Interesting stuff going on at the Irvine tournament this weekend.
I'll tell the story-you make a decision;
FACTS- The pool play pairings and bracketing wasn't received in the mail
until late Monday- Postmarked Saturday.
We were scheduled for 11:30AM and 1:15PM games both Thursday AND Friday.
We have several kids in summer school and couldn't miss school on
Thursday.
On Thursday, after it was obvious we couldn't get the kids to play-we
called the tournament director to advise him that we would accept the
forfeits on Thursday, but would have a team on Friday. NO RETURN PHONE
CALL FROM THE T.D.
After pulling parents out of work and having some of them drive 100+ miles
to get there today- the tournament director advised us that we were no
longer in the tournament but had scheduled a "consolation" game ( 1 game)
on Saturday.
After some extremely heated conversations and yelling back and forth, we
went home vowing to NEVER go back to this tournament.
Fact- I was wrong in what I said to the tournament director even after he
threatened to call the police and ASA on me.( Big deal.....I got my point
across to him.)
PAST EXPERIENCE- In 99 out of a 100 tournaments, if a team calls and says
they can't make it, they traditionally will forfeit the games they didn't
show up for. When they show up, if there are games left to be played, play
ball. No conflicts or problems are created.
I have seen some directors go out of their way to try to re-schedule to
give everyone a fair shot and the games. It's only fair!
I am suspect of this tournament director's motives in running this
tournament and if he really knows what he is doing. In waiting our turn to
speak with him, he was having a problem in just figuring out who had won a
pool. As ironic as it was, it was San Diego Power who was questioning
him.(Remember San Diego Qualifier?)
I hope Power got a second opinion or help from the UIC.
When asked if we could get a refund since he took it upon himself to
exclude us from the tournament, he flatly said no.
Two wrongs don't make a right, I know this. But when one is being the
screw-er and we are the screw-ee, I feel there is an obligation to let
other teams know about it so that it won't happen again or to them
personally. You make your own decision about this attending this
tournament in the future, we've already made ours.
Later
Dave
DGruper