This year’s inter-club short mat tournament took place on February 27th to March 1st and was played between both the Oak Bay LBC and the Lake Hill LBC, using 2 mats at each. All teams played 4 games total – once on each mat.
Originally, we had one team from every BSI club represented. Unfortunately, the Burnside team had to drop out, leaving room for another home team to enter. Lake Hill had 4 teams, Oak Bay had 3 and all other clubs (minus Burnside) had one team, except the Victoria club who entered 2 teams, almost all of whom were new to short mat.
The 16 total teams were separated into two groups of 8 and each played a partial round-robin. Once all teams had played their 4 games, the top 2 from each group were sent to the playoffs on Sunday afternoon at Lake Hill.
This schedule was much different than the usual draw for this tournament. In previous years, winners stay in the A division and play off against other winners. Losers drop to the B division after one loss and C division with another loss. It guaranteed every team 3 games. However, last year’s schedule saw one team in particular having to play five back-to-back 70-minute games. So we did a random draw for teams this year and everyone played 4 games instead of 3.
Prizes were given for each of the top four spots and there were two random draw prizes. The top spots went to:
1st place – Oak Bay
(Brent Jansen, Ray Dilba, Karen Evans)
2nd place – Gordon Head
(David Gardner, Frank McKitrick, Janet Gardner)
3rd place – Victoria
(Joey Schiphorst, Geoff Poulton, Susan Schiphorst)
4th place – Oak Bay
(Brent Merchant, Tanis Ranger, Andrew Harley)
Random draw prizes (both Lake Hill teams) – Sirish, Bawan, Trudy & Joe, Nadine, Margot.
Thanks to all who helped make this tournament so successful…
An extra big thank you to Deryk Barker for all his help setting up the computer for this new tournament schedule using 2 clubs, his umpiring, his time teaching the computer helpers, and for being my sounding board while organizing my first tournament. THANK YOU.
Thank you to Gill Hobbs and Lesley Bainbridge for being there all Friday evening to register the teams and score 2 sets of games in a row.
Thank you to the other score keepers on Saturday: Barb McLeod, Marnie Dangerfield, Anita Wah, Kenn Pearce and Mark Planiden.
Thank you to all the lovely kitchen helpers and for the delicious treats: Kim and Bev on Friday evening, while both also had to play their games! Saturday helpers: Kay Alexander, Kathryn Bridge, Leslie Symes and Sharon Maxymyshyn. Sunday helpers: Kathryn Watts, Betty Hellwig.
Thank you to Mike Lee and Lindsay McLean for helping collect score cards at Oak Bay and making sure they made their way to Lake Hill. Thanks to this duo for also helping oversee the games at Oak Bay while only one umpire was split between the 2 rooms.
To the umps: Deryk Barker, Don Bellows and Svend Klausen, thank you for you time and expertise.
My apologies if I’ve missed anyone
Thank you to the lovely helpers at Oak Bay as well – Brent Merchant for all of his mat moving, timing, officiating, and collecting score cards. Tanis Ranger for her help timing and overseeing games when we were without an official ump. Lauren Charlton for her help organizing the kitchen and being there all Friday evening and all day Saturday ensuring everything ran smoothly at that club.
It certainly does take a village!
Shona