PNW has about the same amount of teams, FiT and NE have more, yet Ontario gets to have 2 divisions while the other 3 only have one. What is the reasoning behind this?
Probably space concerns at the venues for the DCMPs. (Also: FiT is new at districts this year.) It’s a similar reason to why some regionals have 60+ teams and others have 40 or fewer.
Also, as I recall, PNW alternates DCMP locations every other year to ease travel a bit–it’s entirely possible that they can’t find TWO venues that can handle 80 teams and 2 fields. 1 isn’t too terrible, depending on what compromises you want to make. Two venues like that, in two different states? Just a little harder (by which I mean: Very difficult because you have to make different compromises at both, but still need to keep the events the same).
Its now 3, with the inclusion of Tacoma.
If I recall correctly, DCMP is entirely run and funded by the district organizations, not FIRST HQ, so there isn’t any kind of size standard. FIRST Canada does an incredible amount of fundraising in order to afford four days rental of a three-rink arena. We are lucky to get such a big end of (district) season event.
7 Likes
Also, don’t forget that the size of the DCMP event does not dictate how many teams advance to the Championship. That is determined by the fraction of teams in a District (compared to world population). ONT has 29 CMP slots; FIT has 38. (Table 12-10 in the manual).
1 Like
As others are saying, it’s hard enough to find a venue that fits one field worth of teams, let alone two. I’ve heard rumors that New England has been looking at moving to a two division DCMP, but bigger arenas cost a lot more money and so require finding more sponsors.
^ This! FIRST Canada has made it a priority to make the Provincial Championship a big show and to share this experience with as many teams as possible. They also provide a $1000 grant to all 80 attending teams to help lower costs. We are very fortunate here in Ontario to have the dedicated staff and volunteers who make this happen.
9 Likes
While I absolutely appreciate the amount of effort FIRST Canada puts into making the Provincial Championship a big show, I don’t think that has much to do with the decision to have two divisions.
I’ll start by saying personally I would prefer to have 1 division. My favourite part of the district ranking system is the culmination of the best teams in the area at a championship event. Unfortunately, with multiple divisions, the teams get split up, which may lead to weaker pairings in the first round selection and certainly leads to weaker selections in the second round, since more teams make the playoff rounds.
I believe there are two things at play with Ontario choosing to run two divisions.
-
You can fit a lot more matches in with two fields. While one field is queuing, the other field can be playing a match. I believe a few years ago, the ability to run one event with two fields was removed from the FMS. Unfortunately that means if you want to have two fields, you need to have two divisions.
-
The way points are awarded in the district system strongly favours performance in the playoffs. If your district qualifies more teams for world championships than what make the playoff rounds (24), the ranking for the 25+ teams in the district doesn’t correlate as well as intended with the district ranking system. Since less points are awarded to the lower selections and no points for getting eliminated in quarter finals, the correlation probably actually starts to fall off even earlier, perhaps around the 16-20th ranked team.
By going with two divisions in Ontario, twice as many teams qualify for the playoff rounds and get the bonus ranking points associated with doing so. If any district truly wants to send the best of the best teams, they should probably consider adding a second division if they are qualifying more than ~16-20 teams to world championships.
4 Likes
FIM stopped using that feature when MSC switched to 4 divisions in 2017, but I think it’s still in place, and I’m guessing the Einstein round-robin tournament uses it (not that I’ve been involved on Einstein).
One division on two fields does still leave less playing time than two divisions on two fields, though.
The divisions weren’t run independently at the 2018 ONCMP. The fields shared the AV system, so matches wouldnt run at the same time on both fields. If they did, then I agree you could fit more playing time in two divisions.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.