USA Open Tournaments

USA has had, for many years, a fall Open Competition - Pacific Coast Championships. The title refers to the host area not the participants. The hosting rotates from western Canada thru California and included Hawaii. The 2008 PCCs is in San Jose at San Jose State Univ - site of 1998 WC - Fri thru Sun Oct 10-11. Two playing areas, electronic sound, outdoor pool at about 7' deep - on sport court. The Philippines have been fairly constant participants, and I 'hear' Colombia wants to come this year. But ALL are welcome

We now have a new addition to the 'regional' schedule: ACC - Atlantic Coast Championships - new this year - their first time at regional but they have hosted nationals. Dates, 2 days only, Sat-Sun, Sept 20-21. I am assuming 2 playing areas - if participation indicates. Location is George Mason Univ - (GMU) which is near Washington DC on east coast US. Indoor pool. This is an Open event - all teams, players.

If anyone wants more info on either event, let me know please.

__________________
Carol Rose

PCC's coming up this beautiful weekend (*) with a huge international representation (at least for a North America Tourney). We'll have the usual participants from US and Canada with a taste of World-Class players from Turkey, France, Nederlands, Colombia, and Australia. Could be some players I don't know about so sorry if I missed one. This should be well contested in both the open and mixed divisions.

* If the government thinks we can control global warming then we should certainly be able to control the sun for the weekend. So using that logic I've ordered Sun for the weekend and for the dive trip to follow.

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

are the columbians sending a full team to pcc's this year? i have heard some rumors of this....

They tried. I think only 5 or 6 were given visas.

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

Day one summary from the open side of things.

Sunny but windy so we have a bunch of whiners because it's not the Sunny California they expected. Can't say that I blame them. If I traveled prepared for sunny and hot and the cool wind was chilling me, I'd whine too. But I have all my clothes to choose from, so I'm warm enough.

The pool clarity leaves a lot to be desired. Seems the combination of the pool surface falling apart along with the disintegration of the sport court has made this a bit of a white out at times. We're hoping that we've played enough games to thoroughly stir it up so the filters can take it away and day 2 and 3 will clear up quite a bit. It's not much to cling to but it could happen.

The games have been good despite the visibility issues. The teams with the biggest mix of players seem to be struggling the most. Styles and tendencies will have to be learned throughout the weekend and hopefully they will be on the same page come playoffs. We'll see. But it's good to have the international mix as this level.

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

which players from aus are there?

Tania and Leigh, who could be from a number of countries.

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

Day 2 has completed and we get ready for the playoffs with a lot of close games in the round robin. CAMO, the Montreal contingent came out as the top seed winning 6 with 1 tie. A couple games coming from behind. And until a final game tie by the US Men 1 team, they were set to get 2nd seed with a win. Instead they drop to 4th behind 2nd seed Vancouver and 3rd seed US Masters. That's right, we put the band back together for perhaps our last hurrah at winning something high level. Santa Rosa, featuring the loveable dutchie Sandor, knocked the US Men 1 down to 4th and will get the rematch in their playoff game as the 5th seed. Colombia, with just 8 players in all anchored by Sergio and including Onur from Turkey, wrapped up the 6th seed followed by the US Men 2 Team and San Diego in 7th and 8th respectively.

It should be a mixed up day of upsets if you go by the standings but don't think the lower seeds can't pull it off.

In the mixed division, Vancouver (Canada Women) holds the top spot thanks to the help of Tania and Leigh. Calgary locked in the 2nd seed followed in order by US Women, Club Puck, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego. I'd give you better details but I saw little of the action.

As for the final day's results, They'll be coming by the end of the week. Tomorrow following the games is the banquet. So there is no way I could do anything coherent in relaying the results. And then I'm off to Camp-o-rama up the North Coast of California through Wednesday for some diving and fresh Abalone and the always enjoyable hanging out relaxing with the rest of the hockey knuckleheads that never want the fun to stop happening. Nothing like a saltwater bath to find all those little scraps and sratches that you didn't notice or chose to block out during the weekend.

Oh, I just remembered, the awards are going to be a thing of beauty. Unlike anything from any other tournament. I'll try to post a pic if I can get one. Maybe the whole lot of them before they get handed out and something close up so you can get a good look. I think one of the Tucks will have a camera in tow so maybe they could do it.

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

Final results:

Pool clarity failed to significantly improve but I think it held ground or slightly improved after day 1. Sport Court for UWHockey left in the pool in the sun for 11 years will break down... Avoid it if you can! It is disintegrating as I type. Both divisions were led by the Canadians with Vancouver and CAMO in the Open final and Vancouver and Calgary in the Mixed final. A true sportsmanship event occurred as the two Vancouver teams had split families between the divisions so an emergency swap of playoff game positions needed to occur so that the children would be supervised as Vancouver was in both finals playing at the same time.

The only upset in the Open Division was Santa Rosa beating US Men 1 in the 4-5 game. But as I said before, not really an upset, the games were that tight. US Men 2 finished the day with a win to take 7th place leaving San Diego with the last spot. US Men 1 rallied near the end of the game to win over Colombia with a 1-point victory to take 5th. Had Colombia had a full squad I'm sure the results would have been different. In the 1-4 Semi, CAMO beat Santa Rosa 5-2 in a game that seemed much closer than the score. And in the other Semi, Vancouver used the down-2 method to overtake the US Masters with a 1-goal overtime win setting up the all Canada final. The hard part of that was that we had taken a 1-point lead with less than a minute left in regulation. Ouch, 237 years of hockey experience down the drain. In the pathetic losers 3-4 game the US Master held off Santa Rosa to take 3rd. CAMO won the final and I don't remember the score since I was reffing and then went straight to cleaning up.

In the Mixed division I heard the scores were tight. I know Vancouver won and Calgary got 2nd. San Diego took control of the bottom spot and in the middle were the rest. I think it was Club Puck and Los Angeles in the 3-4 game, but it could have been San Francisco or the US Women's Team for either of those spots. Sorry, too much going on in my corner.

The Camp-o-rama was a tremendously beautiful couple of days camping up the North Coast on the cliffs above what seemed like a field of Kelp. I don't recall seeing so much in my 20+ years of diving up there. The sun was out when we arrived, we had fun, the sun set, we had more fun, then we did it again the next day. I'd like to say I missed you all and wished you were there but it was beautiful and peaceful and... well, relaxing. all in all, a good crowd and a good time.

Perhaps the line of the weekend coming from a 5-year old to his dad after seeing one of the Vancouver awards... Dad, maybe you should try to win so you could get one of those.

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

Vancouver ladies beat Calgary 10-1 in the final of the mixed division.
Thanks to everyone who helped organised the tournament. It was a lot of fun.