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15 minutes at first, then 20 minutes in the elimination round

check www.twitter.com/leagueofpolo for scores from the knockout rounds

the interference call was barely applied during elimination rounds because the top teams rarely use this tactic, teams who did well relied on passing, not blocking the defenders on the other team.

wrist shots were barely used in the big games, partly cause they're so hard to do at high speed. don't worry there were no 270s.

pierre played with a broken thumb on his mallet hand, may have had something to do with it.

wassup dramaturgists,

1) that WHBPC form was nonbinding, it was just a survey to get a sense of numbers.

2) i totally agree with Mike that national-based eligibility systems suck, as do "big titles" like Champions of the Universe. unfortunately, that's what we're stuck with. polo cannot overcome 150 years of the nation-state system, especially in continental Europe where it's so closely tied to language. and we inherited World Championships from CMWC and so many other sports...

3) i think there's a decent chance that many regions will end up with more places for Berlin than they were originally given thought, as people cancel etc. Who knows if there will indeed be 27 teams from North America. so....

4) my suggestion is keep it simple, keep the top 12 ranking from the MCR tourney. Know that 6 teams can go, and maybe that 7th place or 8th place will get a spot too.

i'll go back to minding my own business...

Just so everyone understands the context for this...

The fledgling N.A. organizing body, "NA Hardcourt", has split its work into committees, one of which is Rules/Reffing. I am not actually involved in that endeavour, but it would be stupid if NA Hardcourt didn't work with the Europe (and the rest of the polo universe) as it figured out some standards. My role is just trying to put people in touch with each other.

i actually never asked for Bill's opinion, tho we did have some nice drunken arguments in Karlsruhe together. Both Mike K and Bill emailed me stuff, and i'm just passing it along to said committee.

At this point, the actual details of these debates are far less important than deciding collectively on a means by which they'll institutionalized and spread around to tournaments/leagues/pickup/etc.

Deadline for this survey is Friday (tomorrow). It isn't required or anything but it will really help out the berlin crew who are going to be make decisions in coming weeks about the numbers.

now i finally understand what the brits mean by Golden Goal. what a game.

It also allows for riding your bike into the goal, in order to score, when the ball is stuck in your wheel (as long as the ball wasn't stuck in your wheel due to a shuffle from an attacking player).

Ball stuck in bike / clothes /etc = stop play, remove ball, restart play. i thought that was already covered.

wow you guys like to make it complicated.

**a goal is a goal if the ball passes the line, unless it was a shuffle from an attacking player. **

nice and simple. all the other rules that have nothing to do with scoring (no kicking, throwing, no mallet on bike, etc) still apply.

if you remember the intention of the rule, it's that scoring with a shuffle is to easy.

Yorgo had a hard time reaching the tap-outs, but otherwise played an awesome tourney.

So good to see you london folk, the bar Sunday night was a highlight. See you soon hopefully, come to Toronto.

domain has expired. oops kev.

I don't actually own the domain, Pieter in Vancouver does. I think he's resolving some kind of billing dispute, hopefully by the end of the day.

In the meantime, you can access the site at http://www.leagueofbikepolo.com.

You should have come to philly, see how those Americans do it. ;)

What happened in philly is not representative of most tournaments in the states! Those were the worst tournament courts most of us had ever seen.

Thing is, when two courts are separated, it makes things difficult. i think that each court requires a full-time person (you would call them "whips", right?) to do the communications between courts and make sure everything is working out--we didn't even have cell phone contact this weekend between courts. Despite that, there was fairly little lag time between games, and what there was was filled with a couple throwins that are so essential at tournaments. A few unnecessary trips back and forth for a few people for sure unfortunately.

Overall i had a great weekend, awesome polo despite the small and uneven courts, great atmostphere.

Ray, Horatio, and the rest of BAD, i may forgive you someday for not showing up.

London's Travelling Trash Talkers had better not disappoint us.

zachstar + teammates got these done during los marcos last year, for points. they still lost.

FYI, despite the postive reviews by many north american players on the bikepolo.ca thread from last September, nets definitely haven't taken off in north america. we use big heavy iron hockey nets in toronto (you may have seen in that video with TapOut Nick and i), but mostly because we're too lazy to move them.

i still think nets are a good idea, especially on larger courts, where they don't take away from the space behind the goals (in toronto we have about 15 feet behind the net!)

finally i gotta say that what bothers me about this debate is how many people have strong ideas against nets without ever having tried them for extended periods.

it wouldn't be a true worlds without geneva, i think they could make top 5.

Yeah, I thought the same thing, Joe. We have emails out to them. We think they will field a team, maybe minus Manuel.

Damn, without Manu i don't know if they'll place top ten. Then again i don't know who their other player is (who Clément was subbing for). Here's hoping Manu can make it.

Right. So Team Smile is Leon, Seabass and one other dude. Beaver Boys is actually Hero Squad (far as I know) and it's Joe, Kremin and one other dude. So a lot of Europe has met these dudes.

"some other dude" on Team Smile = Dustin, who is really damn good.

Hero Squad = Joe, Kremin, and Cap'n Jake. Jake broke his collarbone (not in polo, i don't think) so he has missed a bunch of tournaments this year. Brian filled in for Jake @ ESPI and NAHBPC (and got MVP @ ESPI) and they play as Beaver Boys, dunno why.

That was the consensus on the live feed. And I think some games could have been made more exciting by ramming the goalie with full force (Geneva/Berlin2/Karlsruhe2/Canada1)

Eye for an eye - we've played like that before without any problems. Let's not change it

don't trust those fuckers on the live feed, they weren't really there. it was damn exciting, for at least the top 8 teams (and only half those games were visible to the live feed).

i think my vote on the perma-goalie question is just to open the goals an extra 12 inches / 30 cm, to make the goalies move around more.

No own goals? I don't get it.

Ya neither does the rest of north america. this rule is specific to Seattle/Portland. They've been playing the longest, so we can differ a bit to them, but this one is strange.

;861647']Most people play where you can score on the backs of the team that just scored, as in when their backs were still turned. That seems unfair for tournament play and the people I've been talking to trying to write the ehbpc rules mostly agreed. The 2 players in the goal area seemed like the best way to 'reset' the game. It is opposite to what is played most places but for tourney play it seems to be the fairest.

Mike the way that most people play actually feels a lot less unfair than having to go back to your goal area, which actually increases the likelihood that people will score on you with your back turned!

Keep it simple... 1) score, 2) go back to halfway point, and 3) wait for either the ball or one of the players on that team that's just been scored on to cross. game on!

Like I said, it was something that was mentioned on bikepolo ca. Not that I give a f*** what those bloody colonials think of our polo, but it got me thinking.

ha, funny to hear a brit describe a bunch of canadians, americans, and australians (who write 90% of the comments on bikepolo.ca) as bloody colonials ;-) but the issue on those .ca threads is far from having reached consensus. some people feel like checking the goalies "off-ball" should be allowed, some believe there should be limits on time goalies can spend there, some feel it should stay the same, some feel goals should widened a bit. it'll be interesting to see what they do in Seattle and Philly with this...

btw, there are two discussions happening here: one about checking the goalie, one about the ball bouncing off of walls and/or going through the back of the net. it's a confusing conversation when it's combined?

i've never used the water balls. i think it depends on how bumpy your court is. seattle really likes them.

in cold weather polo places like toronto or madison, people prefer the red franklins all the way to about 6 or 7 degrees celsius.

below that, switch to orange.

A couple Vidal images from back in the day:

All Clockwork-oranged in chicago:

in the snow:

oops ya my results were off, from memory. i thought we played Cosmic and then Barlin, but it was Barlin and then Cosmic. fixed on bikepolo.ca/ehbpc2009