We are happy to announce we’re now accepting bids for the 2017 NAHBPC and WHBPC! The NAHBPC is slated for July and Worlds will be hosted in September. If you and your club are interested in hosting one of these events, head over to the Bike Polo Calendar to get more details about the bid.
Deadline for submissions is Jan 22nd, 2017.
Early in 2016, Ben approached me about taking over the leadership of the NAH. We had talked on many occasions about what mission the organization was best to address. He was ready to step down, and I had some drive in me to make 2017 a year of polo revival and celebration.
But, let’s get this out of the way first…
Hi!
A little about me for those who I’ve yet to meet on or off the court. My name is Alias (pronounced “Ah-LIE-as”) Tagami. I live in Washington, DC. I started playing polo over five years ago when I randomly saw a NYC Bike Polo video on YouTube, and then went to watch people play at The Pit. When I came back to DC, I was ready to find my local club and start playing. Few players in my club with the exception of the Bruce Legend, are still playing in our current club’s roster. Living in a city with a very transient population of players, we pride ourselves as a club that starts players and helps them grow. As DC Bike Polo’s President, I’ve personally organized 8 tournaments, and provided support to several more in addition to helping our club establish the Dames of the Roundtable series. With my experience in developing players and doing outreach as well as my close familiarity with the work involved in planning and executing tournaments, I knew I could help the NAH and the polo community with the next stage of our story. But you won’t really meet me until you meet me, so if we’re at an event together, come say hi! Show me your best trick on your bike. The more useless the trick, the better.
Enough about me–this is about us. Continue reading “Hello”
NAHBPC registration is now open. Fees are $40 per player. The fees may be charged any time after the team registers.
Register here: https://podiumbikepolo.com/register/nahbpc2016
Only teams on this list may register. Teams should consist of 2/3 of the qualified team, unless regions decide otherwise. This list will be updated, and teams added/updated/removed.
Player qualified in multiple regions
Team registered
Team declined
1 spot declined
1 spot declined
All spots declined
All NS spots declined
Other Teams 2/3
NAHPBC will take place this year, but it will not be on three courts. For a number of reasons, none of the three court locations we have used in the past will be able to host this year. As such we are now focussed on making a smaller two court NAHBPC happen. We’d like to confirm Folsom, California as the host for the 2016 NAHBPC.
Folsom has two great mini-hockey courts (similar to those used in Weston, Florida for Worlds), situated in a park thirty minutes drive, or one hour light rail from Sacramento (the nearest major airport). It’s also less than two hours drive from San Francisco.
Jennifer Kutzleb will be the local organizer for the tournament, with help from the South West region. Thank you very much to Jennifer for stepping up, we are very excited to take NAHBPC to California for the first time.
Due to only having two courts, NAHPBC will be capped at thirty six teams, with no wildcard tournament. We are aware this will exclude many of the teams who were able to play last year, but the lack of available hosts has made this unavoidable.
Based on thirty six teams, the regional allocations will also need to change. We will give each region two spots, with one extra spot for each team in the top sixteen last year. The top sixteen consisted of five teams from Cascadia, three from South West, two from Heartland, two from Great Lakes, and one each from Great Plains, Mexico, South Central and Eastside. This would give total allocations of:
If any regional spots aren’t claimed, they will be allocated as a 3rd spot to the regions with the smallest allocations, ordered by highest finishing position last year. That would be South East (17th) and Northside (J47th). If there are still unclaimed regional spots after that, they will go as a 4th spot to the regions with 3 teams, ordered by the team with the next highest finishing position last year. That would be Eastside (17th), South Central (17th), Great Plains (J33rd), South East (J35th), Northside (J49th).
Updates will be provided as soon as we have more information, including the date (likely to be in September), and where to stay (no local housing, but there is a campsite two minutes away, and motels nearby).
All regions should organize qualifiers, and qualified teams should be confirmed to NAH before the end of July.
We are already working on the 2017 season, to make sure we have venue that can support three courts, and host an NAHBPC which is similar to the last few years. In addition we are working on bids for Worlds. Lexington are expecting to bid, and there may be other host clubs too.
Thank you to everyone who filled in our survey. We had over 350 responses, and it’s provided us with some great info. I’m going to discuss what these results mean for NAH tournaments going forward, and what needs to happen to achieve those aims.
We received responses from a wide range of players, both skill and experience wise, which makes us comfortable that these responses cover a large cross section of the community.
The majority were from North America, though 14% were from other parts of the world.
We had a wide range of experience in the responses, though there is a trend towards those in the 3-7 bracket.
Almost everyone responding played a tournament last year, with three quarters have played at at least 3.
Two thirds of those responding have played at least 10 tournaments since they started.
Two thirds have played in an top level tournament.
We had a very wide range of responses in terms of tournament placing, with roughly equal numbers for most of the categories, except for DFL and finalists.
More players players rated themselves as a 3 out of 5 in skill than the other categories, with roughly equal distributions on both sides of the curve.
These responses will shape how future NAH tournaments will be structured.
It’s clear from these results that 3vs3 and 5vs5 squad are the most popular formats at the moment. Most players would be happy to play either format. There was some interest in other formats, but not enough to justify the NAH hosting anything at this point. This means the NAH Bench will not return in 2016.
Specifically for the NAHBPC, there was a stronger preference for 3vs3 compared to squad. With PHBP pushing forward the squad format in 2015, and many other tournaments around North America starting to host squad tournaments, at least for this year we will stick with 3vs3 as the primary championship format.
More people prefer to play Swiss Rounds than Round Robin groups, though there significant interest in both formats, so it’s possible Round Robin may be included at some level. With the size of NAHPBC, we will stick with Swiss Rounds, at least for the first day.
Double Elimination is the preference for many players for the final day, though the “Worlds” format of round robin leading to single elimination also had a reasonable amount of interest. There was little interest in pure single elimination, or a best-of series. We may experiment with some element of round robin on the final day this year.
Two thirds of players wanted as many teams as possible, though there were many comments around increasing the wildcard, with a smaller main event.
We wanted to find out if we should hold an NAHBPC this year, and what other tournaments players wanted us to host.
Three quarters of players do want an NAHPBC championship this year, and almost everyone wants us to continue organizing tournaments. As such we will try and make an NAHPBC 2016 happen, if a club is able to host it.
There was also considerable interest in experimental formats. Given the lack of interest in formats other than 3vs3 or squad, we would consider hosting a continental squad tournament, if the right host club can help us make it happen.
We asked if qualifiers should be open or closed, and if players should be able to play in more than one.
In both cases, player voted for no change to the 2015 format. As such, we ask that regions prepare to host qualifiers, or tournaments that could be qualifiers, so that if an NAHBPC takes place, we have the process to select teams to play in it. If the NAHBPC does not take place, the same players would be eligible to play those tournaments in either case.
There are too many to list them all, and many repeated options in the survey (such as requests for certain formats), but some comments that came from multiple players, and weren’t covered in the questions, include:
We’ll consider these subjects too, though there may be no changes for 2016.
For NAHBPC to take place in 2016, we require a host. Many players have requested we return to Lexington, but they are already hosting Bench Minor this year, and would consider bidding for Worlds 2017. Too many tournaments will burn out any host, so this means we require a new location for 2016.
Ideally this means a club with access with three permanent courts, though building some temporary courts is an option too. We have a budget of $6000 from player registrations, hopefully extra sponsorship money is available, though nothing is guaranteed. Any money beyond that would need to be raised by the host, through their own sponsorship connections.
If we cannot find such a court, we would also consider a two court bid, though this would require a smaller NAHBPC, with less teams. If your club would like to bid to NAHBPC 2016, please email tournaments@nahardcourt.com, by the end of April.
Given the interest in squad format, we would like to host a squad tournament. This would likely be small, for this year, a 12-16 team tournament on two courts, over 2-3 days. If your club would like to bid for such a tournament, please email tournaments@nahardcourt.com, by the end of April.
Summer/Fall 2017 is likely to be when the next Worlds takes place. After France and New Zealand, the NAH would like to see this take place in North American again. As such, please email any bids or questions to tournaments@nahardcourt.com by the end of June.
