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The ADA National Championship XI is now history. It was great seeing the veteran members returning and welcoming the first time "rookies". I witnessed some great darts thrown and one of my regrets is not having the opportunity to watch more matches.
Overall the Championship was very successful. Is their room for improvement? You bet. There are a number of things that will be different next year and, for those of you who participated, I appreciate your patience as we implement new programs and policies.
For the second consecutive year the competition brackets were electronically projected onto a large screen at the "Leader Board" area. This was well received by those who attended. In addition we extended the starting times from the first two rounds to every round in Thursday's Team events. Three hours for the Express and two hours for the Team events were allowed in each round. Once the Championship started, members simply reported to the Leader Board found their match on the screen, picked up their match cards and reported to their assigned board. Under these conditions all members knew when and where they were competing. No calling of any matches! I'm pleased to report this system worked well. However, the error I made and it was a big one, was not allowing the proper amount of time in selected categories to complete the matches.
In regards to this issue in the soft tip Express and Open events, the time limitations were not a problem as 90% of the matches finished in the required time allowed. It was the remaining Team events that most of the matches did not finish in the 2-hour period allowed. Therefore we will extend the time limit for the Team League Neutralizer (soft & steel) matches next year. Even though the other category matches finished in the allowed time we will also extend those times to three hours. For the record of the 121 matches played 81 finished in the time allowed (67%).
For a short period on Friday afternoon I had the opportunity to "hang" with the Top Seeds in the Top Seed Lounge. We designate a lounge for this group providing them complimentary Budweiser (served by Bud, the bartender), Coca-Cola and snacks while the unseeds competed in the preliminary round. The lounge is just one reward for their outstanding performance during American Dart League play. What a fun group, the lounge was rocking! With 50 Top Seeds and only 4 dart boards practice was somewhat limited and I promise to increase the amount of dartboards for this area next year.
Later that night a problem arose when the draw doubles soft tip electronic bracket disappeared into Cyberspace! We do have a back up system for such emergencies however we could not communicate the back up system to the Leader Board. In the process we lost one round of play and had to call members who were still competing to the Control Center and "reconstructed" the Leader Board the old fashion way - on a poster board! It created a delay in finishing the event and I thank those members who were in the event for their patience and cooperation.
I was proud to announce the winners of the Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards at the conclusion of the Championship. Seven of the eight MVP's were Top Seeds! A special congrats to Texas MVP's Jeff & Valerie Long. Jeff and Valerie were Soft tip Open MVP's. However what made both awards even more special is the fact it was also their seventh wedding anniversary!
Another Texan, ADA's Dallas area Representative, Larry Butler took the big leap and got married during the Championship weekend. We wish Larry and his lovely bride, Roberta all the best! On a related note, I understand no less than 15 other ADA members tied the knot during the ADA Championship! All the best to you as well!
We look forward to returning to Las Vegas for the 12th ADA National Championship next summer. Dates to be announced.
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