2016 High School State Tournament - Challenge and Opportunity

[Dave Klink]

Hello MNYU Coaches,

I'm reaching out to seek feedback on both a challenge and an opportunity for the 2016 state tournament, scheduled for June 4-5, 2016 at the National Sports Center.

The challenge is that we won't be able to use the NSC facility Saturday afternoon due to an unavoidable scheduling conflict.  No other facility is large enough for our full tournament, and the NSC is not available on the prior or following weekends.  After carefully considering many possible solutions, the best we've come up with to preserve our formats are to fit in two games per team on Saturday morning, and then play four games per team on Sunday.  This also will mean that games will be played to 13 with 90 minute hard caps this year, to keep within recommended safety guidelines.  This setup would also be in line with other major youth Ultimate events such as USAU's Centrals tournament (which actually plays 4 games on Saturday to 13), but it is a bit of an adjustment from what we've done at states, and so we wanted to give you a heads up.  For what it's worth, this scheduling conflict should not be an issue in future years. I'd also note that a significant % of youth games don't make it to 15 anyway, particularly if there is wind, so the more significant tweaks would be the 2-4 split and having games run 10 minutes shorter.

The opportunity is that we are considering taking advantage of this adjustment to further highlight our division I championship games in both girl's and boy's divisions, and also to mitigate the need to play a bit later into the day on Sunday than normal.  The plan we are considering is moving those two games to a stadium on Monday night.  To be clear - the vast majority of teams would still conclude their state tournament on Sunday afternoon - only the Division I finalists would have a game on Monday night.  The stadium might be in Blaine or it might be elsewhere in the greater twin cities area.  We'd play one final right after the other, so you'd get to experience the two biggest youth games of the year in the state right in a row.  The hope would be the all teams plan to attend the Monday night festivities and make a great event out of it, whether they make the championships or not.  There would be concessions (pizza party?), announcers, etc.  We'd plan to record the game for posterity and to promote the sport.  We would adjust all-state voting deadlines later in the weekend so that all state tournament games (except the division I finals) would be considered, and then announce the all-state winners during finals.  It would be an opportunity for our entire community to come together in one stadium and celebrate a great season.  It would also make it easier for us to encourage local media and other interested parties to take an interest in the tournament and the sport.  The hope is that this would increase the prestige and profile of youth Ultimate in the state and make for a more special experience for everyone involved!  Also, if all goes well, this could potentially be the start of a great new tradition, even when we don't have the same scheduling challenges.

On the flip side of this opportunity, this would only be a smart idea if your teams would plan to spend their Monday night after states at the Ultimate finals.  If this is not something most teams would be interested in doing, we'd really like to know that now.  We'd also love to know if you have other suggestions for making this a special event or capitalizing on the challenges and opportunities described above.  So please take this opportunity to give these issues a bit of thought, and get back to me with your comments, which I will summarize or organize in some way and then share with the full board.  We'd like to make a decision in early January, so I'd ask to receive feedback by Saturday, January 2, 2016.

Thank you for your consideration!

Dave Klink
MNYU Board Vice Chair / State Tournament Competition Director

[Dave Klink]

Hello all,

Thanks very much to those who have provided feedback so far!  Unfortunately, though, I only ended up hearing from about 8 of our 70 teams.  The holidays were probably a bad time to ask for feedback.  Now that most of us have returned to the real world, let's give it one more go.  Please continue to weigh in, and I'll hold off on compiling feedback for the board until this Sunday, January 10.

Best regards,

Dave

[Dave Klink]

Hello again,

Thank you to everyone who has weighed in on these issues for the 2016 state tournament!  I compiled your feedback and shared with the board, and we've had a robust discussion on our options.  We aren't quite ready to make the final announcement of our plans for the state tournament, but we should be able to do so at (or before) our pre-season coaches meeting on February 8.  In the meantime, though, I'm checking in once again to give you some sense of where we are headed and to provide one last opportunity for feedback on a specific part of our decision process.  

Based on the overall feedback we received, there is substantial support for utilizing the opportunity to do the division I finals in a stadium after the weekend, and the board is now leaning towards that plan.  Though we were initially thinking of having the games on Monday night, several coaches recommended we consider Tuesday instead.  This would allow even more time for all-state voting, it would let everyone recover a bit from the weekend (including the finalists), and it might give us the chance to hype up the finals a bit more with some articles on Monday regarding the teams who qualified, some outreach to local media sources in the towns those teams are from, maybe even some announcement at those schools to encourage students to attend the ultimate finals, etc.  Another bonus would be that it would avoid a graduation conflict on Monday night for the Moundsview program.  You can't always avoid graduation conflicts at this time of year (though actually we are avoiding several on Saturday evening by ending games early on Saturday, as it happens), but we've done some checking of our division I schools from last year, and we haven't actually identified any schools which have graduations on the evening of Tuesday, June 7, so we might actually dodge them this year if we put the finals on Tuesday (at least for the teams who are most likely to make finals; not necessarily for all teams which might want to attend that night).  With all that stated, there are also cons to playing on Tuesday instead of Monday, including a loss of continuity with the weekend and the fact that we run an extra day into the summer and the potential for conflicts with folks leaving town, etc.  The board is still discussing this decision, but I wanted to also provide an opportunity for y'all to let me know if you are aware of any big, problematic conflicts with that Tuesday night (such as a commencement) that would make it hard for your team to be there.  If so, please let me know ASAP!

Thanks again for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

Dave

PS: If you have access to or recommendations for a stadium in the twin cities area that we could potentially use/rent for these games, we are likely going to be in the market for booking one for either the 6th or the 7th of June... so I'd encourage you to pass on options for those to me as well.