Are these the dog days of summer? And can someone explain what the hell that even means? All I know for sure is we're halfway thru the season--more in the MS--a bit less in the not so GT--it's hot, muggy and oppressive outside and bigtime paintball continues to hang in there. Which, on a day like today, is a win.
The NPPL's DC Challenge is less than 4 weeks away. Personally I've lowered my expectations when it comes to the whole All-Star game/Hall of Fame hoopla that's been bandied about as I've yet to see any sign of the league following up the ideas--which, may or may not, be too bad--but there's still a tournament to be played. A team list can now be found by clicking on "registration" at the NPPL home page. The registration page offers a link to a list of teams, among a few other options. According to my count (earlier today) there are 46 non-Pro teams signed up in 6 divisions, the largest of which is pump with 14 teams.
The PSP's third event of the season, the MAO, follows hard on the heels of the NPPL event and is a little more than 4 weeks away. (Have I mentioned how much this back-to-back event schedule sucks? Well, it does.) The second payment deadline is this coming Friday so here's your last opportunity to keep entry fees to a minimum. There currently 67 Race 2-X teams signed up and 18 Race 2-2 teams. Figure the xball team numbers to really be 75 or so as a number of Pro teams aren't registered yet but will be there.
The Eurokids make a habit of taking the month of August off every year but the break in the MS schedule is ridiculous as the season ending Paris event isn't scheduled until the first weekend of October. (Is the UK Federation gonna run their Fed Cup event using the MS's Paris field layout sometime in September? Could be an ideal situation for UK kids.) I heard that a number of the big vendors were no-shows and that lots of the shows were stripped down or reduced versions. Makes me wonder what some of the leagues "sponsors" are paying for--and how much they are paying (despite what the MS's sponsor kit states) when there's no more promise of TV coverage and it isn't seen as cost effective to even bother showing up. Just imagine what the revenues might be like if the league wasn't holding some of the "sponsors" at gunpoint. (Yes, that was a joke. A very tiny one but still a joke unless you happen to be one--a gun sponsor, that is.)
Meanwhile the not so Grand Tour is gearing up for the Vienna Austria event with 29 teams registered and a winner take all 1 on 1 tournament on offer. The event will take place the weekend of the 24-25 of July.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
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6 comments:
Upon a closer inspection of the NPPL's 46 teams, you'll notice several entries are double-prints, and a few triple-prints. Additionally, there's teams with the same rosters listed in multiple divisions, etc.
It's as if they've lost the will to even try to be 'professional'.
Yeap, at least 7 of the 46 are double-listed. Guess that's one way to pad the team numbers.
Just to be a pain... "the break in the MS schedule is ridiculous...". Looks like MS is following the trend (or is it the other way around?):
PSP break between Phoenix and Chicago = 13 weeks
MS break between London and Paris = 12 weeks
With that time off they still figure a way to have:
MS Finale Oct. 1-2
NPPL Finale Oct. 8-10
PSP W.Cup Oct. 22-24
and yes, I agree, NPPL/PSP back to back next month = no good!
Anon 1&2
That's happened before. I just didn't look that closely. I also don't think it's intentional deception as it does happen that teams make errors with the "automated" registration process or aren't always sure what their status is if they haven't played before. But yes, the numbers look very disappointing.
Anon3
To be fair to the MS the PSP did the same thing last year with a enormous gap between Chicago and WC when the intended regional event thingy didn't pan out and the move to 4 events complicates matters. It just strikes me as a lousy "solution".
Although the PSP's "answer" still left a large gap as noted with the rescheduled MAO moved to try and get in two summer events.
And it may be that the MS had intended until fairly late in the process to run 5 events again this year before they finally canceled Turkey.
It may not have been intentional deception when the teams signed up, but when you leave the dupes there for days, then you've either got intentional deception or just outright laziness. Either way doesn't look so good, but I suppose a sub-40 team list with 40% of those not even 7-man teams looks even worse.
I'm a little late to the party here but though Id throw it up here anyway.
The dog days of summer refers to ancient romans who though the star sirius had influence over the weather because of its position in the sky. Its the second brightest star in the sky(to the sun) and would rise first in the sky just prior to the sun. It combined with the sun to create the extra heat.
Sirius was called the dog star because it is the brightest star in it's constellation, Canis major.
and thus "dog days"
Generally from late july to early september. so yes were in the thick of it.
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