[BD] Re: How to improve on 2006 in 2007?

[Felix]

> Nationals:
> Revitalise nationals by stopping the "its Tour 4" feeling. You could make
> nationals a 16 team knockout tournament with qualifiers being the top
> teams from each region (based on Ladder League).

It didn't feel like Tour 4 for Brighton, hell, it was Nationals baby.
I wouldn't be averse to a 16-team Nationals format, but I think to be
fair to the lower teams this should ultimately be preceeded by
Regionals - maybe not this year but next - instead this year we could
test the water and try to get a "Not The Regionals" tournament going
on for non-qualifying teams in every region at the same time as
Nationals.  Ladder League is NOT ready to be directly used for seeding
purposes - for a start the scoring system rewards activity as much as
performance, so the tables are not a true reflection of ability.
Individual results between teams I can imagine being very useful for
seeding the lower echelons of Tour 1B 2007 though.

I also like the idea of a super-tournament.  The US has Emerald City
Classic ( http://www.seattlesockeye.org/ecc/ ), which sees teams come
over from Japan as well as all round the US, and is generally regarded
to be the most high-level competitive tournament in the world.  If we
ran a similar tournament near a UK airport, it would be a Great Thing.
 Pre- or post-season though?  I would guess during the Mixed Tour, if
it's split?

Felix

ps. Check out Ultivillage's DVDs of ECC: http://www.ultivillage.com