[who716]

Originally Posted by dsmoker

Okay, I've been biting my tongue here, but as one of the teams that is competing in Hartford and has already qualified for the district championship, I feel compelled to chime in (no big surprise to those who know me) to explain why we decided to do three district events this year.

We're a team of somewhat limited financial resources, and when the district model was announced we saw it as a great benefit to us. Normally, we're able to do one, maybe two (in the past couple of years) regionals. That's it. But with the district model, and three events being in our home state, we could do two events and add a third at very little cost. When we decided to register for all three CT events, we did so NOT KNOWING and WITH NO WAY OF KNOWING that we would qualify for the district championship. Our thought process was, simply, with no way of knowing that, and given the minimal increase in doing the third event ($1,000 registration, since all the events were local for us and the school provides transportation), why not do as many events as possible so our kids can enjoy the fruits of their labors?

So here we stand. Registered. Fee paid. Yet qualified for Boston. What would you suggest we do? Not show up? Forfeit our $1,000, because FIRST isn't going to give it back? Show up and throw matches? Try not to win any awards?

Our view is somewhat different. In fact, at our meeting last night, we were talking about how we would like to actually HELP teams earn qualifying points by helping them win matches. That's the flip side of the coin. It's not just about taking points away from teams, and has NEVER been about that for us. It is also about helping bubble teams earn points that might get them to Boston. If we can do that, for even one team, we'll be happy.

Oh, we've got stuff of our own we want to accomplish in Hartford. We're still tweaking our shooting, adjusting our strategy, wanting to be the best prepared as we can for Boston. And isn't that what it's about?

I am more or less saying that there is still room for improvement, with how the district points structure works. I am stating what I disagree with within the points, and I agree with you in the fact that you shouldn't throw matches or not give 100% at Hartford because you are already in good hands. If I was in your position I would go for another blue banner without a doubt. I would suggest a change to the points rankings for the future where you can still compete at three events without taking the points from others, perhaps if the number one seed has already played twice, and the number two seed hasn't. Then the number two seed gets the number one seed point and it goes on with something like this, im aware that there are a lot of things still are needed to be considered but its possible.