From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Wed Oct 30 07:17:22 1996 Received: from thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk by clover.csv.warwick.ac.uk with ESMTP id HAA11308; Wed, 30 Oct 1996 07:17:05 GMT Received: by thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk id MAA00473; Tue, 29 Oct 1996 12:46:40 GMT Received: from amsta.leeds.ac.uk by thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk with SMTP id MAA00388; Tue, 29 Oct 1996 12:45:01 GMT Received: from markof.amsta.leeds.ac.uk (markof [129.11.36.34]) by amsta.leeds.ac.uk (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id MAA08750 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 29 Oct 1996 12:29:02 GMT Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 12:29:02 GMT From: S J Hill <amtsjh@amsta.leeds.ac.uk> Message-Id: <199610291229.MAA08750@amsta.leeds.ac.uk> To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Subject: at last... Sender: owner-britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Status: RO hello. This is inevitably a long, involved email. If you can print it out! - read it a few times - and pass it around your team-mates who don't have email access. A brief outline of this will appear in ultimatum soon. At some later date we hope to get some sort of questionnaire about this and related topics out to everyone - again hopefully with an ultimatum - perhaps the update after the coming issue - (what do you think Paul?) OUTDOOR PLAN ------------ I think this might go some way to answering some of the questions raised over the last week or so. I started to put this idea together some time ago - before the current spate of emails on the competition structure in GB ultimate. Its largely a mixture of other people's ideas to be honest - just brought together into a (hopefully) coherent plan. I want to emphasise that this is a) a suggestion - and as such I would like to hear constructive suggestions about how it might best be set up to everyone's satisfaction. b) only part of the solution - as has been pointed out - coaching is something we must address in tandem with changing the competition structure. There are several (lofty) aims of this "Tour-idea": 1. One of the main jobs for the new Director of Competitions is to coordinate ultimate events in order to bring some sensible planning to bear: avoiding undesirable clashes, being able to let other people (eg the Sports Council, the media!) when tournaments will be - especially "the big ones" from the point of view of encouraging outside interest. 2. People obviously like the idea of some sort of ranking system: rather than have 3 unofficial ranking lists we felt we should pin down a BUF Ranking. My research into this shows that to devise a system that includes all tournaments is not straightforward. (At least not if you want a meaningful system; not forgetting that ultimate is notorious for pickup teams, and changing team-rosters. I also tend to favour a system that people can easily understand.) 3. The G.B. Open team found (to their cost) at Worlds that we don't have enough hard fought, long games in our domestic tournaments. I think that our teams at World Clubs in 1995 had similar experiences. We are in need of a system that fairly allows some tournaments to "get rid of the formality games" that have become commonplace on a Saturday at a tournament. (Obviously this has been a major talking point recently. I think what I'm aiming at is A MIXTURE of tourneys - where some of them do not involve "big-gun v. minnow" games - and some do. The Tour tournaments would NOT have these games.) 4. Provide some sort of focus to the outdoor season in the form of stiff competition where everyone knows where they stand with tournaments announced and paid for long in advance; where we all play mostly close games; with a clearly defined method of achieving progress. 5. Start to provide a mechanism to encourage tournaments to improve their facilities: pitches, organisation, medical/first aid information/assistance, etc. 6. To do all this in a way that provides the necessary competition for teams/players who want to compete "at the top"; whilst at the same time not harm in any way those things that make ultimate so special for a vast number of players who's first interest is the "fun-side" of our game. 7. I am *NOT* at this point suggesting that this should be part of a change to the structure of Nationals. That would be a lot of change all in one go. However, on the basis of what has been said lately I think makes sense to include the possibility of linking this idea into Nationals. At least, the idea should be discussed and acknowledged - even if the majority view is that we need to give the Tour time to run on its own before allowing it to affect Nationals. The BUF "Ultim-8" Tour ---------------------- A group of events (initially 4 or probably 5) running from late March/early April until early/mid July. At this stage I have approached several of the obvious tournaments about this, but do not have all tournaments tied down (deliberately - part of the aim here is to allow people to bid for these tourneys). The size of these events would be unaffected: indeed the bigger the entry the better. However, the format at these tourneys would be set by the "Tour Rules": I'll come back to these later. Every team at a Tour tourney will receive points on the basis of their position. These points would form the ranking list. Only at these tournaments can points be scored: (this removes the greatest difficulty associated with normal ranking systems). The team with the most points at the end of the Tour becomes the Ultim-8 Champions. But of course, each tourney within the tour will still have prices as usual. Likewise I would envisage an overall Spirit of the Game award; and "2nd, 3rd Division Champions" for 9th, 17th positions etc... So what's so different? The main difference for most people will be the format of these tournaments. Because at each stage there is a clearly defined ranking, we are able to "jump over" the group system that normally exists at tourneys. Instead, the top 8 teams are put into two groups of 4 and playoff for semi-final places. (This provides the top teams with more of the type of competition that is required.) The other teams too are ranked and so can be split straight away into closely matched groups where the games are meaningful because they are the qualification mechanism to climb the rankings. Basically, at the end of Saturday, there will be teams from the top 8 who have been knocked out, and teams from the next 8 who have won their games. This group of 8 teams now playoff against each other in a quarter-final knockout for positions 5-12. This sort of mechanism goes on all the way through the positions. The sharp amongst you will see immediately that teams starting outside the top 8 cannot win the tournament. True enough: but they can compete for 5th place, and then almost certainly start the next tourney in the top 8. [NB - The idea of using top 8 is somewhat arbitrary. Its where I got the idea for the name Ultim-8 - which is bit cheesy - but aimed at giving the whole thing an "identity". This is not vital. What is vital is that the teams at the top of the ranking playoff against each other from the start of the tourney - in long games - and that the games have more meaning than the old "peer pool" thing of playing off for seeding only. I would also add that it would be better if we had 3 or 4 different formats based on these principles so that the different tourneys do not become too standardized. If it sounds familiar its because its the system we used at National Finals this year. ] Other considerations: Of course we have to make some allowance for the possibility that a foreign team will enter a tournament, and other "exceptional situations", but there are no major difficulties in that. Another implication is that of rosters. It is clear that for teams in the higher reaches of the ranking list must play to a roster system - in other words a player can play for one team only. But to impose this on everyone would be counter-productive so it would only apply to teams ranked above a certain position, say 8: eg once a player has played at a Tour event with a team ranked in the top 8, they are "cup-tied" to that team. (Although I would suggest that a mechanism for picking up with lower teams is allowed so that such teams can benefit from experienced players whose team cannot play.) At this stage, the rosters for Ultim-8 would not apply for Nationals. Overall Schedule ---------------- The outdoor season should then pan out roughly as follows. Ultim-8 : late March/early April ..... early/mid July. This period would also see (as usual): Student Outdoor Championships Junior Outdoor Championships Rotterdam (and other Euro-tourneys like Brugge) *Some non-tour events.* Worlds/Europeans : late July ..... early/mid August. [Again, I would expect that there would be the usual events running over August, but that these should be non-tour to give people a chance for more relaxed tourneys, opportunity to pickup/tart around...etc. It is absolutely central to the plan that there are "non-tour" events going on so as to keep alive many of the excellent ultimate traditions that we have; to cater for teams that do not wish/manage to enter all the tour events; provide opportunity for some games between "top" teams and "weaker" teams: which is important to maintain I think - as has been clealry demonstrated in recent discussion.] BUF Open : early Sept as usual. This is deliberately not part of the Tour because of its timing and because it is primarily aimed at bringing european teams to the UK. Nationals : mid/late October. The timing of these tournaments is still tricky. As usual we are juggling the needs of student teams to be back at Uni, and those of the teams playing at finals who don't want to finish their games by candlelight. Overall I believe that there is much to gain from the sort of changes I'm suggesting. Of course, its not perfect, no system will be. But please think it through. I would like to discuss it with anyone who has questions and/or suggestions. Simon Hill Director of Competitions