NAH is proud to announce the first NAH Club Bench Championship.
The NAH Club Bench Championship will feature the top 12 clubs in North America, and will take place on the weekend of September 27/28th 2014, in Lexington, KY (Pending permits)
Lexington will be providing three top quality courts, and many years of organizing experience, which combined with NAH will produce the first North American Club Bench Champions.
Format
Teams will consist of players from one club. Each qualifying club can send as many players as they like, but only seven players may be dressed for each game.
The twelve clubs will be split into two groups of six, equally seeded. Each group will play a full round robin, five games each, over Saturday, and Sunday morning.
The two groups will play alternate games, with all six teams in the group playing at the same time. With breaks between games, and time for warm up, this means clubs will play for one hour, have ninety minutes break, followed by a short warm-up period.
Sunday afternoon will consist of a single elimination bracket for the top teams from each group.
Games will be 1 hour long.
Qualifying
The twelve clubs will be selected using the new NAH Points system. The eleven highest ranked clubs who elect to send teams, plus the host club, will qualify for the tournament.
Clubs will earn points based on their players performances in the NAH qualifiers, and NAHBPC.
Players will earn the following points for their clubs, with each player in a team earning points, rather than the team as a whole.
NAH Qualifiers:
All players: 1 point
7th: 2 points
5th: 3 points
4th: 4 points
3rd: 5 points
2nd: 7 points
1st: 10 points
NAHBPC:
All players: 2 points
17th: 3 points
13th: 4 points
9th: 5 points
7th: 7 points
5th: 10 points
4th: 15 points
3rd: 23 points
2nd: 35 points
1st: 50 points
Timeline
The rankings will be updated after each qualifier.
The top clubs, and waiting list will be announced during the prize giving of the NAHBPC.
The top eleven clubs will have two weeks to accept, and pay their registration, otherwise it will move to the next club on the list. Each further round will consist of three day periods where the next clubs can accept, until all 11 slots are full.
More details will follow as we approach September…
(photo credit to Kevin Walsh).