[Bochek]

Hi all,

I just want to check in with a few comments.

First off, Congrats to the winning alliance, it was well deserved.

To 1114 and 2056, I am always amazed and inspired by the quality of both your robots and your teams. You both work insanely hard to accomplish your goals and your success is very well deserved.

Having competed against both of you for now what will be the 6th straight year, I can tell you that to the students, the Canadian regionals have become somewhat disappointing knowing who is going to win before they even show up. I think this has forced some Canadian teams to travel across the border. (I can assure you that this was NOT the reason for 2200 and 2386)

With that in mind, It is my opinion that this is the first year that the GDC has done a (very) good job of providing a way to level the playing field by allowing teams to choose who they wish to co-operate with. Unfortunately as we saw at UOIT, this came with some unintended political consequences.

I will admit, i was on the edge of my seat the entire 59th match, in hope that the coopertition bridge would remain unbalanced. I think that everyone will agree that most of the people attending the regional would LOVE to see a finals where 1114 and 2056 where on separate alliances.

Unfortunately in competition, any team that stands in your way of 1st place is your enemy, and any enemy of your enemy is your friend. Both of these teams have been sitting in the #1 spot for the last 6 or more years. And the targets on their heads have grown accordingly. I fully expect sometime in the next two Ontario regionals for teams to work as hard as possible, and succeed at splitting up these 2 teams in the elimination rounds. Making for what will probably be the most exciting regional of the year. I hope they do it well within the rules of the games, and without any malicious actions.

Again I have nothing bad to say about either of these teams. I would hope that every last team attending would look up to the quality of 1114 and 2056

- Bochek