Annual PNCLL Fall Tournament To Begin in 2005!

[Dan Wishengrad]

I'm excited to announce that serious planning is underway for the PNCLL to hold an annual fall tournament every October in Ellensburg, Washington, hosted by Central Washington University. Many thanks to Coach John Pidgeon and the Wildcat club for this idea and for making it all a reality.

There is plenty of space for two or three adjacent fields. Motels are cheap. Ellensburg is as close to "centralized" in the PNCLL as anywhere. The longest trip is from Ashland, but it is a reasonable road-trip for every single PNCLL member, from Montana to Simon Fraser to Albertson and Oregon. The hope is that every team will plan to come every year to compete. This will be all of our only chance to see the rest of the PNCLL, and I'm sure we can schedule some fun mini games between teams that would otherwise never play or even see each other.

Count the Huskies in for this! How about the rest of you?

[ZagGrad]

How about inviting a team like the one the alumni are putting together for the Victoria tournament?

[kladis]

Count Gonzaga In.

Any ideas as far as the dates are concerned?

[reedharmon]

I second Shogan's idea.

[TheNino57]

I also like Shogan's idea about inviting the Alumni Team to the League's Tournament, maybe we should ask if Rip Hamilton has any advice to give on the subject... , if anyone else has some great ideas, toss them out here too, and we'll see what we can do. No word yet as to which October weekend to expect but keep your ears open. Hey Dan, we got the idea for this tournament from you . We have some brand new fields lined up for this tournament that are really close to the bulk of the motels in Ellensburg. It'll will definately be one of those "can't-miss" weekends, especially if we can get every team to come...

oh yeah, count CWU in as well

[ZagGrad]

Well, the sooner cost is thrown out there, the better. I don't know how many people will make this one if they're spending money to travel to Victoria from a faraway place. I think it'd be sweet though. Thanks for the considertation, at least.

[ben012685]

Sweet. As much fun as our shoot-out was in Parkland, seeing the whole PNCLL would be excellent.

Not to sound too anxious, but why wait until fall of 2006? Or am I misreading this?

[muchachojones]

You can count Linfield in.

[Dan Wishengrad]

Not to sound too anxious, but why wait until fall of 2006? Or am I misreading this?

Well the idea is to have a FALL tourney, about a month after the league meeting as a wrap-up for teams who conduct fall practices or just a single weekend of putting on the pads to "stoke the lacrosse juices" before taking the Winter off. These things take organization, planning and time to really pull off well. In a way it's a tougher to do than our post-season tournament, given the sheer number of teams, games, refs, table crews, communication, etc. etc. Coach Pidgeon and I discussed a format where teams could come to play Friday night under the lights, all day Saturday and all day Sunday if they wanted to. Or, teams could come just for a single day and play about four hours of lacrosse. Whatever works, but a loose "championship bracket" could be arranged for late Saturday-Sunday games too if teams wanted to play "for something". Otherwise, just a round robin where you try to play as many PNCLL teams (and ones you haven't ever played or played recently) in 20-minute, running time games. I prefer the latter.

But here's a thought - we could also play our ALL-STAR GAME at the Fall Tournament -- the final Saturday game, under the lights ideally, with the ENTIRE LEAGUE in attendance and watching! Coaches might be willing to sit their returning all-stars on Saturday, or play them only sparingly, to be fresh for Saturday night, in turn giving younger guys more field time in "meaningless" fall tourney games. We could invite every graduating Senior All-Star this Spring of 2005 back to play at CWU next fall. I'd vote to have us pay for a block of hotel rooms for the returning "heroes", treat them to the BBQ or banquet as guests of honor following the All-Star game. This would work! The big Ellensburg Fall Tournament could be when we play our All-Star game, every year, a PNCLL tradition. Set up another game for the '05 PNCLL All-Stars on Sunday against a PNCLL 1997-2004 All-Star team, since all you alums seem so eager to play. Of course your team could be part of the fun. We might need to move it up to avoid chance of snow, say early October? Everyone can weigh in.

The Fall Tourney will hopefully work well for the refs too, especially if it could be multiple days to work in new refs all our teams are supposed to be nominating from their cities. These guys could get a weekend of working intensively when the games don't mean anything and when hopefully they won't be getting yelled at and treated with contempt for trying to do their jobs And I am pointing a finger at no man other than myself.

PS Ben made the correction, of course I meant Fall 2005. It doesn't take THAT long to pull this sucker off! Thanks for catching it.

[BearcatLax]

This is all great. I love these ideas, especially the all star game. Willamette is in if you'll take us

What weekend would this be out of curiosity? Last year's (2003) fall tournament at Lewis and Clark was held the second week of November, this was a problem because alot of us D3 schools have kids who play football and the season was not over. Four guys on our team play football, and we made the playoffs for football this year too, which forced some of us to miss the Lewis and Clark (2004) tournament again. I don't expect the league to change everything for a few small schools, but it's a consideration. Also the weather probly gets pretty crappy up in Ellensburg the later you wait.

[TheNino57]

Okay Gentlemen, here are the dates for the Fall Tournament:
either October 8-9 or October 29-30. You all vote! Write back with the date that is best for you- please have a coach respond with the date of your choice. As of right now, we can accomodate the All-Star Game on Saturday night! Also, we are currently looking at a team entry fee of under $100. Any further changes will be posted right here until we send out an official mailer, so check back frequently...

[Chris Gaffney]

I like the "old balls" game idea Dan. It's been a while since I've hacked a few Huskies and Beavers:D