Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson
You'd make all of Canada a single region? That's going to force some teams to travel far in order to get their two district-level competitions. The distance and density factors are extremely important inputs to a district model.
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I would indeed. There's a handful of Quebec teams (mostly spawned in 2010/2011 as part of Youth-Fusion-Jeunesse, a program driven by Bombardier and Bell Canada) that make the trek down for one or both of our Canadian regionals currently (WAT/GTR), and 1 or 2 teams from Western Canada (1482, GTREast Champions, from Calgary, AB and the now-defunct 1346, from Vancouver, BC). All other Canadian teams originate from within 4-6 hours drive of Toronto. The outliers being teams like 781 in Kincardine, ON, 1305 in North Bay, ON, and 1535 in Sault Ste Marie, ON.
In light of this, I think giving them a QC/Atlantic Canada District held in the Montreal area, and expecting them to travel to the GTA for their 2nd district as they already do is reasonable. Making concessions for a single existing team in western Canada seems silly, so allow 1482 the choice of competing in 2 districts in Ontario, or allow them to instead go south to Wisconsin, or Washington or Oregon. I think a Western Canada district is a bit presumptuous, at least until more teams form there. Since 1305, 781, and 1535 all already attend both Waterloo and GTR, I see no issues with them competing in districts in the GTA.