreciate the other approach. I'd say the favored approach depends on whether you entered the tourney to earn a berth or to improve by playing teams that challenge you.

A consolation about having strong teams in your pool is you won't face them early in elim brackets (if they're set up correctly).

JMO - TDs will catch flak from some people no matter how they set up pools - even if it was by blind draw.

That was me,tried this approach for the 1st time.50 teams-4 complaints.

 

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See all this stuff about asking not to play a team in pool. I guess I always knew it went on, but I'm kind of surprised at such open statements about pool placements based upon the TD's desires or evaluations of the teams. Think I'd just prefer a blind pool draw with adjustments fame before pool draws were announced to address travel problems.

Appreciate the input,helps me in the future.
-Not a qualifier
-Asked coaches if I can help with no fridays due to travle and 1 less hotel night.I accomodated 10 teams.
-Someone stated our 2nd year 11u team deserves to be in the strongest pool.I'll catch flack from my 11u coach but I wasn't sure about thier strength as a 1st year 12u team.Glad others deem them as that good!Probably should have put them in the other pool but they asked for friday and 2 of the teams in that pool requested later saturday.Had to be sweet for B. Heat '99 winning over Xtreme to go to final 4 though.
-I thought Heat '95 had a perfect draw.Played teams of thier caliber in pool play,dominated thier 1st elimination game and faced another elite team in Championship game and won.
-3 teams from that pool ended up in final 4,1 team was 1 win away from final 4.
-No Xtreme team won a trophy.