The NAH Qualifying Series will decide which 48 teams fight for the North American Bike Polo Championship in Minneapolis on the weekend of July 12th.
Locations
Qualifiers will be taking place in the following 10 locations:
April 26th/27th
South Central: Albuquerque, NM (24 teams), 4 teams qualify
May 3rd/4th
South East: Atlanta, GA (32 teams), 3 teams qualify
May 10th/11th
Mexico: Guadalajara, Jalisco (24 teams), 3 teams qualify
May 24th/25th
Cascadia: Seattle, WA (24 teams), 11 teams qualify
Great Plains: Saskatoon, SK (24 teams), 3 teams qualify
South West: Folsom, CA (32 teams), 3 teams qualify*
May 31st/June 1st
Eastside: Lancaster, PA (36 teams), 6 teams qualify
Heartland: Indianapolis, IN (24 teams), 5 teams qualify
June 7th/8th
Great Lakes: Milwaukee, WI (24 teams), 4 teams qualify
Northside: Ottawa, ON (24 teams), 5 teams qualify
*If the Beavers attempt to qualify in their 2013 lineup, the qualifier they play in will get an extra slot, otherwise it goes to Eastside (as next in line for a bonus spot).
Qualifying teams
All teams must consist of a majority of players whose home club is in geographical North America.
Teams can play in any region, but priority will be given to teams who are in-region.
To be in-region for a qualifier, a team must meet one of these criteria:
The majority of players must have their home club in the region where the qualifier is
The majority of players must have their home club within geograpical North America, but are not in any region: This includes, but is not limited to Hawai’i, Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, Newfoundland & Labrador, PEI, Nova Scotia, Puerto Rico, Greenland, Cuba, Guatemala, or any of other Central American and Caribbean countries.
The team does not have two players whose home club is in the same region, but has one player with whose home club is in the region the qualifier is in.
A players home club is defined as the club a player plays the majority of their polo in, on March 21st 2014. For any queries of this, please contact your regional rep, or tournaments@nahardcourt.com. Any decisions made by the NAH during registration will be final.
Registration Timeline
Friday March 21st 10pm ET/7pm PT: Qualifying opens for South East region*
Sunday March 23rd 10pm ET/7pm PT: Qualifying opens for all other regions
*One region is chosen first, to make sure the any issues with the registration process can be resolved before the majority of players register.
Both in-region and out-of-region teams can register at this point.
Until Tuesday April 1st, only in-region teams will be confirmed, on a first-come-first-served basis.
After Tuesday April 1st at 12pm ET/9am PT, any remaining slots will be filled from the whole pool of teams (in-region status will no longer apply) on a first-come-first-server basis, until the qualifiers are full.
Registration Process
A player may only register for one qualifier at a time. Any subsequent registrations, including that player will be ignored, unless the player or team contact tournaments@nahardcourt.com, or the qualifier for the first registration fills up before they get in.
To register, at least one player on a team must create a Podium Profile, at https://www.podiumbikepolo.com/ This should be done well in advance, to avoid any issues during team registration. Please make sure your profile references the correct club.
Once registration opens, one player on a team must use the registration links (to be provided), on Podium, to register for the tournament. Once confirmed, payment for the whole team will be automatically be charged to that player, based on the payment information provided on registering their profile on Podium.
All teams must consist of 3 named players, before they will be confirmed, no players may be TBC. Only once paid should a team consider themselves confirmed for a qualifier.
Registration Fees
Registration fees are unified across all tournaments, to create a level playing field. The only exception is Mexico, with a lower fee, due to different economic norms.
All qualifiers include a 33.3% NAH membership fee, which go towards payment for referees, volunteers, and other features to be announced later.
Mexico: $60 + NAH fee = $80 per team.
All other qualifiers: $90 + NAH fee = $120 per team.
(photo credit to Liam Gilson).