Champinship Event in Canada
 

how many of you guys love to have a champinship event in Canada?

hehe.. if it was Ontario or Toronto or Montreal or somewhere in between I'd love it.... heck of a lot closer for me!

NOOOOOOOO!
 

Dont! mean to sound selfish. BUT, BRING IT BACK TO FLORIDA!

Do you mean a seperate championship? Or just have the championship in Canada?

It would probably be an inconvenient location for a lot of teams. I wouldn't mind it, though ;)

I think Toronto is the best place to hold the champinship event because it is close to US, large city and close to my house :)

I think it would be a cool idea, BUT, now almost every team would have to make some kind of border crossing, and that takes HUGE amounts of time to cross with a lot of people, not to mention lots of boxes of tools and supplies, flying is expensive as well....not to mention the currency change.

I knew this post would come sooner or later...
 

There are so many reasons why this wouldn't, and shouldn't happen. But the fundamental ones are non-centralized placement, the fact that it's in another country, that there aren't as many teams nearby, that nearly everyone would have to go through customs, that everything would cost more, that there'd be no place to put everything, that it's too cold, and that something formerly called 'Nationals' would never go international. There are about two gazillion more reasons too. Come on...

Besides, I'd much rather travel to Florida, Houston, or Atlanta. :cool:

It would be neat to have something close to home, but trust me, you guys from down south do not want to come up here in April, after already having a few months of warm weather. In Montreal, it actually snowed in May for a day or so.

I would not mind. The weather in toronto in April is actually sometimes better than it is here as we found out this year at the Canadian Regional. I'd not mind the change to toronto at all... only a 5 hour drive for us and the customs people are fine as long as you PREPARE.

Pfft.. no biggie.. several 4th of July weekends just in my life time, we have been put under State of Emergencys and Winter Advisories for hail storms; and power outages due to the ice. :) Still stand with my decision, we have a place in Cobden, ON... I love the country.. and I have never had a problem crossing the border.

p.s. hehe.. only person I know who had trouble crossing the border - my Aunt.. the only ID she had on her was her FBI badge and they said it wasn't sufficient! :D

Unfortunately for our neighbors to the north (or to the south if you're in Detroit), the vast majority of FIRST teams are from the States. While Canada is a nice place to visit, trying to take a robot and gear, plus a good sized group of students across the border is a daunting task, and would be unpractical. I do believe, however, that there should be more regionals held in Canada.

I agree, more regionals would be nice, but if we were to get another one it would probably still be somewhere close to Toronto since that is where the vast majority of teams is located. There are only two teams in Montreal and one in Labrador, so it would just be the same teams attending. Unless, of course, we can get more teams started elsewhere...

The money exchange is a plus for the Americans. I believe that something could be worked out with customs and shipping. But alas the next 3 years in Atlanta. I love warm weather.
BTW - rumour has it that they are looking for a second regional in Canada. I believe that it is out west. No teams in the area YET but look how many we got when we got the Canadian regional for the first time. We are still growing.

Most teams are from the United States....

Teams could not travel to Houston because of War and Terrorism fears thanks to the school boards.

School boards will NEVER allow their team to across border into Canada. Too much of a risk

As much as I love Canada, I say no....and it will never happen

Actually our Marching Band went to Toronto last year, so never say never.

Is that still going on? I thought Calgary was off... or is this elswhere?

Oh and don't come to Toronto. With all that SARS and all. Pfft.

I thought it's over. I see more people on the street than one month ago.

Err... I was kidding.

actually.. lol.. believe it or not.. the toronto public school board..and some others i think that are also in ontario have had a moratorium on all international travel by any school. We had to finagle some special exemption for us to goto WMR = O

I think that he hit it right on the mark here. As cool and as fun as it would be to have the overall event in Canada, most of the teams are in the US and border crossing would just be one big pain in the rear. I rememeber one border crossing experience from our team with a foreign exchange student who didnt have all of the proper papers... anyways, it would just all end up being way too big of a hassle. Cool idea though!!!

lol.. the currency change is still in your favour right now if it were to happen anyways (i tend not to agree with having the champs in Canada) it would save you money if the entry fee was in CAD

I don't think as many teams would go there.

I know from past experience that it can be a real pain for international stuff (our team went to the first Canadian Regional, in our first year, and had MAJOR problems getting through the mountains of paperwork that arose for shipping). And we were shipping from a border state, ~an hour and a half from the border.

Don't get me wrong, we all had a good time in Toronto/Missassaugua (sp?)....plus the currency exchange helped a bit while there :D ... but most of us the following year (this past season) not to bother because it was too much of a pain....

Aaron Knight
Graduating member of Team 891
Syracuse, NY
http://first891.topcities.com

All I have to say is:


HAHAHA.....CANADA!!

BAHAHHAH












Actually Canada is cool, except for the fact that every time I'm up there I almost get hit by a $@#$@#$@#$@# car. Its like the people dont even know how to drive. They should stop their $@#$@#$@#$@# car, get out and salute every American standing in the road. Hows that for paying homage to their daddy.

Just kidding of course.

Are you calling us bad drivers because we missed you? I guess we will need to take the Red, White and blue and form a circle to help us out. Come on back and say HI.

BTW - Canadian Regional still the best and we let any US teams in ( if they dare). :D

I have to agree that the Canadian regional is very *good* and superbly organized. However, Steve and I were not happy at all when we were one of the 6 or 7 teams who had to have pits in the back room due to space shortage... well, the location was great (loooots of space and right next to machine shop... though that was loud) but the location also sucked because judges came by once and didn't do much in terms of spending time interviewing the teams.

Nonetheless, I've been to each Canadian Regional and I plan to make sure the teams keeps going every year it is in existence :)

Yeah... we do need a Canadian championship event... our town's so Canadian (not to reiterate Steve's point of bad drivers :))

Hahah YEAAAAAAAAAAA Canada, everyones favorite regional!! (or SHOULD be)


... I want to go to philly next year .... rofl :D

I am behalf of all Candians Teams say thank you(eh?!). We hope more American teams come next year.