15 teams were represented at the mid-season captains’ meeting on April 14 at Dolce Vita: Bless U Boomtown Rats, Scrooge Pub Alliance, Dolce Vita Sweet Life, Dolce Vita Angry Birds, Friends The Pain, 3 Alley Wild Hogs, Bulldog Rackem n Crackem, Orange Tree Orangutans, Sin Bin Laffing Devils, Scrooge Pub Wonky Triangles, Seoul Pub FUTA, Bulldog Estyle, Hollywood Epic, Bull n Barrel Rising Stars
Outline for remainder of the season:
Last week of regular season – Wednesday, May 29
Playoffs - Sunday, June 2 to Wednesday, June 12
End of season singles tournament – Saturday, June 15
Banquet – Friday, June 21 at 7pm at the Crown Hotel.
Topics Discussed
1. Allow any league member that has played at least three Wednesdays during the season to vote at mid-season captains' meetings.
Voting at pre-season organizational meetings should be limited to one vote per registered team (where registration requires a deposit).
Vote result: 13-2 in keeping it to 1 vote per team via the captain or a representative of the team in the captain’s absence.
2. Cue ball fouls during timeouts or doubles play.
The current rules states: 1.6.6. Only the player who is shooting may touch or move the cue ball (if it is a ball in hand situation). Not the coach, nor, in the case of a doubles game, the player's partner. During time-out, the referee is not to touch or move the cue ball either. If he does, and he belongs to the same team as the player who had called the time-out, it is a foul, with cue ball in hand for the opposing player.
This is supposed to be a social league and this rule runs counter to that end, causing bad feeling between teams due to its petty nature if enforced. Players committing this “foul” do it inadvertently and there action does not affect the game.
The vote was either:
i. Keep the rule as it is.
ii. Do away with the rule altogether
Vote result: 11-4 in favor of scrapping the rule.
It was then passed by 8-7 to implement this change straight away.
3. State clearly that captains and/or teams cannot provide monetary compensation to players.
The suggestion is any match involving players who have been paid for their services will be forfeited by the offending team. The forfeit will be scored 10-0. For any games won by the opposing team, the ratings and win streak will be counted, any games won by the offending team will not affect the ratings and will not count for or against win streaks.
Following a length discussion a new proposal was voted on to penalize anyone who pays a player to play in our league or anyone who receives money to play in our league. The proposed penalty was a full two season ban.
Vote result: 10-2 in favor of imposing a two year ban on anyone found to pay someone or someone receiving money for playing in our league
4. Charity.
Due to rising costs for the banquet, and due to fewer teams in the league, we have kind of an unfortunate decision to make. We must decide if we are going to include charity donations in our budget. After looking at the numbers, we simply will not have a surplus of money at the end of the season.
So, we propose no league money will be used for charity. However, we can still designate a charity and provide donation jars at the banquet. The 50/50 raffle money will also be added to the donation total.
This would give us a chance to still contribute something to charity, but purely on a voluntary basis. There is still the potential to raise a good amount of money, considering the inebriation factor at the banquet.
Vote result: 12-0 in favor of no money from league money going to charity, other than that raised from the 50/50 raffle at the banquet and any voluntary contributions from individuals or teams.
5. Money tournaments vs. trophy tournaments
Last season, in an effort to comply with the captain-mandated tournament cap, we had one singles trophy tournament, one blind-draw doubles money tournament, and one singles money tournament. The payouts were still quite large for the money tournaments, making them quite lucrative for the winners.
This season, Alan and I were approached with the idea of three money tournaments, with less payout for each tournament. We decided to do that, and as you know, the mid-season tournaments had significantly lower prize money than past tournaments. The blind-draw doubles tournament this coming weekend will also have reduced payouts from last year's, and the end-of-season singles tournament will have the same payout scale as the mid-season singles tournament. Proposals are:
i. One singles trophy tournament with no cash prizes, one blind-draw doubles with a bigger payout, and one singles money tournament with a bigger payout. (Same format as last season)
ii. Two singles money tournaments with smaller payouts than previous seasons, and one blind-draw tournament with a smaller payout. (Same format as this season).
iii. Two singles money tournaments with smaller payouts than previous seasons, and one blind-draw tournament with a smaller payout and trophies.
iv. All trophy tournaments with no money paid out.
After hearing the views of the captains present, the room was split on whether to only present trophies for tournament winners, only cash or a combination of the two, no final conclusion has been reached.
6. Playoffs. With only 25 teams, what format should the playoffs take: A 12/13 or 16/9 team split.
Vote result: 11-2 in favor of 16 teams competing for the championship and 9 teams playing for Best of the Rest.
Next season:
With Chuseok falling on a Wednesday, this is a possible outline for a 20 week season.
1st week of matches: Wednesday, July 3
End of regular season: Wednesday, November 20
Playoffs: Sunday, November 24 – Wednesday, December 4
End of season tournament: Saturday, December 7
Banquet: Friday/Saturday 13/14 December
The general feeling was that people set aside Wednesdays to play pool so a short turnaround between seasons would be fine.
