rhentzel wrote:
* Hosts may choose the format,
but it must guarantee teams at least 12 games. 20
packets will be provided by NAQT. Single elimination
play-offs may not be used.
This was also supposed to
be a requirement for this year's sectionals (see
message 1903), yet in both the northwest and the
northeast a majority (in the NW case, all) of the teams
played 11 or fewer games. I don't know whether NAQT
would describe the NE playoff format as "single
elimination" (the 8 teams were put in single elim-style
brackets with each round consisting of a 2-out-of-3
series--thus if single-eimination means specifically "lose one
_game_ and you're out" the format would be OK), but that
may have been in violation of their guidelines as
well.
I'm imagine that this was a very innocent mistake on
the part of the NE and NW hosts--after all, I don't
recall that this policy was mentioned by NAQT at any
point between last April and now, and I didn't notice
it on their website, so the hosts had presumably
(very understandably) forgotten about it. Perhaps NAQT
should have sent out a note to the hosts reminding them
of the format requirements; alternatively, this
could have been avoided if the hosts had announced the
intended format publicly, so that someone from NAQT could
have caught the problem.
-Mike