For Buwh

As someone who has spoken with many of the National Players in the US let me help you with your misunderstanding of Life in Underwater Hockey from the American viewpoint.

First and foremost, I am not sure if you meant to say we are okay with losing to those teams you listed or that you were implying we are afraid to lose to them (if the latter, then ditto Tuck's reply). Either way, it was completely irrelevant to the decision to not attend BARI.

Second, our reasons (in order of importance) as I heard them based on many conversations with those that had a stake in the decision -- the players, not the politicians:

1. Exclusion of Masters and Juniors
2. Money (yes, even the great US of A has a majority of people that don't have endless wallets)
3. Time (many of us also only get two weeks off per year so with training dates and Worlds, it wasn't enough time to bank those hours)
4. Quality of Tournament (lack of info regarding format, rumors of maybe only playing 3-4 games and getting sent home)
5. Level of Play (rumors and confirmations of most of the top 8 not playing)
6 - 20 Various other reasons such as Planned pregnancies, marriages, Graduations, etc. (you know, life)
21. CMAS sucks (yeah, it was a reason, certainly not the only one and definitely not a deal breaker as we have always questioned the value of CMAS)
22. The frogs were croaking (just had to have one to put below CMAS sucks and I got to say CMAS sucks again)

Duck

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Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.