(Letter from Commissioner) Dichotomy of Weather Cancellations

DCHL Nation,

I wanted to thank all of you who made it to the Sportsplex yesterday with the inclement weather. Weather complications for an indoor league is rare. It has to take a "perfect storm" of timing and events --- pardon the pun --- for it to be a major issue to navigate. Such was the case on 12/08 for DCHL.

Deciding whether to play or not was not an easy decision because it involved a myriad of factors. No matter what the decision was --- to play or not to play --- it was going to be a lose/lose PR decision.

However, the decision was not made with PR in mind but what was the best option for the “majority” of league in general.  I had to tune out the lobbying noise and look at legitimate reasons that applied to the whole --- not just to a particular group. There are many factors involved. I understand that every individual has to make his/her own decision and may not agree. I fully appreciate and encourage this. After all it is a REC league. But if you choose not to come I just need to be informed in reasonable advance so I can work around it. We decided around 10 am to play games through 6 pm with the later games (6pm and later) to be determined no later than 4 pm due to impending freezing rain.

1)      SAFETY is first and foremost. Were the roads drivable? There was snow but no heavy freezing rain at that time. Rockville Sportsplex was PACKED --- more so than any Sunday we have ever been there --- with people and activity. There was a local Lacrosse tournament and they did not cancel. There was no signs of any attendance issues looking at the packed crowd at the Sportsplex.

2)      FACILITY VIABILITY? Rockville Sportsplex was open and fully operation at NOON. City of Rockville roads had snow but were clean and drivable for the most part to the Sportsplex. All players that drove in from all parts of DC, VA (Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax), and MD for the most part did not report any major driving issues or hazard conditions. It just took 10-15 minutes longer due to safer driving. The only traffic delay involved those handful of players and supporters from the Women’s Travel Team who decided to drive back from Philadelphia in the late morning.  The snow that they encountered and the accident on 95S from Philly shut them down.  Others who left last night or earlier in the morning from Philly made it back for the games. Again, the decision to play cannot be based on a select small group who encountered unfortunate bad luck. We could not hold off games for about 275 players that play this season just for that reason alone. There was no other incident reported to me on the DC/VA/MD roads. In fact, we had a player come all the way from Baltimore to play.

3)      WEATHER DEVELOPMENT - Around 2 pm there was no major cancellations of any events in the local DC/VA/MD area. However, we kept re-assessing our weather conditions with the players driving in and looking outside and at the weather report. At that time, the decision was made that games at 6 pm and later would be cancelled because of impending drop in temperature and freezing rain to come later that evening. This would make driving conditions treacherous. Rockville Sportsplex agreed. At 2 pm, we cancelled all the games scheduled at 6pm on and later and posted this to Facebook, Twitter, and to all captains/BoG members via email to filter down to all players. At 4 pm, Rockville Sportsplex decided to close at 8 pm.

4)      CANCELLATION CONSEQUENCES PART 1--- Winter is the busiest time of the year for Rockville Sportsplex. They are usually booked solid on weekends. And if they are not --- the three courts we use are rarely available all together. There were those that suggested that we just simply “move” games to 12/22 since it was presumed to be an “open date”.  I appreciate the suggestion but those players are “misinformed”.  12/22 may be an open date for the league but not for Rockville Sportsplex. As a league we reserve time about a year in advance. Yes, we can tweak some dates and times every season but we book in advance so we can get the time first. We cannot book every Sunday. We only have 100 hours per season we can book. 12/22 was not booked because we did not need it and it was too close to Christmas Holidays. Fortunately, Rockville Sportsplex was able to get us a four hour block on 12/22 from 6 pm to 10 pm. It was NOT open. They had to move activities around. The fact that they would do so is a tremendous act of good gesture on their part. If they did not do this, we would have had no makeup time available for the cancelled games for the rest of the year.  And then people would complain that we “lost” games and could not get them back. Our current season has to end BEFORE 2014 begins. As it stands now, we will have four hours to recoup the 4 hours we lost yesterday so we were very fortunate in that account.

5)      CANCELLATION CONSEQUENCES PART 2 --- With the help of Ivy League Consultant  Tom VH, we are looking at a couple of options for the remaining two weeks of the season (12/15 from 12 pm to 10 pm and 12/22 from 6 pm to 10 pm).  Obviously some people may not be able to play the weekend BEFORE Christmas. So we have come up with a viable option that again suits the “majority” of the league and proritizes the significant playoff brackets remaining.  Since the DCHL Cup PRO and REC brackets did not play at all yesterday and they would be affected MOST by the changes, I am going to let those 8 teams vote VIA their captain on what they prefer. The captains will then let me know and majority will rule.

A)     We had 4 games played yesterday and are in the books. There were two forfeits. Snake Eyes forfeited their game.  And Streetsharks forfeited their game against L2T.  However, the two forfeits were different in nature. Snake Eyes forfeit was not relayed to me until AFTER 12 pm  --- one hour BEFORE their scheduled 1 pm game. By this time their opponents had already made it to the RINK and were ready to play. I always ask that if you forfeit you do so a couple of hours in advance and contact me directly so I can be courteous to your opponent and not have them drive over if they chose not to --- this applies to any situation (not just to weather issues). The Untouchables all were present ready to play with no opponent. At this time, weather was not an issue as everyone was making it in. Thus, this forfeit will stand. The second forfeit was more of a weather forfeit where the 5 pm game could not be rescheduled due to restrictions and the situation was worse. It was play it or lose it type of situation since we had no time block left the entire year to even move into on a Sunday.  Now both teams did express their desire not to play. The Streetsharks were gracious in letting me know way in advance they understood the situation and will accept the forfeit if need be in classy fashion. Some L2T players did make it in --- apparently missing the email that the game was going to be a forfeit. So they got some play in until 6 pm for their troubles.  However, of the two forfeits, I feel that this game should be reversed. I will have to squeeze a game into the 14 hours of block we have left if I reverse this.

B)      Proposal “A” to finish the season

We will play all games of “significance” on 12/15. Streetshark/L2T would get played in this scenario.
All consolation games will be played on 12/22 since they are lesser of significance. This means for the DCHL Cup PRO and REC Bracket teams that win their semifinals they will play again the same day (12/15) for the championship since this will ensure that most of their players will be present as originally scheduled. So to win the DCHL Cup PRO or REC, you will have to play twice on 12/15. If you lose in these brackets, your consolation will be on 12/22.

 

NOTE: WOMEN PLAYERS WHO ARE DOUBLE DIPPING AND PLAY IN DCHL CUP PRO AND REC BRACKETS COULD THEORETICALLY PLAY FOUR TIMES ON 12/15 SHOULD THEIR TEAM MAKE IT TO THE FINALS!  TEAM CAPTAINS --- PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN ASSESSING THE OPTIONS.

 

 

Here is the 12/15 part of Proposal A.  The #1 Seed in the bracket will decide if they want to the slot with 2 hour break or 1 hour break. Otherwise times are non-negotiable and CANNOT be moved around due to logistics of teams and other brackets.  

 

	Moosassins				Streetsharks
2:00				12:00
	2JNC				L2T
		Rec DCHL champ				Rec TGIS champ
	Scabs	4:00				3:00
1:00						Scorpions
	Babylon Warriors
	The All Blacks				neXus
5:00				7:00	X Cup Finals
	Funkmaster				Xit Strategy
		PRO DCHL champ
	Ducks	8:00			5MM
6:00				9:00	PRO TGIS Finals
	Puck Buddies				Untouchables

   Here is 12/22 part of Proposal A.

All teams and players eligible to play (there should be 10) will have a tourney (where we can keep current teams together or combine teams with missing players) from 6 pm to 10 pm.

OR

Play out the consolation games as scheduled.

6 pm – X Division Consolation (Xcessive Force at Dead SeXy)

6:50 pm – DCHL Cup PRO Consolation (Teams TBD)

7:40 pm – TGIS Cup PRO Consolation (Blood Red at Snake Eyes)

8:30 pm – DCHL Cup REC Consolation (Teams TBD)

9:20 pm – TGIS Cup REC Consolation (Greenback Boogies at loser of L2T/Streetsharks)

 

C)      Proposal “B”

Keep thing as originally scheduled and moving the missed games down one week. BOTH FORFEITS WILL STAND under this scenario and L2T would move on to TGIS Cup as the higher seed.

 

12/15 (Times to be determined) 10 hours (12 – 10 pm)

Game 1 – DCHL Cup PRO Semifinals 1 (The All Blacks at Funkmaster Redux)

Game 2 – DCHL Cup PRO Semifinals 2 (Ducks at Puck Buddies)

Game 3 – DCHL Cup REC Semifinals 1 (The Moosassins at 2 Jacks No Coke)

Game 4 – DCHL Cup REC Semifinals 2 (Scabs at Babylon Warriors)

Game 5 – X Division Consolation (Xcessive Force at Dead SeXy)

Game 6 – X Division Finals (neXus at Xit Strategy)

Game 7 – TGIS Cup PRO Finals (The Untouchables at 5 Minute Major)

Game 8 – TGIS Cup PRO Consolations (Blood Red at Snake Eyes)

Game 9 – TGIS Cup REC Finals (L2T at Scorpions)

Game 10 – TGIS Cup REC Consolations (Greenback Boogies at Streetsharks)

 

12/22 (Teams and Times to be Determined) 4 hours (6 – 10 pm)

Game 1 – DCHL Cup PRO Consolation

Game 2 – DCHL Cup PRO Finals

Game 3 – DCHL Cup REC Consolation

Game 4 – DCHL Cup REC Finals

 

Ok…I cannot explain any more in detail or make any better contingency plans. These are the best options we have. I will see how the 8 PRO/REC teams that have voting power here will decide within 24 hours before posting the official schedule Tuesday by (12/10) NOON. Deadline to vote is Tuesday (12/10) by 9 am ET.