Should Canada be allowed to continue to participate in the UPA College and Club Championships Series? Why?
Please review the findings for this topic before engaging in discussion.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Welcome to the official UPA Strategic Planning Blog Forum. Here you will find data from recent UPA surveys and questions regarding key strategic planning questions identified from those surveys. Please take a second to read the groundrules for contributing on these forums and we look forward to hearing from you!
8 comments:
Its interesting that the uneasy feelings come when the title is outside the national border.
Its important to declare a US champion. But, if Canada is going to beat the US I believe that means the US needs to improve their game, not remove their competitors!!
The UPA is the NHL for Ultimate... can you imagine the NHL without Canada!!?!
-still learning to use the system... anyone know how to edit already posted comments?
Are there any good reasons to exclude Canada? Canada has produced many incredible ultimate teams, and continues to do so.
Not allowing Canada in the college tour is depriving fans of both nations the chance to see some great players play.
Here are couple reasons (note: I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on the topic of Canada, I'm just trying to move this thread forward).
- By providing the UPA club series to Canadians we make it harder for CUPA to create a similar competitive structure and develop their own organization.
- As a membership model for the UPA only the top teams from Canada play in the UPA series. There is not the same broad base of Ultimate teams that exists in the US that attend sectionals.
- There is no "National Champion." It may be marketable to have an event that crowns a National Champion and that allows the US to select the representative at WFDF events easily.
I think part of this question which is related to those other questions is "For Ultimate to grow universally, what should the role of the UPA be internationally and what should be the role of CUPA, other national governing bodies, and WFDF?" Is the UPA hindering or promoting overall growth (in both the US and Canada) by providing the series to Canadians?
Ultimate in Canada needs the UPA to develop. Due to Canada's large size and small population (the size of California), a system like the UPA cannot and will not develop in Canada. The player base is far too widespread geographically. For an Ontarian player, opponents in the Northeast are much closer than the entire west side and maritimes. The development of ulti in Canada thus depends on a large extent to the opportunity to play in the US.
To remove this opportunity would very much hinder the growth of Ultimate in Canada.
I like the NHL analogy..Can you imagine a Canadian only league? there wouldn't be very many teams...
As a spectator, ex-UPA board member and non-player, I'm not sure my opinion matters much. But I have thought about this topic quite a bit so here are my 2 cents worth:
1. The US deserves a national champion every year who beat all comers. And that team deserves the kudos of doing so. In 2003 when the Condors lost to Furious George in the finals at Nationals and then represented the US at Worlds in 2004 to face Furious George again, I think it lessened the impact at Worlds. The US team was playing the team that already beat them... the outcome was somewhat predictable. I think it also made it difficult to think of the Condors as the US national champions... despite the UPA saying they were.
2. When non-US teams are allowed to play in Nationals, they may eliminate a US team from making it to the semifinals or finals, which makes it impossible to determine an accurate ranking of the top 4 US teams.
3. As the largest Ultimate organization in North America, the UPA should focus on organizing a North American championship tournament where not only Candian teams, but also Mexican (and I would include Central American) teams could be encouraged to participate.
4. The argument that allowing Canadian teams to participate in Nationals improves the competition and hence helps US teams get better is not as true as it seems on the surface. Having Canadian teams play US teams during the season prior to the Championship Series is what improves competition the most. By the time the Championship Series rolls around, most teams are about as good as they are going to get (give me a bit of latitude on that point ;) Allowing Canadian teams to then play in the UPA Championship Series doesn't really help US teams; it only eliminates one US team from participating in Nationals. If the Canadian team makes it to the finals, then one US team was eliminated from the finals; and we will never know if that team might have beat the other US team that made it to the finals.
5. I believe there is an argument to be made that not allowing Canadian teams to play in the UPA Championship Series would improve the quality of Canadian teams. As it is now, Furious George usually does not even play in the CUPA Championships. That clearly reduces competition in Canada and the ability of other Canadian teams to play against a better team and improve.
Sorry for this second post, but I just thought of this and couldn't figure out how to add to my previous post. You may think this concern is far fetched, but just 10 years ago it was unthinkable that a Canadian team could possibly win Nationals:
What if 2 Canadian teams both made it to the finals of the UPA Nationals? How would you select a US champion?
Restricting UPA Nationals to only US teams is a bit like restricting the teams that can play in a Region to only those teams in that Region. All the same arguments apply.
Yes, it strengthens numbers of members ion the UPA. Makes more "elite" teams. they should be allowed to play
Post a Comment