Ontario Moving to District Model in 2017

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by Knufire

Are Canadian secondary schools generally smaller than American high schools? Interesting that all of the district venues are colleges or universities.

Yup, In the GTA at least if your school has more than one gymnasium or a pool it is considered to be a huge school. Most public schools aren't setup to handle a sports event attended by more than a handful of people. IRI's venue was the biggest high school I had ever seen by far.

[Matt Ciprietti]

Originally Posted by Knufire

Are Canadian secondary schools generally smaller than American high schools? Interesting that all of the district venues are colleges or universities.

Absolutely. Obviously this is going to vary somewhat by region and there are a handful of outliers, but it is generally true. In particular, we don't put as much emphasis on our athletic facilities, which means that many high school gyms only have a seating capacity of perhaps 500 or so. A single high school in my area has a gym designed for almost 2000 people (in a single-court basketball configuration), and that's a huge rarity in the province.

Ontario regionals have always been at these University venues, so it makes sense to maintain them in the district system since they will likely be the same size of event in terms of number of teams. The alternative is cramming smaller events into high schools, which is technically possible, but not as comfortable. As was mentioned in the announcement, a challenge will be to maintain the regional quality on a smaller budget, but I'm confident that FIRST Canada will sort it all out.

As an aside, I'm thrilled that McMaster University (just down the street from our school) will be hosting! I know a lot of people worked for a very long time to bring that to fruition, and they did a great job!

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Of course. Even better, Ontario teams can go back to Michigan for the first time since 2008!

Maybe. Very few open spots were available this past year for MI teams to get a 3rd event. I'm curious how this will be handled. With how FiM is run I would imagine MI teams would be given the priority.

[jwfoss]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Of course. Even better, Ontario teams can go back to Michigan for the first time since 2008!

I'm sure NE would welcome some visitors from the north as well.

[Insanity000]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

No more teams from out of province (who are not in Districts) Sorry Quebec and NY state.

NY is perfectly ok with this

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Insanity000

NY is perfectly ok with this

Speak for yourself, we just lost half of our regionals within a decent driving distance.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Speak for yourself, we just lost half of our regionals within a decent driving distance.

Just another reason to go to districts.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Just another reason to go to districts.

To be fair, our closest regional is still about a 3 hour drive. But districts are such a better system. It's tough knowing how good they are first hand and then having to go back to districts. That being said I don't really know what obstacles are in the way for a NY district so I shouldn't complain too much.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Speak for yourself, we just lost half of our regionals within a decent driving distance.

We enjoyed playing with you at North Bay. We'll miss you.

[Michael Corsetto]

Does FIRST Canada have any existing RD's going into this transition?

If so, what role will those individuals have in the new District format?

-Mike

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Does FIRST Canada have any existing RD's going into this transition?

If so, what role will those individuals have in the new District format?

-Mike

WTB California Districts plz! Maybe add in some surrounding states.

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

WTB California Districts plz! Maybe add in some surrounding states.

One day...

[PayneTrain]

New York teams looking for regionals:

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

New York teams looking for regionals:

Well the good news is, it is somewhat confirmed NY is hosting 5 regionals next year instead of 4.

The bad news is NY is hosting regionals.

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by Matt Ciprietti

As an aside, I'm thrilled that McMaster University (just down the street from our school) will be hosting! I know a lot of people worked for a very long time to bring that to fruition, and they did a great job!

This is great news! The McMaster event will definitely bring travel costs down. So much so, maybe we can think about a third event or regional. I'm also looking forward to bringing Hamilton sponsors to the big show. We should be able to have students volunteer at the event too.

Does anyone know if FIRST Canada running the show at all events, or have they recruited some new regional directors? (edit: what Michael said)