Cultimate

Third annual Siege of Limerick (Castletroy, Ireland) saw a little bit of everything over the weekend. A little bit of sun, a little bit of snow, some Guinness for the lads,  a new division for the ladies.

Congrats to Ragnarok of Copenhagen, Denmark for walloping through the Open division on the way to first place, and Jabba for coming back from a first day loss to take prize in the women’s division. Many thanks to Jim Heneghan and the UL Ninja crew for having us over for the weekend and keeping everything around the event in top form. Special shout outs to capital-D Daragh, Junior, and Elaine for helping us keep the trains running.

Pictures from the event can be found in a few different places:

Ragnarok’s images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ragnarok/sets/

Ragnarok FB: http://www.facebook.com/ragnarokultimate

Mark Early’s Images: http://picasaweb.google.com/earley.mark/SiegeOfLimerick2010

Do drop us a line if you have more photos to share – and thanks to everyone for helping make Siege 2010 such a

success!

Skip & The Cultimate Team

Folks -

We struggled for the entire week over how to write a final statement on TiV2010. For sure, it was a tremendous disappointment for everyone involved, and like a lot of you, we’re frustrated with how the tournament unraveled over the weekend. What follows below is a more detailed account of the events that occurred and decisions made from our perspective – but the most important thing for us to express is that we are a company that is both from and of the ultimate community, and that we’ve dedicated and continue to dedicate the majority of our lives to creating opportunities for others to pursue our shared passion. We hope to learn from the events surrounding TiV2010 so that we can provide better tournaments for the community in the future.

Skip Sewell
Co-Founder, Cu1timate
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Overview
There is no worse outcome than having to stop a tournament mid-stream, especially one of the magnitude of College Trouble In Vegas. This ending resulted in teams having invested money in the one of the most important events of their season, to little return. Additionally, with the added requirements of the new regular season, many teams are in jeopardy of not logging the 10 games necessary to receive a UPA ranking heading into The Series.

As fellow ultimate players, we empathize completely. The sheer loss of the excitement of College Trouble In Vegas puts a damper on the 2010 college season.

Rain Conditions / Cancellation Before the Weekend
We are as hopeful as all players who look at the weather reports and still want the tournament to happen without a hitch. In this case, because of the damage done to the fields last year, we had to be extra cautious as conditions deteriorated. This past weekend fell right on the border of what was reasonable to continue, and in fact, we likely erred toward the side of caution. If either the overnight Friday rains or Saturday afternoon rains had been a bit less or halted entirely, we would have been able to resume play. As it was, the sun shone on the fields on Sunday, such that similar conditions on Saturday would have meant we played on.

For Club Trouble In Vegas, the forecast was clear, the fields were closed early, and an alternate plan was possible (the tournament being only 1/4 of the size of College TiV), specifically with the hope that College Trouble In Vegas would be able to continue as scheduled, even through some rain. As the weekend approached, the chance of cancellation was present but not prevailing. Even with the forecast, it appeared as though we would be able to, at the very least, delay in the case of a hard rain, and resume play during the weekend.

Back-Up Fields
Since the tournament’s inception in 2006, Cu1timate has searched for alternate field locations around the area of Las Vegas, to no success.  Simply based on the field quality, without rain, an upgraded site would be best for teams. Unfortunately, other locations are either dominated by soccer or aren’t interested in hosting Ultimate Frisbee.

On Saturday afternoon, with cancellation impending, we did search for any place that teams could continue to play, outside the purview of our organization, as simply, there are not enough fields for us to fairly distribute among the teams attending, and any damage done to fields would certainly lead to Ultimate not being welcome in the city for some time.

With 115 teams participating, the location of TiV is naturally fixed. Any other park of that size can not be held open without cost. Therefore, having a back-up field site, or even being able to pay for the ability to continue through conditions like this past weekend, would require a steep increase in player fees.

Saturday Communication
In an age where one can tweet, facebook, blog, text and swaggle – it seems almost incomprehensible that we were not able to keep in more direct contact with captains throughout Saturday. The unfortunate fact here is that technology completely failed us in our time of need. After the initial closure of the fields on Saturday morning, we used the latter (swaggle), a text aggregator, to broadcast updates on the field conditions. Txts were sent at 1:20 PM, 2:20 PM, 4:00 PM and 4:45 PM to all captains via this service — but were only partially received. We were not aware that our broadcasts were not being received uniformly until Saturday evening. For the future, we will use a more battle-tested medium (most likely twitter) to keep captains and players apprised of any tournament changes.

Refunds
Even before a tournament starts, there is an investment made, from all parties, in the event happening on the weekend scheduled. Flights now carry $150 change fees, and man-hours are invested in the months of prep work it takes for such a large tournament. From the time the tournament is scheduled in October, there is an unrecoverable investment made. Similarly, once the tournament is in motion, the investment has been made in the entire weekend, not day-to-day, with the only variable being the field costs, should the site be closed. Thus, no refunds can be issued.

The field organizers left the responsibility of deciding to stop play to us, with the statement that damage anywhere near the scale of last year would result in a lawsuit. With play on Friday and Saturday, and the judgment that the fields didn’t appear as they did when we started play, the entire field costs were paid.

For this weekend, we made a judgment that may allow for a future for College Trouble in Vegas. Obviously there are many players in their last season for whom this seems unfair. Unfortunately, our sport is at the mercy of those who schedule fields, and have no understanding of what the game is. We are also at the mercy of weather, as adjusting from one weekend to the next for teams flying from around the country is simply not possible. The tournament is only possible at the site scheduled on the weekend scheduled.

The future of College Trouble in Vegas will also require the same understanding: No refunds will be given after the Thursday release of the schedule (one week before the tournament).

We want Trouble in Vegas to continue because, for so many people, it is a highlight of their College Season. We understand that many will look back to the 2010 cancellation and be unable to remember the typical excitement and enjoyment that surrounds the event. Even with the undesirable weather conditions of 2009, more teams than could be accepted signed up for 2010. The future of College Trouble in Vegas will require some adaptation, including an increase in player fees that will allow for insurance against the weather.

For teams who attended Trouble In Vegas 2010, a $10/player credit will be issued for 2011 Trouble In Vegas. Thus a team with 14 players will have a $140 credit next season, and a team that had 23 players will have a $230 credit. The same players need not attend to receive the credit.

We could not be more disappointed that College Trouble In Vegas 2010 came to such an unfortunate ending. We wish all of you the best of luck the rest of the season.

The Cu1timate Team