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2016 Season Update: NAHBPC in Folsom, California

Posted on May 8, 2016September 14, 2020 by John Hayes

NAHBPC 2016

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:

Cascadia: 7
South West: 5
Heartland: 4
Great Lakes: 4
Eastside: 3
Great Plains: 3
Mexico: 3
South Central: 3
Northside: 2
South East: 2

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.

2017 Season

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.

2016 Season: Survey Results, NAHBPC & Worlds Hosts

Posted on March 31, 2016September 14, 2020 by John Hayes

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.

Demographics

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.

Format

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.

2016 Tournaments

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.

Qualifiers

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.

Other Comments

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:

Make all NAH tournaments co-ed
Unlimited Goals
Points/Ranking system, instead of qualifiers

We’ll consider these subjects too, though there may be no changes for 2016.

Hosting NAHBPC 2016, NAH Squad 2016 and Worlds 2017

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.

2015 Qualifier Information

Posted on March 18, 2015September 14, 2020 by John Hayes

Watch this space for all Qualifier information, including location, dates, registration info, etc. This page will be updated as details are released.

Cascadia

CASQ – Seattle, WA – June 20-21 – 11 teams qualify
leagueofbikepolo.com/nah-cascadia-qualifier-2015

Bench – TBC

South West

SWQ – TBC – 5 teams qualify
leagueofbikepolo.com/2015-sw-qualifier
Register – podiumbikepolo.com/register/SWQualifier2015 (opens April 10th at 0am PST)

Bench – TBC

Eastside

ESQ – Frederick, MD – June 20-21 – 4 teams qualify
leagueofbikepolo.com/nah-qualifier-esq-2015

ESBI – New York – July 25-26
leagueofbikepolo.com/esbi-2015

Great Lakes

GLQ – Grand Rapids, MI – June 13-14 – 4 teams qualify
leagueofbikepolo.com/glrq

Bench – Milwaukee, WI – August 8-9 (TBC)
leagueofbikepolo.com/great-lakes-regional-bench-glrb-2015

Heartland

HLQ – Lexington, KY – May 23-24 – 4 teams qualify
leagueofbikepolo.com/heartland-regional-qualifier
https://www.facebook.com/events/868110653236707/
Register – podiumbikepolo.com/register/hlq2015 (opens April 9th at 7pm CST)

Bench – TBC

South East

SEQ – Raleigh, NC – May 16-17 – 4 teams qualify
leagueofbikepolo.com/2015-nah-southeast-championship
facebook.com/events/1540110419569718/
Register – podiumbikepolo.com/register/seq2015

Bench – TBC

Great Plains

GPQ – Saskatoon, SK July 4-5 – 3 teams qualify

Bench – TBC

Mexico

MXQ – Guadalajara – June 27-28 – 3 teams qualify

Bench – TBC

Northside

NSQ – Kitchener-Waterloo, ON – June 27-28 – 3 teams qualify

Bench – Toronto – Date TBC

South Central

SCQ – Austin, TX – June 13-14 (TBC) – 3 teams qualify

Bench – TBC.

2015 Season amendments

Posted on February 20, 2015September 14, 2020 by John Hayes

After our announcement about the 2015 season, we had some questions from regions and players, that we would like to respond to.

Reserved slots for wildcard

We reserved a slot in the wildcard for each region, two for Lexington, and one for the Ladies Army winners.

In each case, these spots are transferable to the next team in line, if a team is unable to make it (or in the event of Lexington volunteer teams, or the Ladies Army winners, already qualified directly for the NAHBPC).

For the Lexington volunteer teams, the club will decide how those spots get divided up.

For the Ladies Army slot, we ask the Ladies Army organisers to decide how that slot is allocated, if the winners are qualified, or cannot attend. We would suggest the next available, non-qualified team in the rankings gets the slot, but leave that decision to the organizers.

We apologize if the wording was in any way taken as a suggestion that the Ladies Army winners would not be able to qualify directly, that was never our intention, we were more than aware than Cunnings Stunts qualified out of Northside last year. The intention was always that we’d keep that slot for another Ladies Army team if this occurred.

NAH Bench teams

While we would like to see only club based teams compete in the NAH Bench, we’ve had some feedback from regions, that they may not have a club who would be willing to travel.

We hope each region will have a bench qualifier, and a club from each will attend, but if a region is unable to organise a bench qualifier, or none of the clubs is willing to travel to the NAH Bench, we would also accept a regional representative team, made up of players from multiple clubs in that region. All the other rules would still apply.

We must emphasize this should only be a last resort.

^{Image © Sam Bennett}.

2015 Season and Beyond

Posted on February 18, 2015September 14, 2020 by John Hayes

NAH Qualifying Series

As in previous years, teams will qualify for the NAHBPC through regional qualifiers.

The regional reps must provide the list of qualified teams, and one wild card team to the NAH (tournaments@nahardcourt.com) by Monday August 3rd 2015.

Qualifiers

The following changes will be made from last year.

Regions will have full control over their qualifier. This includes:

Dates: (as long as it’s before August 3rd).
Format: This may be the format of the tournament itself, but can also include multiple tournaments, a qualifying series, or a geographical split into sub-regions, for example. For any guidance, please see http://www.nahardcourt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/NAH_Ruleset_v4x_Appendix_A.pdf for suggested formats, or contact tournament@nahardcourt.com.
Rules: Any deviations from the NAH rules must be approved by the rules committee, but changes are likely to be rejected only on the basis of safety. For example Eastside may choose to use wrist shots, which would be fine. But making t-bones legal would not.
Budget: Regions can decide on registration fees, how they are collected, and how that money is budgeted. Paying referees was a success in 2014, and it is suggested that regions budget for this.
Registration: We recommend using Podium for registration, and opening it at least 6 weeks before the tournament. We require registration details to be posted on LOBP, and sent to tournaments@nahardcourt.com at least two weeks in advance, so that everyone has a fair chance to register. Out-of-region players must be able to register, but regions may have an in-region only period of up to 1 week.

As a change from last year players may now play in multiple qualifiers. This creates a few different scenarios:

If a player qualifies with two different teams, they must choose which team to register and play with in the NAHBPC, they cannot play with both.
Teams must register for the NAHBPC as ⅔ of lineup they qualified with. If this is not possible, then they will lose their qualifying slot. Teams playing with an already qualified player, or a player they know will try to qualify with another team, must plan for this.
If a ⅔ qualified team plays in another qualifier, it will be assumed they qualified from the first qualifier, and their final position in later qualifiers will be ignored, unless they notify the NAH, and tournament organisers in advance. For example if the Means had been able to play ESQ as well as MXQ last year, and qualified, unless they had notified the NAH and ESQ organisers in advance, they would be considered to have qualified through the MXQ slots.

Qualifying Slots

Qualifying slots will be allocated to each region as follows:

20 teams, 2 from each region.

24 teams, based on the top 24 in 2014, where each team earns a slot for the region it qualified in. This produces the following totals:

Cascadia: 11
South West: 5
Eastside: 4
Great Lakes: 4
Heartland: 4
South East: 4
Great Plains: 3
Mexico: 3
Northside: 3
South Central: 3

In addition the champions (Beaver Boys), are already qualified for the NAHBPC (minimum 2/3 of the same lineup), and do not need to qualify. If they choose to attempt to qualify, then the region they attempt to qualify in will get an extra slot. If they do not attempt to qualify, nor register for the NAHBPC, their slot will not be allocated to a region.

The final 3 slots, plus any unclaimed slots will be allocated to the wildcard tournament.

NAHBPC 2015

The NAHBPC will take place in Lexington, KY, from Thursday 17th – Sunday 20th September 2015.

Thursday will be a 30 team wildcard. This will consist of 6-7 rounds of Swiss, followed by a small double elim, for the qualifying slots. For example, for 3 slots, the top 8 teams will go to the elimination.

After the wildcard is done, early evening, the courts will be open until late for pickup and practice.

Wildcard registration will open on the first Monday after the last regional qualifier. Each region will get one slot, two slots will be given to Lexington, for their volunteers, and a slot will be given to the Ladies Army 2015 winners. In the event the Ladies Army winners have already qualified, or can’t attend, the slot can go to another team of the Ladies Army organisers choosing. We would suggest the next highest ranked team, who are not qualified, but can attend.

The remaining slots, including any unclaimed from the above, will be first-come-first-served. Any team of 3 players may register for the wildcard, they do not need to have played in a qualifier.

Friday will be 48 teams in equally seeded AM and PM groups, where teams will play 5 games each.

Saturday morning will be the top 18 teams (9 from each group), playing 4 games.

Saturday afternoon will be the remaining 30 teams (15 from each group), playing 5 games.

Sunday will be a double elim for 28 teams (the top 18 group, and the best 10 teams from the remaining 30).

The format may change, due to weather, or other unavoidable scenarios.

NAH Bench 2015

This year the NAH Bench is provisionally scheduled for November, hopefully in Guadalajara, Mexico. As yet, nothing is confirmed. In the event that does not work out, we will look for another warm location for the same dates, or postpone it to spring 2016.

We are changing the qualifying system for the 2015 NAH Bench. Rather than base it on performance in 3vs3, the overwhelming feedback has been that clubs want to qualify in their own regions. Some regions already have existing bench championships (such as ESBI), we hope those regions will use it for NAH qualifying. Like with 3vs3, regions will have full control over format, rules, team/squad size, budget, registration, etc.

Regional Bench qualifiers may include clubs from outside the region, or multiple teams per club. Teams must be club based, but regions will have the flexibility to decide how those teams are formed, and who may play for them. Regional reps must provide a qualified club, willing to travel, and a reserve list, to the NAH, by Monday 14th September. If no qualifier is possible, then they should determine another way to decide on a club that wants to go to the Championships.

The Bench championships will consist of 12 club based teams. One slot will be given to each region, with one additional slot going to the champions (Portland), and the host club. In the event a region cannot, or chooses not to send a club, regions will get a second team in the following order, based on finishing position in the 2014 NAH Bench, and 2014 NAHBPC finishing position, for the 3 regions that did not send a team. This process will continue to 3rd teams, 4th teams, etc, if required. The regions who already have 2 teams (Cascadia and the host region), will be skipped in the first round of re-allocations.

Cascadia
Great Lakes
Eastside
Heartland
South Central
Northside
South East
South West
Great Plains
Mexico

WHBPC 7

The 7th WHBPC will take place in Timaru, NZ, in the week of 3rd-7th February 2016.

As yet, no allocations or format have been announced. The NAH will use the NAHBPC results to allocate slots.

NAHBPC 2016

With the growth of the squad format (5 player squads), and no worlds to qualify for, based on the feedback from many tournaments of that format in the coming season, we will give serious consideration to use this format for the NAHBPC 2016. This means 2015 may be the last year traditional 3vs3 is used at the highest level of competition in this continent.

WHBPC 8

The NAH would like to bid for the WHPBC 8, with an aim to host it in late summer 2017. We ask interested regions to look for 3-4 court locations, and get back to us with a proposal by the end of 2015..