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05-09-16 11:05AM |
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curlky
Drawmaster
Registered: Oct 2013
Location:
Posts: 559 |
2016 USA Arena National Championships
So I wanted to give this event its own thread. The events start Tuesday 5/10 at 4:30pm. The event format has been changed this year from a double knockout spiel bracket to a modified round robin. There are 20 men’s teams, so 4 pods of 5 teams, and there are 18 women’s teams, so 3 pods of 6 teams. Below are a list of teams competing this year. If you want to see the rosters for each team, you can go here: http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Curling/...pionships/Teams
For the men’s teams, I believe that the 4 teams that played in the playoffs all return. I know that the Cincinnati roster is 100% the same, not sure about the rest.
Men's Teams
Bowling Green
Cedar Rapids
Cincinnati
Circle City
Curling Club of Houston
Dallas-Fort Worth
Des Moines
Jersey Pinelands
Kansas City
La Crosse
Lansing
Las Vegas
Lone Star
Long Island
Ocean State
Oklahoma
Palmetto
Pittsburgh
San Francisco
Wine Country
Women's Teams
Bowling Green
Cedar Rapids
Cincinnati
Circle City
Curling Club of Virginia
Dakota
Dallas-Fort Worth
Jersey Pinelands
Kansas City
Lansing
Oklahoma
Palmetto
Pittsburgh
San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
San Fracisco Bay Area
Wine Country
Wine Country
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05-09-16 12:25PM |
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USAnewbie
Harvey Hacksmasher
Registered: Feb 2011
Location:
Posts: 42 |
Glad to see that the number of teams has expanded! Good luck to all teams and to a great week of curling!
Picks:
Men = DFWCC - Same team as last year, just with a new lead
Women = SFBACC - Same team as last year
Cheers
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05-09-16 12:32PM |
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curlky
Drawmaster
Registered: Oct 2013
Location:
Posts: 559 |
Agreed that it is nice to see the field increase. Also, with the new format, all teams are now guaranteed 4 games rather than 3 (Women are actually guaranteed 5 this year due to fewer teams). To me this is great, because for any curler, more games on great ice against good teams will only make you better.
They wanted 20 and 20, but getting 2 more women's teams proved a bit difficult at the last minute I believe. I think that the partial round robin format should be much better, but the proof will come in a few days.
As someone who was lucky enough to participate in this event once, it is a great opportunity for arena curlers, and I am very glad that it takes place every year.
And if there were Vegas odds on the event, DFW men and SFBACC women would be the betting favorites.
edit - the SFBACC team that won last year Walsh is the one I refer to
Last edited by curlky on 05-09-16 at 12:44PM
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05-09-16 12:35PM |
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tdelporto
Knee-Slider
Registered: Jul 2015
Location: Oakland CA, USA
Posts: 1 |
SFBACC Men's is a different team. There are three SFBACC Women's teams; SFBACC Woman's 1 is last year's team.
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05-09-16 10:27PM |
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jhcurl
Super Rockchucker
Registered: Sep 2002
Location: US - CT
Posts: 1431 |
I will be there representing the USCA. Great to see this event expand and continue to grow.
Of course as an Eastie, I am rooting for the Eastie teams. Pittsburgh does a lot of curling on the road so should be used to good ice. The Pittsburgh women also have some of the best jackets you will ever see. Basically, skulls on the front and back.
Long Island on the men's side can be tough.
Should be a great event.
JH
Braves on a path to 120+ losses, that is a good thing
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05-10-16 07:49AM |
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CurlingGeek
Swing Artist
Registered: Apr 2011
Location:
Posts: 208 |
We've got one geek on-site who will be providing coverage between volunteer shifts. Tentative broadcast schedule is posted on the home page: https://games.curlinggeek.com/
First game should be: Tuesday 4:30 PM - Pittsburgh vs. Cedar Rapids (Womens)
If anyone else wants to help share the games from this great event, send an email to geek@curlinggeek.com
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05-10-16 09:17AM |
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curlky
Drawmaster
Registered: Oct 2013
Location:
Posts: 559 |
jh, cincy's men and women team have each have a former Plainfield curler, so feel free to join them into your rooting world.
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05-10-16 12:40PM |
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skipsstones
Knee-Slider
Registered: Jun 2013
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Posts: 4 |
Thanks for the shout-out, JH. We'll certainly do our best this week!
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05-10-16 01:05PM |
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tuck
Super Rockchucker
Registered: Dec 2005
Location: St. Thomas, North Dakota
Posts: 2613 |
Are we supposed to be making predictions? Newbie picked obvious favorites. I'm not questioning his manhood...oh, wait...I guess I am.
Dakota wins the Women's.
Dallas looks like a mortal lock to win the Men's, so I'm picking Lansing.
Good luck to all...especially my picks. JH is representing the USCA? For this I pay dues? Just kidding. I'm glad that the USCA continues to support a championship that covers a significant percentage of our players.
Ben Tucker
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05-10-16 01:44PM |
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dugless_zone 13
Drawmaster
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: the Banana Belt
Posts: 990 |
Been to Plainfield Curling Club before, crazy curling in a two sheet club.
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05-10-16 03:16PM |
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curlky
Drawmaster
Registered: Oct 2013
Location:
Posts: 559 |
Not for picking a winner, but in general, the GLCA teams that are competing should bring a good level of skill to the event with Cincinnati, Circle City (Indianapolis), Bowling Green & Lansing.
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05-10-16 04:39PM |
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PaulE
Knee-Slider
Registered: May 2016
Location:
Posts: 1 |
Thanks Tuck!
quote: Originally posted by tuck
Dakota wins the Women's.
Ben Tucker
Thanks Tuck - that's my wife you are talking about :-) She won the very first Arena Nationals, so is back with a new team this year. I want her to win (of course) but suspect it will be a learning opportunity. Hope she proves me wrong!
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05-10-16 07:50PM |
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tuck
Super Rockchucker
Registered: Dec 2005
Location: St. Thomas, North Dakota
Posts: 2613 |
She's got the right third and she's probably fashioned a blissful marriage out of proving you wrong repeatedly (that's how it usually works).
Ben Tucker (kids, do yourselves a favor...get a great third and a smart wife)
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05-11-16 09:53AM |
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AlanMacNeill
Super Rockchucker
Registered: Sep 2011
Location:
Posts: 1064 |
Headed up for my officiating stints Thursday through Saturday as soon as I finish up some business at the office here.
Question for anyone on site who can answer: How warm/cold is it at the *timer* stations? That's always the most variable job, temperaturewise, if I understood the preevent brief correctly, it's on the ice, so probably at least chilly, but I wanna know for sure before I overpack my winter gear
Already have to bring some, since I'm on-ice observer/official for a couple draws as well...but do I need to bring 3 days worth?
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05-11-16 01:44PM |
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dugless_zone 13
Drawmaster
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: the Banana Belt
Posts: 990 |
How do teams qualify for this event, some scores seem really lopsided? Does each region send an entry? What are the rules for this gig?
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05-11-16 02:00PM |
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USAnewbie
Harvey Hacksmasher
Registered: Feb 2011
Location:
Posts: 42 |
There is no qualification or regional playdown process for this event as of now (as this event is only a few years old and still being developed)
The current process is clubs express interest in sending a team to the USCA, then through a regional allocation + random drawing system, clubs are granted a spot into the event. It is within the club to determine who to send (aka playdowns within the club).
So yes there are probably clubs who just throw together a team just for the fun of it vs clubs who have many teams play down to be their representative, so mismatches and lop-sided scores are not surprising.
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05-11-16 02:41PM |
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curlky
Drawmaster
Registered: Oct 2013
Location:
Posts: 559 |
quote: Originally posted by dugless_zone 13
How do teams qualify for this event, some scores seem really lopsided? Does each region send an entry? What are the rules for this gig?
There is a large skill level variance at the event. The very short answer is that each region gets to send a certain number of teams based upon how many arena clubs are in that region, plus the host club gets an auto-berth. For example, GLCA has something like 8 arena clubs, and gets to send 3-4 teams to this event, it varies each year. But, as opposed to club nationals, there are no play downs. This may seem silly, but we arena curlers don’t get ice time easily to host play downs, and when we get it, we tend to pay $300 or more per hour, and are lucky to get more than 2 draws worth of ice time each week. Not enough ice time available to have a proper play downs. So each region randomly selects its clubs without playdowns. I believe that if your team medaled the previous year, then you get to come back the current year, but am not 100% certain of that rule. When they first started the event, they feared that there would be lots of mens teams, but not enough womens teams to fill the field at 16/16, so they had a rule that unless your club signed up a mens and womens team, your mens team would get put on the waiting list. Proudly I can say that at the arena curling level, the women are very active, and there has not been much of an issue filling the womens side, so this year they removed this rule.
A lot of dedicated curlers might think this event is a waste of time due to the imbalance, but I can assure you that it is not. Think of Arena Curlers sort of like junior’s in Canada, where not everything is balanced. But as someone who competed at the event before, and goes to lots of bonspiels, you see teams from the clubs that are struggling getting out and making big improvements.
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05-11-16 02:49PM |
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USAnewbie
Harvey Hacksmasher
Registered: Feb 2011
Location:
Posts: 42 |
quote: Originally posted by curlky
I believe that if your team medaled the previous year, then you get to come back the current year
This is NOT the case. The only guaranteed spot(s) go to the host club, 1 Men's team and 1 Women's team.
It is possible that you can win one year, and not get invited back to compete the following year due to the allocation & draw system. Its not a perfect system by any means, however without having a playdown system in place, it was the only system thought of where each club has an equal chance of getting selected.
This event is considered more of a development event.
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05-11-16 03:08PM |
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curlky
Drawmaster
Registered: Oct 2013
Location:
Posts: 559 |
quote: Originally posted by USAnewbie
This is NOT the case. The only guaranteed spot(s) go to the host club, 1 Men's team and 1 Women's team.
It is possible that you can win one year, and not get invited back to compete the following year due to the allocation & draw system. Its not a perfect system by any means, however without having a playdown system in place, it was the only system thought of where each club has an equal chance of getting selected.
This event is considered more of a development event.
Out of curiosity, are you on the committee as I have a few questions?
I want to make one more comment about this years events. As I mentioned above, in past years, the event was more of a double knockout bonspiel bracket. This format makes it so that as you go along, you are more guaranteed to be playing teams of similar talent. This year they went to pool play (which I fully support and even suggested to the committee last year). So there may be more lopsided scores early on until the championship round is reached, pending how balanced each pool is. Looking at the mens pools for this year, it looks like they took the 4 teams that played in the playoffs last year, and separated them each into their own pool. Then in that pool, other teams were randomly placed, except they tried to prevent teams from the same region in the same group. So Dallas won last year, and they are out of the Mid America Curling Association. The other plyoff teams were Pittsburgh, SF, & Cincinnati. So this year, Dallas does not have one of the other playoff teams, and they also do not have Houston, Kansas City, Lone Star or Oklahoma who are also in their region.
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05-11-16 03:58PM |
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dugless_zone 13
Drawmaster
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: the Banana Belt
Posts: 990 |
Okay, so Arena clubs are like "paper clubs", they don't have a dedicated curling club but rather they rent ice at an arena, scribe in rings etc and play?
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05-11-16 04:12PM |
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curlky
Drawmaster
Registered: Oct 2013
Location:
Posts: 559 |
I would not use the paper club, as I think of that as a club that is only in planning stages, and actually does not yet curl, but that is just a syntax difference.
For the most part there are 2 levels of arena curling clubs, those with good relationships with a hockey arena, and those that do not. The ones that do not tend to have to scribe circles onto the ice, have no easy cold storage of rocks, and get at most 2 draws per week, many times getting ice time slots like 10pm on a Sunday night or some other wretched time. The ones that have better relationships tend to have arenas that have allowed them to actually paint houses and hog lines on top of the hockey lines so no scribing necessary. They also might have an area to store the rocks cold, although off the ice either in a freezer or some other means.
Both types of arena club face ice conditions ranging from very bad to miserable, with huge amounts of negative ice and terrible runs. At best you cannot play both out turns and in turns, you only get one or the other. Runs you might ask come from the zamboni machine that "levels" our ice. As an example, I played one game this year where the zamboni blade was messed up, and there was a 1/4" deep gouge in the ice that ran the entire length of the ice at the foor foot line extended. You should see what a rock does as it falls down a 1/4" tall cliff.
So for this national event, USA curling brings in national level ice makers and they make championship quality ice. They are only given a few days to work on it so it might not be quiate as nice as ice at the worlds, but it is pretty darn close if not as good. They work their butts off to get it into awesome shape. This events help bring experience to players with good ice conditions for a change.
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05-11-16 04:34PM |
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BumperUp
Harvey Hacksmasher
Registered: Dec 2014
Location:
Posts: 17 |
OK, I'm just going to say it. Is "national championship" really the appropriate title for this event?
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05-11-16 04:56PM |
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dugless_zone 13
Drawmaster
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: the Banana Belt
Posts: 990 |
A paper club is a club that exists on " paper" , which means they have a membership but do not have a dedicated curling facility and thus rent ice, usually ice hockey facilities. We have one or two in our area.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis...e_United_States
Last edited by dugless_zone 13 on 05-11-16 at 05:00PM
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05-11-16 04:58PM |
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USAnewbie
Harvey Hacksmasher
Registered: Feb 2011
Location:
Posts: 42 |
quote: Originally posted by BumperUp
OK, I'm just going to say it. Is "national championship" really the appropriate title for this event?
"Arena Club Nationals Championships" is more appropriate.....
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05-11-16 05:06PM |
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Alice
Swing Artist
Registered: Feb 2012
Location:
Posts: 324 |
Arena Nationals has playes from coast to coast. Just missing Alaska and Hawaii so far. The other nationals are headed to inviting only those high enough on OOM lists. Which are truly the real nationals?
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