2013 Club Nationals Playdown Announcement

Update: August 21, 2012
MoPac has posted general playdown information to its site. Info will be updated as it become available here: http://www.mopacca.org/?page_id=123

Update: August 13, 2012
Hello all,

Here is some additional information to what was originally posted:

MEN'S TEAMS
Due to the uncertainty of being able to accommodate all eligible SFBACC men's teams for club nationals playdowns we will need to set an early internal deadline.

The deadline will be 6:00pm on Sunday, August 19th
Please submit the following via email to mlively@bayareacurling.com prior to that time.
1. Names of team members
- a minimum of 3 players must be identified and all must be league playing dues paying members of the SFBACC
- Players must also meet the USCA's eligibility requirements (again, see USCA's 2011-12 Rules booklet)

2. Name of team contact with email and phone number.

We will need to discuss a format for internal ranking of all interested teams. This will be done by conference call on that Sunday, August 19th @ 7:30 pm. Please make sure one team member will be available at that time.

VENUE AND DATE INFORMATION
As stated in the original post, the venue and date have yet to be selected.

However, for your information:
If the venue becomes Evergreen CC (Portland, OR) competitions will be separated and we have 'requested' the following dates:
Women's: January 11-13, 2013
Men's: January 18-21, 2013

If the venue becomes The Oval (Salt Lake City, UT) we will try to run competitions concurrently and will try to request the following date:
January 19-21, 2013

This will become more clear to us shortly after the MoPac declaration deadline of Sept 30th.

INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT A TEAM
Please utilize word-of-mouth to see if people are looking or to get your name out there. Also, use the Team/Teammate Request section in the club's forums.

MORE INFORMATION ON COMPETITIVE CURLING
Please see the Competitive Curling page.
This has a list of bonspiels/competitions available to our club, many with event descriptions.
Hopefully, this will help you/your team find which events are most suitable. This includes: Seniors, Juniors, Wheelchair, etc....

In addition, I will list all pertinent information for each California, MoPac or USCA event as it becomes available.

Thanks,
Michael Lively
Competitive Curling Coordinator
mlively@bayareacurling.com

August 8, 2012
Some notes from Michael Lively, Competitive Curling Coordinator:

Hello all,
I hope this finds you in the midst of a great summer. Our fall curling season is right around the corner and with that comes the start of the competitive curling season. If you have ANY interest in the MoPac Men's/Women's Club Nationals playdowns for the 2012-13 season, we need to hear from you ASAP.

We are trying to get a meeting together in the next week to go over the process. This will definitely include some kind of internal ranking of all interested teams and may include internal SFBACC playdowns. If you're interested in curling in playdowns this year, please contact Michael Lively at mlively@bayareacurling.com ASAP.

Below is all of the up-to-date info we have on the process for 2012-13 Club National qualifying through our MoPac region. Please read; time is of the essence to get all interested players/teams on board.

- Firstly, MoPac is going to be more organized this time around about the details and deadlines around this event than it was last year.

- Secondly, that will allow our club to be more organized as well.

- Thirdly, a reminder, that because we are in arena territory, ice time, dates, etc are not completely within our control.
At our club and in MoPac, the volunteers are trying their best to give everyone a fair chance at participating.
However, ultimately this is for you and your team, and it may require extra work, effort and commitment on your parts to make it happen for yourselves.

- Lastly, a comment, this competition may not be for everyone. Please think about whether or not your team would benefit from playing in some other regional bonspiels before doing this one. (MoPac's new 5-Under would be a great place to cut your teeth, and there are other 'competitive' tournaments as well.)

I will do my best to give out as much information as I'm able and to keep you and your teams abreast of playdown developments, but each team is responsible for being familiar with all of the resources for eligibility, information and registration.

IMPORTANT USCA DATES / INFORMATION
January 9, 2013 - This is the entry deadline by which every individual player on your team needs to be registered thru the USCA website
March 2 - 9, 2013 - This is the Club National competition to be held at the Exmoor Curling Club, in Highland Park, IL

IMPORTANT MOPAC INFORMATION
MoPac will again have an internal deadline which will help us narrow down our playdown dates, venue and format
** If you do not 'declare' before the internal deadline, your team will not be allowed to register with the USCA when they open registration.
MoPac may also be requiring a deposit with your team's declaration.
If this the case, it would likely be about $100/team (payable to MoPac) and would be refunded if/when your team registers with the USCA
(if you choose to 'declare' but do not register with the USCA to participate in the playdowns it will not be refunded)

IMPORTANT MOPAC DATES
August 21, 2012 - This is beginning of the 'INTERNAL DECLARATION' period
September 30, 2012 - This will likely be the deadline for declaring (last year it was 10/31/11)
January (mid-late), 2013 - This is the likely time frame in which MoPac's regional playdowns will be held.

ENTRY PROCESS (MOPAC)
(this has yet to be finalized, but will be in the next couple of weeks)

MoPac currently has 16 clubs and it is the current thinking that every club will be allocated up to 2-3 spots. It is guaranteed that many clubs will not send any team(s). However, we may not be able to accept every declared team from the clubs that do because of venue constraints. Therefore, individual clubs may have to devise a method for paring teams down to their allocation.

As we know from last year this is NOT easy for us or any other arena based club. We can only do our best to find a fair system and ice time if necessary.

**Note: club caps are likely only to affect the men's side of the competition**

ASSOCIATED COSTS
- Overall playdown fee (thru the USCA) has yet to be determined.
This fee will likely be in the $550/team range (the USCA takes $360 off the top and the remainder is used for our regional event)
- MoPac declaration deposit: likely $100/team if required
- Internal SFBACC Playdowns: if required, could be $100-$200+/person
- Travel, hotel, etc are the responsibility of each participant

VENUE INFORMATION
Currently, the top 2 candidates for playdown venue are Evergreen CC, Portland (dedicated ice) [has yet to begin construction] or The Oval outside of Salt Lake (last year's arena ice venue).

Depending on the number of teams declared in Men's and Women's, the competitions could be held concurrently at the same venue or separated into different weekends.

INTRA-CLUB RANKINGS
This is the most pressing issue and needs to be discussed ASAP!
Please respond ASAP to mlively@bayareacurling.com with your interest. We would like to have a skip's meeting (either by conference call or at a designated location before August 13th).

Up for discussion would be appropriate means by which we rank teams for possible paring down (internal round-robin playdowns or 'paper' methods or mix of the two)

YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
- Please forward this info along to your teammates and ask them to go thru you with any email questions for me. (We only have a chance of easing the stress on everyone here if there's a pecking order to the communication.)
- Please respond ASAP for scheduling skip's meeting.

On a final note, it's really great to see this many teams interested in getting some experience under their belts!

Michael Lively
SFBACC Competitive Curling Coordinator and MoPac Board Member

Note: You can also consult the USCA's 2011-12 Rules Booklet if you have any specific questions about team composition, player eligibility and other related regional/national playdown regulations. This document is last year's booklet and will be updated for 2012-13 likely in September.