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Unread 29-04-2005, 20:38
qhsscience qhsscience is offline
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AKA: Donald Long
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Re: So which one is more exciting? Regionals or the Championship?

So many thoughts I am not quite sure that I can organize them...

I voted for regionals because they are venues that have a limited number of teams all competing on the same stage. In many cases, going back to the same regionals year after year allow more relationships to build among teams as well as more competition/rivalry. I can think of a few teams that we look forward to seeing again and again because of friendships forged as well as competitive battles fought.

I also believe that regionals can be more exciting because there is more chance for success. I doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that less teams means more potential for team success in competition.

I started attending the nationals back when it was held at Epcot in the American Pavilion(?) and the number of teams then was much more manageable. Throughout the growth at Disney and the subsequent Houston National, I felt more disconnected at Nationals than at the regionals. Certainly there were more teams and nothing can compare to 18,000+ screaming fans (for excitement), but being limited to a field (Newton, Galileo, etc.) did effectively limit exposure to many of the other teams and I never felt like I had time to capture the whole experience. I guess in my long-winded manner, I am trying to say that I personally feel more excitement in the smaller regionals because I don't get overwhelmed as much as at Nationals.

Our team has made the decision not to attend Nationals the last two years for a variety of reasons, but the debate always arises - if we don't attend nationals, how will we ever know how good we really were? We shall see what next year brings...
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