Championship Venue

[Has No Left]

Why not here hosers!

http://www.2006worldlacrosse.com/7_Plans.php

[lil lady lax fan]

Why not here hosers!

http://www.2006worldlacrosse.com/7_Plans.php

Actually London, Ontario is a nice place. If I remember correctly it is about an hour or two's drive from Detroit. According to my map, it's about midway between Detroit, Toronto, and Buffalo. The site looks nice, but don't know what the nightlife is like, though...

Weather-wise it's probably a little better that MN, but not by much. Possible lake-affect rains. We say the same thing as the Minnesotans: If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.

[the lax]

What is a hoser?

[laxfan25]

What is a hoser?

You can't be that young! SCTV's (Canadian Saturday Night Live) orginal cast with John Candy, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis just to name of few of the illustrious cast. Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis did a continuing skit on The Great White North, preaching the virtues of Canadian back bacon and beer. Instead of calling each other idiots or a-holes, the proper phrase was - "You hoser!".

[Tim Whitehead]

What is a hoser?

You can't be that young! SCTV's (Canadian Saturday Night Live) orginal cast with John Candy, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis just to name of few of the illustrious cast. Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis did a continuing skit on The Great White North, preaching the virtues of Canadian back bacon and beer. Instead of calling each other idiots or a-holes, the proper phrase was - "You hoser!".

They also made a pretty amusing movie out of that skit, Strange Brew, which included Dave Thomas doing his Canadian Darth Vader impression "Hey Luke, I'm your father, eh. Come over to the dark side, ya knob."

[hoyaslax18]

i agree that blaine was pretty miserable in terms of weather. but they deserve at least one more shot.

a few minor changes (like visible scoreboards and having some fields closer together) and it should be a great time next year.

SCTV is oooooollllllddddd school.

[Sonny]

Please stay on topic fellas. Take the SCTV discussion to the water cooler.

[onetime]

Thank you for the reply to my regionalized proposal for the tournament Mr. Paul. However, a few points to consider in response.

1) Most of the discussion here is unhappiness with the site. Response: few (almost no) places can host such an event. Its very size makes it unwieldy. Regionalized weekend tournament would expand the list of available sites by a huge factor. And provide an appropriate stadium venue for championship play with real scoreboards and seating less than 100yds from the field.

2) Staff to manage it? Each conference has its own tournament. The region could be hosted by a conference, who would be responsible for staffing it. The USl could still provide its staff for the final event.

3) Travel. Too expensive? It costs about $1500/day to keep a team at the national tournament (food, lodging, transportation). Regionalized tournaments mean many of the teams could bus to the Sat/Sun event, with a two nite stay far cheaper than the costs for the week long tournament. I am sure the 12 teams not making the final four would prefer to spend $5-6,000 out of their budget for weekend regional tournament than come up with $15,00 or more for the week long extravaganza of (for most of them) meaningless exhibition games.

Plus the teams that traditionally make the finals are the best organized, best funded, and most likely to able to afford the final weekend.

4) Last minute arrangements? Upset conference tournament champions and at-large bubble teams have to make their arrangements at the last minute now! #10-#16 seeds have little chance of advancing beyond day one, have to make last minute arrangements and are unsure until the last minute if they need to make the $15,000 trip to the national site.


5) Classes. Apparently many of the schools are still in session and those students are asked to miss an entire week of school. Lindenwood men and women were studying for exams, Va Tech seniors blew out of the consolation(meaningless) games to return for graduation.

6) East-West imbalance? True most of the higher ranked teams are in the west. But we already showed that this years tournament had a East/West balance. You are still going to get the best two teams in the finals.
The top two teams from the west will still make the finals.

7) Final Four venue. The final four venue could them be promoted as the NCAA Final Four is. The NCAA tournament will never venture outside the east coast. The MDIA has a great opportunity to make take a college championship venue to the West/Midwest/South and create a fan base that the traditional provincial East Coast NCAA lax mentality will NEVER attract!

Thank you again to all those who have put a great deal of time and effort into building this wonderful event in the few years it has exsisted. My suggestion is simply to offer a view around the schetoma of Conventional Wisdom that this event HAS to be a week long 60 team festival.

There are other legitimate ways of approaching this.

[Sonny]

I am sure the 12 teams not making the final four would prefer to spend $5-6,000 out of their budget for weekend regional tournament than come up with $15,00 or more for the week long extravaganza of (for most of them) meaningless exhibition games.

Don't be so sure. Ask teams like Northeastern or UCSD or Lindenwood or Utah if their first year experience at Nationals was in any shape or fashion lessened because they didn't make the Final Four. Many teams (see Oregon and FSU '04) use the tournament as a building block for bigger things down the road. For many players & fans, part of the allure of the tournament is getting to see (& compete against) the top MDIA teams in the country at one locale. Regional sites doesn't allow that.

There are other legitimate ways of approaching this.

We are all ears. Your previous proposal is more expensive overall to both the teams involved and USL. Assuming money was no object, the only way you go to regionals is to eliminate the various conference tournaments. (We don't have enough weekends on the calendar as is and regionals would often repeat the previous weeks' conference playoffs.) I'd bet a small handful of teams would be in favor of that, but the vast majority of MDIA teams wouldn't like that one iota.

[the lax]

7) Final Four venue. The final four venue could them be promoted as the NCAA Final Four is. The NCAA tournament will never venture outside the east coast. The MDIA has a great opportunity to make take a college championship venue to the West/Midwest/South and create a fan base that the traditional provincial East Coast NCAA lax mentality will NEVER attract!

Did you not hear about the First 4 in California?

[CATLAX MAN]

Onetime,

I don't know if you've ever gone to the National Tourney, but after having attended it now for the last 4 years, I can say that I wouldn't even consider the idea of regionalizing the tournament at the expense of watering down the 16 team field, 4 games in 5 days experience. There is no college lacrosse event anything like what the MDIA has and it should absolutely be kept.

Yes, there were logistical problems this year at a new facility compounded by weather problems. I am confident that they will get that fixed next year. That being said, there is nothing like the first 2 days of the tourney watching multiple games at the same time, having the opportunity to see teams that you otherwise do not get a chance to see play, and the intensity of the games knowing that these teams have to win to survive. Regionalizing the tournament would take this all away and that would be a crime.

[onpoint]

Plus the simple fact that this was the first time since 1999 (??) that ANYONE outside of the RMLC or WCLL was in the final four (could that be right?). My belief is that there has to be a little more evidence of true parity before we take away two chances from these other schools to compete for the national championship. The argument that "if you can't win your conference, you shouldn't be given a chance at the national level," doesn't hold water because as was evidenced this year, there was not much doubt that Sonoma and UCSB were the two best teams at the tournament (note the obvious qualification of that statement) and Sonoma nearly beat UCSB in the finals. Imagine if CSU, BYU, UCSB and Sonoma all met in the regional tournament and two of them could not come to the MDIA tourney because they lost a one goal game. I love the 16 team tournament for many of the reasons already listed above. I think the MDIA needs to put a focus on getting the fields very close together and having a true championship venue that feels like a championship venue (a la St. Louis Field #1). I think it may have been overload to have four games happening at a time on day 1, but that is obviously a logistics problem that can't really be helped.

My ideal tournament:

Two games at a time on the first day (just like St. Louis) - Four game times.

One winners bracket game at a time on the second day - Four game times.

The semifinals one right after the other on day three.

The finals either at night or midday on Saturday.

That gives the average fan plenty of lacrosse and the opportunity to watch nearly every single game that means something.

[Gopherlax29]

Don't be so sure. Ask teams like Northeastern or UCSD or Lindenwood or Utah if their first year experience at Nationals was in any shape or fashion lessened because they didn't make the Final Four. Many teams (see Oregon and FSU '04) use the tournament as a building block for bigger things down the road. For many players & fans, part of the allure of the tournament is getting to see (& compete against) the top MDIA teams in the country at one locale. Regional sites doesn't allow that.

And the Minnesota Gophers, it was in our backyard and I would do it again in a heart beat anywhere!

[Sonny]

Sorry. I didn't mean to forget about the Golden Gophers.

[CATLAX MAN]

Alex, the one thing that I thought did not work very well this year was the championship game at night. It's one of those things that sounded good on papaer but in reality didn't work. For one thing, it was hard for the spectators to see given the so-so lighting and the stands being so far away from the field. From the players' standpoint, it must have been very difficult to wait all day for the game to come. I know that it was difficult for those of us who were not playing. I think the optimum time for the championship game would be late afternoon.