2016 Friendship Cup tournament / poll

By | April 11, 2016
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We will likely enter several teams into the upcoming 2016 NASA Friendship Cup tournament the weekend of May 21-22, 2016. Info about tournament play is listed below.

Please review the tournament information and then complete the tournament availability poll at the bottom of the page by Wednesday night, April 13th.

Tournament play

Tournaments differ from league play (also called Academy game days) as follows:

Entry fees:

  • Tournament entry fees are not included in the Academy fees you pay to NASA. Entry fees are typically $50-$60 per player per tournament. Our Academy treasurer collects entry fees 2-3 weeks before each tournament. Most tournaments also require parents to sign a release form; we collect signatures the week or two prior to the tournament.

Schedules:

  • Each team plays 3-4 games during the weekend, typically two games on Saturday, one or two on Sunday (a Sunday AM game is likely). Schedules usually aren’t available until a week before the tournament. (There’s no pre-set schedule formula; we’ve had games as early as 7:45 AM and as late as 8:00 PM. Trying to predict game times prior to schedules being released is futile.)
  • Tournaments follow a different set of schedule standards than our regular Academy game days. Tournaments typically include 100+ teams in multiple age groups spread across multiple venues, so we’re just a few small pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle. In tournaments, we have no control over schedules or venues.

Rosters:

  • Team rosters are often larger than in league play. Main reasons:  multiple games per day is more physically challenging for the players, which means we need more subs; tournament rules require rosters to stay fixed, so we can’t borrow a player from another NASA team in case of illness, injury, traffic delay, etc.
  • We can’t move players between teams to work around schedule conflicts. If your daughter has a conflict with a scheduled game, she will still be eligible to play in her team’s other games.

Results:

  • In most cases, game results are recorded, and teams have a chance to win their division’s championship.

Likely challenges:

Tournament experiences are affected by the number and quality of teams in our brackets. The U8 Junior Academy age group doesn’t tend to attract a lot of teams (U7 even less so).

  • We could have intra-Academy games (“us vs. us”) as part of the tournament.
  • Depending on entry numbers, we may have 1-2 U8 teams play in an older age group.
  • Our U7s would likely be in a U8 age group.
  • There’s a good chance we’ll have to recruit 1-2 guest coaches to help cover our games. (Each team plays 3-4 games over the weekend, which means lots of games to coach. (Copey’s U13 and U14 teams will likely be entered, so he’ll have games of his own. Hailey’s team will likely be entered, so she’ll be playing in the tournament.)
  • The younger the player, the more likely they will tire in the 2nd game of the day.

Tournament availability (and end-of-season party) poll

Please open this link to complete a tournament availability (and end-of-season party) poll: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/L2K7BSN. Deadline:  Wednesday night, April 13th.