Well, anyone who knows me would know that I don't pull any punches. I don't bullshit, I don't beat around the bush and I will always call them as I see them.
The recent complaints about the CBSA, the running of CBSA, funding and added money are ****ing ridiculous. I'm going to throw a few ideas out here, feel free to give any input you'd like, you know I'm not sensitive.
Amateur events: no complaining! Who would have guessed? Last year they ran the men's event during the week, I suggested (along with others) that its the dumbest idea ever since the majority of them have jobs during the week. Great field in men's with 51 (I think) players. The women's event was still during the week (Monday start) which I think is a bad idea. Maybe we can make the women's event the following weekend next year?
Open mens: the fields were a bit less than expected. There is a significant gap between the really strong players and the middle level open players. Players such as Johnny, Jason, Alex, Floyd stand out as elite players and it goes down the ranks from there. We had a ton of great matches and a few upsets that nobody expected. One thing I really didn't like was the amount of complaining coming from the open players. Someone has to tell it to you guys straight. If you don't make enough money playing pool to support yourself, you need to get a ****ing job. If you have a job then you can pay your own entries, can complain about added money etc. Reference was made to money taken out of the Open 8 ball event. Approximately 3000ish was taken out. Where do you think that money went? What do you think a flight to ****ing Dubai costs? Is it free? Does it cost $3000-$4000? Yes. That's where the money goes. If the world event is cancelled, I would assume that money will find its way back to the players.
Open womens: small turn out, as expected. I can see why the women don't want to play against pros like Naomi, Brittany and Joanne. They're at a huge disadvantage.
Venue: it was hot, disgustingly hot. There were a ton of people and it seemed that the AC couldn't keep up. I went there on Sunday, it was empty and it was hot also. I personally HATE with a passion certain Shooters associates. I think they rip people off, I definitely don't feel appreciated as a consumer when I go there and they're very ignorant. I personally witnessed an employee trying to take a table away from Erik Hjorleifson when he was trying to practice. Erik instantly offered to pay to practice for his table and ended up having to convince the employee to let him continue rather than give his table away to walk in business. John White is a great guy as far as I know, I couldn't say a bad word about him. The rest of them? Not so much.
Jared Amyot/petition: Let me preface by saying Jared is a really good buddy of mine. I've literally given him the shirt off of my back. Any time he is in the area he knows I always have a room for him or a steak on the BBQ. He's a solid guy and he has good intentions, he's very passionate about pool and he wants CBSA to be a huge success.
I agree that certain things can be done to make the event better. It would be great to have added money from sponsors but its really hard to get people to just hand over cash. Simonis, OB Cues made donations to Canadians in product. I think it's very unlikely to get anyone to hand over a pile of cash to CBSA. I've personally volunteered my time to help run qualifiers. Spending an afternoon in a pool hall is NOT a big deal. Why can't other people offer to help? I made reference to Jared in a PM about a certain individual who is taking the bull by the horns and getting things done.
This is a photo that was sent to me by Candace Campbell. She helps running the tournament season for everything EXCEPT the women's events in New Brunswick. If you can see, she has 8 months of tournaments scheduled, seemingly every weekend. This is someone who is putting out a lot of effort. We chat occasionally about what she can do to make it better, generally I tell her to 'tell the whiners to shut the **** up'
If we had 4 people putting as much effort out as Candace, you'd have a full board in every event.
Individuals adding money: There are certain people who could easily throw $1000 towards CBSA for Canadians. They've done it with other things, sending players overseas, staking them for the events, backing them in money matches. Do you think any of these people would want to give up their money for people who just complain all the time?
I'd like to open this up to people who have GOOD ideas on how to improve the Canadian Championships. I'll start with a couple of my own.
$100 entry for the amateur events, shorten the races to 7 men's and 6/5 women's. This will increase entries but not increase the amount of time spent on the event. You can also pay more spots into the open event, IE 1-6th get entry into the open the following year, then pay out the remainder of the funds similar to a normal tournament.
Advertise where exactly the money is going. We know a flight from BC vs a flight from NB are significantly different for world events, let us know where all the money is going.
Added money from the venue. I know I probably spend about 50-100 dollars every time I'm at a tournament at shooters. I have a couple beers, breakfast, lunch, most likely dinner also. What would it be for a big business who is guaranteed going to be packed for two weeks solid to throw a couple bucks towards CBSA. Giving the tables is great, but either way you're still making a ton of money on food/drinks and you have probably triple the amount of people as a normal Wednesday afternoon. Spread the wealth. Maybe Peter can go golfing one less time a week.
Open events: people! Play in these events. There are many people who are stronger than I am who won't fork out a few bucks to play in an event. You'll play a golf course for $100 but won't try your hand at playing in the 8 ball? Seriously? Any idiot (including myself) can run out playing 8 ball. It feels good to play in an event where you can showcase your talents, hit some great shots and try to win some matches. It's not a ridiculous amount of money to play and you get to rub shoulders with our countries best. Who wouldn't want to tell a story where they broke and ran against Johnny Morra or Jason Klatt.
As a show of my support, I'll offer to run 10 minimum qualifiers to Canadians by running my own events. I'll do this free of charge of course and I will do my best to make them at different locations so players don't have to travel very far to play in an event.
I'll also donate $250 to the junior event in form of entry fees. I don't care if they want to break it up by the total number of entries and divide it out or if they want to send 5 players at $50 each. It doesn't matter to me. I don't think the juniors should have to pay and there are way more junior players than what we had this year.
Sorry for the long rant,
Dan Lewis
The recent complaints about the CBSA, the running of CBSA, funding and added money are ****ing ridiculous. I'm going to throw a few ideas out here, feel free to give any input you'd like, you know I'm not sensitive.
Amateur events: no complaining! Who would have guessed? Last year they ran the men's event during the week, I suggested (along with others) that its the dumbest idea ever since the majority of them have jobs during the week. Great field in men's with 51 (I think) players. The women's event was still during the week (Monday start) which I think is a bad idea. Maybe we can make the women's event the following weekend next year?
Open mens: the fields were a bit less than expected. There is a significant gap between the really strong players and the middle level open players. Players such as Johnny, Jason, Alex, Floyd stand out as elite players and it goes down the ranks from there. We had a ton of great matches and a few upsets that nobody expected. One thing I really didn't like was the amount of complaining coming from the open players. Someone has to tell it to you guys straight. If you don't make enough money playing pool to support yourself, you need to get a ****ing job. If you have a job then you can pay your own entries, can complain about added money etc. Reference was made to money taken out of the Open 8 ball event. Approximately 3000ish was taken out. Where do you think that money went? What do you think a flight to ****ing Dubai costs? Is it free? Does it cost $3000-$4000? Yes. That's where the money goes. If the world event is cancelled, I would assume that money will find its way back to the players.
Open womens: small turn out, as expected. I can see why the women don't want to play against pros like Naomi, Brittany and Joanne. They're at a huge disadvantage.
Venue: it was hot, disgustingly hot. There were a ton of people and it seemed that the AC couldn't keep up. I went there on Sunday, it was empty and it was hot also. I personally HATE with a passion certain Shooters associates. I think they rip people off, I definitely don't feel appreciated as a consumer when I go there and they're very ignorant. I personally witnessed an employee trying to take a table away from Erik Hjorleifson when he was trying to practice. Erik instantly offered to pay to practice for his table and ended up having to convince the employee to let him continue rather than give his table away to walk in business. John White is a great guy as far as I know, I couldn't say a bad word about him. The rest of them? Not so much.
Jared Amyot/petition: Let me preface by saying Jared is a really good buddy of mine. I've literally given him the shirt off of my back. Any time he is in the area he knows I always have a room for him or a steak on the BBQ. He's a solid guy and he has good intentions, he's very passionate about pool and he wants CBSA to be a huge success.
I agree that certain things can be done to make the event better. It would be great to have added money from sponsors but its really hard to get people to just hand over cash. Simonis, OB Cues made donations to Canadians in product. I think it's very unlikely to get anyone to hand over a pile of cash to CBSA. I've personally volunteered my time to help run qualifiers. Spending an afternoon in a pool hall is NOT a big deal. Why can't other people offer to help? I made reference to Jared in a PM about a certain individual who is taking the bull by the horns and getting things done.
This is a photo that was sent to me by Candace Campbell. She helps running the tournament season for everything EXCEPT the women's events in New Brunswick. If you can see, she has 8 months of tournaments scheduled, seemingly every weekend. This is someone who is putting out a lot of effort. We chat occasionally about what she can do to make it better, generally I tell her to 'tell the whiners to shut the **** up'
If we had 4 people putting as much effort out as Candace, you'd have a full board in every event.
Individuals adding money: There are certain people who could easily throw $1000 towards CBSA for Canadians. They've done it with other things, sending players overseas, staking them for the events, backing them in money matches. Do you think any of these people would want to give up their money for people who just complain all the time?
I'd like to open this up to people who have GOOD ideas on how to improve the Canadian Championships. I'll start with a couple of my own.
$100 entry for the amateur events, shorten the races to 7 men's and 6/5 women's. This will increase entries but not increase the amount of time spent on the event. You can also pay more spots into the open event, IE 1-6th get entry into the open the following year, then pay out the remainder of the funds similar to a normal tournament.
Advertise where exactly the money is going. We know a flight from BC vs a flight from NB are significantly different for world events, let us know where all the money is going.
Added money from the venue. I know I probably spend about 50-100 dollars every time I'm at a tournament at shooters. I have a couple beers, breakfast, lunch, most likely dinner also. What would it be for a big business who is guaranteed going to be packed for two weeks solid to throw a couple bucks towards CBSA. Giving the tables is great, but either way you're still making a ton of money on food/drinks and you have probably triple the amount of people as a normal Wednesday afternoon. Spread the wealth. Maybe Peter can go golfing one less time a week.
Open events: people! Play in these events. There are many people who are stronger than I am who won't fork out a few bucks to play in an event. You'll play a golf course for $100 but won't try your hand at playing in the 8 ball? Seriously? Any idiot (including myself) can run out playing 8 ball. It feels good to play in an event where you can showcase your talents, hit some great shots and try to win some matches. It's not a ridiculous amount of money to play and you get to rub shoulders with our countries best. Who wouldn't want to tell a story where they broke and ran against Johnny Morra or Jason Klatt.
As a show of my support, I'll offer to run 10 minimum qualifiers to Canadians by running my own events. I'll do this free of charge of course and I will do my best to make them at different locations so players don't have to travel very far to play in an event.
I'll also donate $250 to the junior event in form of entry fees. I don't care if they want to break it up by the total number of entries and divide it out or if they want to send 5 players at $50 each. It doesn't matter to me. I don't think the juniors should have to pay and there are way more junior players than what we had this year.
Sorry for the long rant,
Dan Lewis
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