Category: NAH

Bench Championships Details

Posted on by John Hayes

It’s been a few weeks since NAs, and we are hoping you’ve decided as a club whether you are coming to Lexington for the NAH Bench Champs.

The deadline for registration is Sunday August 17th. After that spots will be handed down to the next clubs. If you aren’t planning to come, please also let us know asap, so we can help other clubs make plans.

Can the following clubs please let me (tournaments@nahardcourt.com) know if you are coming, and send fees of $300 via paypal to treasurer@nahardcourt.com.

The fees cover the building of a 3rd court, park permits, and the paying of refs. Main refs will get $10 per game, assistant refs will get $5.

Qualified
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA
Portland, OR
Toronto, ON – confirmed, not paid
Austin, TX – confirmed, not paid
Saskatoon, SK
Tallahassee, FL
Milwaukee, WI
Boston, MA – confirmed, not paid
Lexington, KY
New York, NY – confirmed, not paid
Philadelphia, PA

Reserves (please also let me know if you would take a spot)
Ottawa, ON
Minneapolis, MN
Chicago, IL
Columbus, OH
Winnipeg, MB
Memphis, TN
Denver, CO
Columbia, MO.

Posted in NAH

Qualifying Attendance Poll

Posted on by John Hayes

NAH is discussing the implication of current methods as well as original qualifying formats. We’d appreciate the feedback of North American players so we can gauge how important the progression of the qualifying series is to you.

[poll id=”24″] [poll id=”25″]

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NAH Club Bench Championship

Posted on by John Hayes

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).

Posted in NAH

NAH Ruleset v4.0 Approved by NAH Board and Club Reps

Posted on by Joe Rstom

Voting on the NAH Ruleset v4.0 is now complete, and votes have been tallied.

Before we announce the results I’d like to remind everyone in the community that this isn’t the end of Rules development. If you have constructive input to provide, after spending the time thinking through the changes critically, trying them out in tournaments or pickup, please e-mail kruse@nahardcourt.com or joe@nahardcourt.com. Plenty of great feedback was provided thanks to this club rep voting process, specific to the rules and more generally about the process. As we move more towards direct member voting, you will see specific rules or combinations of rules put to a vote, and possibly even a mechanism for anyone to introduce a polished rule to be voted upon. This infrastructure requires a huge time investment, and we are doing the best we can to put the pieces in place. More on that in the coming weeks.

The vote was sent out, by email to a mostly updated list of club reps.

Club Reps Emailed: ~110 (due to delivery failures, inactive clubs)
Respondents: 53

In favor of Adopting v4.0 for 2014: 47
Opposed to Adopting v4.0 for 2014: 5

1 Club Abstained. Non-Respondents are considered ‘yes’ votes, but it’s not necessary to include them.

The NAH Board voted unanimously in favor.

This ruleset has been Ratified, and we’ve made some minor language changes after receiving feedback from all these amazing Club Reps. From now on all changes will be kept in a version history over on the Rules page.

You can download v4.1 by clicking this link..

NAH bids farewell to Chandel

Posted on by Ben Schultz

This coming season is going to be full of changes, some which we’ve announced and some things still in the works. One very big change, internally, is the exit of the former tournament coordinator Chandel Bodner. If you’ve attended any major tournament, you’ve probably met and interacted with Chandel and know how crucial she has been in her role. She’s written a few words regarding this transition that we’d like to share with you:

It’s not goodbye, it’s really hello!
Thank you to the entire community of bike polo for enduring me as the Tournament Committee Chairperson for the NAH these last 3 or so years. As of this past November, I am no longer representing you in an official capacity. I say this with a very even balance of joy and sadness. It has always meant a lot to me to be giving back to the bike polo family, a group of very unique individuals that always remind me about passion, endurance, and love. The experiences, the people, the stress, the fun, the time, the everything that is a result of my role with NAH is far too much to mention right now, but I will say it all enhanced my life and helped me be a better person. There are also too many of you to list individually. The changing groups of reps, board members, old and new players, and volunteers have all been incredible to work with, thank you! A specific shout out, thank you Ben Schultz for continually believing in, supporting, and understanding me. There aren’t words that describe how amazing you are for polo and how grateful I am to have worked so closely with you.
To the current crew, you’ve all been really progressive and positive, I’m very excited for where bike polo will go now, and happy to watch from the sidelines, and even more excited to go and play in a tournament, not work at it! ;]
I leave you all in the very capable hands of John Hayes, a new local transplant to Toronto, thanks for taking over John!

Thanks everyone! I’ll be focusing my efforts on RYB Denim and playing my heart out!
xx. Chandel

We’d like to wish Chandel the best in her future endeavors. NAH has complete confidence in John Hayes and the others who have stepped up to take on the heavy load of tournament organizing. Please let her know how much you’ve appreciated her efforts!.

Posted in NAH