A 12 team national playoff for USports football

As is often the case leading up the Vanier Cup, a lot of focus is put on football's playoff format. The most common suggestion for improvement is to add another round after the conference finals, increasing the number of teams in the national playoff to 8. However, those proposals have some significant downsides, such as the possible use of the rankings to determine the participants, and the de-emphasis of the importance of winning a conference championship (since the losing team might advance to same round as the winner). Because of that, I thought it’d be a good time to revisit and update a 12 team playoff proposal that has been floating around for a few years, which I believe offers a better solution.

As before, the regular season remains the same. The biggest change is to the conference playoffs, which are reduced to a single round used to seed the 12 team bracket.

Conference Playoff Round

Conference playoffs now occur over a single week, with two sets of games taking place: 

Conference Championships (winners receive a bye to round of 8, losers takes the conference's 2nd seed for the round of 12)

Hardy Cup (1st CW vs 2nd CW)
Yates Cup (1st OUA vs 2nd OUA)
Dunsmore Cup (1st RSEQ vs 2nd RSEQ)
Loney Bowl (1st AUS vs 2nd AUS)

Play-In Games (winners to the round of 12, losers eliminated)

3rd CW vs 4th CW
3rd OUA vs 6th OUA
4th OUA vs 5th OUA
3rd RSEQ vs 3rd AUS

Playoff berths are proportional to the size of each conference. Since this format was last proposed, Bishop's moved from RSEQ to AUS, giving the two conferences 5 teams each. To accommodate that change, their 3rd place teams will play one anther for the right to advance, rather than deciding that in a RSEQ 3rd vs 4th game. 

After the conference playoff round, teams are seeded into a 12 team bracket (team designations are CW1, CW2, CW3, OUA1, OUA2, OUA3, OUA4, RSEQ1, RSEQ2, AUS1, AUS2, AQ3).

Round of 12

CW3 at CW2
OUA3 at OUA2
OUA4 at RSEQ2
AQ3 at AUS2

This is the biggest change from older 12 team proposals. Previous versions sought to minimize rematches by spreading conference teams throughout the bracket. However, since this would add multiple rounds of playoff games that involve cross country travel, it is unlikely to be feasible. Instead, I have grouped first round match-ups by geography. Travel for this new round of 12 would not be much worse than the current conference playoffs.

Round of 8

Quarter final games are hosted by AUS1, RSEQ1, OUA1, and CW1. Match-ups will rotate.

As with all proposals to expand the playoffs, this is where we start to add significant travel. Four new Bowl games will be created. One could be a revived Atlantic Bowl, hosted by the AUS champion. The Churchill Bowl could also be revived (I’ve placed it with CW, but it has historic ties to Ontario and Quebec as well). Match-ups rotate, with conference winners and runner ups placed on the opposite sides of the bracket.

After the round of 8, we continue with the semi-finals (Mitchell Bowl & Uteck Bowl) and Vanier Cup.

Example Brackets

Here is an example bracket, showing conference seeding that would align with this year's bowl rotation (some new bowls have been given place holder names):

And here is that same bracket with hypothetical results (loosely based on actual games played this year, though you can argue a few games could easily go a different way):

This updated format reduces travel costs in the first round, taking away the one aspect that previously made adopting a 12 team format infeasible. There are still some issues and barriers that may prevent it from being adopted, but if USports is going to change the playoff format, I believe this would be better than expanding to 8 teams. Unlike most 8 team formats, this 12 team format does not need to use rankings to determine playoff finalists, and also provides a suitable reward to conference champions by giving them a bye and having them host a national Bowl game afterwards.

What do you think? Join the discussion here or at: http://www.cisfootball.org/forums/showthread.php?14496-Revisiting-the-12-team-national-playoff

Quidditch and Gender

Introduction

In many respects, quidditch is a leader in how we handle gender in our sport. Title 9¾, which allows people to play as the gender they identify with, is revolutionary in the sporting world. Other sporting bodies are taking notice, with at least some schools and campus recreation groups adopting similar gender rules. Mainstream competitive sports will be taking note of how we are handling athletes outside of the gender binary, especially as practices regarding the sex testing of female athletes are facing public criticism and legal challenges.

That said, IQA is not a leader on all fronts. For a sport that is so progressive and inclusive, we have a disappointing level of diversity on our rosters and on the playing field. For the top teams at both the national and club level, a roster with 15 males and 6 females is not uncommon. On the field, the gender max is often treated as gender always, with 4 of 6 players being male (and 5 of 7 after the seekers are released). This leaves just 2 spots on the field for all other genders. The playing time of non-male players and the roles that they are allowed to play on the field are being limited.

It has also been noticed that the problem has been getting worse over time, as teams and countries become more developed and more competitive. It is clear that this will not get better all on its own.

To improve this situation, the IQA Rules Committee has included two changes regarding gender rules in their proposal for the 2016-2018 rulebook. The first change would be to apply the 4 max rule at all times, rather than switching to 5 max when the seekers are in play. This is the next logical step after IQA modified the gender rule to include seekers last season.

The other step is to include gender maximums on rosters. The goal for future World Cups would be to have a 12 maximum of any one gender on a 21 player roster. In order to allow teams time to adjust, this change would be phased in. The rule for the 2016-2017 season would be 14 max of one gender for a 21 player roster.

Because any change in quidditch is generally met with both surprise and resistance, I thought it was important to outline some of the major reasons behind the change in the gender rule.

1. Legitimacy as a Mixed Gender Sport

Many members would like to see quidditch receive official recognition from the international community. This would open up a number of possibilities to us, including eligibility for funding, participation in multi-sport events like the Commonwealth Games and World Games, and the prospect of full IOC recognition. Being mixed gender does increase our chances of being accepted ahead of sports that split by gender, but our current gender imbalance would be a big problem. We can't be a legitimate mixed gender sport unless we have a better gender balance.

I look to two mixed gender for comparison: Korfball and Ultimate. Korfball has full gender equity on the field and on their rosters. It was demonstrated at two Olympics and is part of the World Games program. Ultimate has a similar origin and trajectory to our own. Mixed Ultimate is normally played with 7 players with a 4 max rule. To enter World Games, they dropped to 6 players with a 3 max rule, with full equity on their rosters. Only recently were they allowed to play their normal 7 vs 7 at World Games, with a max of 7 of any gender on their 13 player rosters. Ultimate received IOC recognition in 2015 and is now pushing for Olympic inclusion as a mixed gender sport.

Gender equity is a big part of IOC's Olympic Agenda 2020. Federations seeking official recognition need to be working to promote women in sport. On this front, we are doing the poorer than most mixed gender sports. It is common for our top teams to have less than 1/3 of their roster consist of female players. Some of the top club teams field "power lines" with only 1 or occasionally even 0 female players on the field. Even at fantasy tournaments where the stakes are low, teams will play lines that minimize the number of females on the field.

Other sports do not fully recognize players outside of the gender binary, so they might promote gender equity by requiring 50% of their players to be female. This would not be an appropriate rule for quidditch. Our gender rule isn't about achieving a perfect 50/50 split inside the traditional binary; it is a rule meant to promote inclusion and diversity. However, given that we do recognize more than two genders in our sport, it is even more inappropriate that one gender currently dominates over 2/3 of the roster spots and receives over 2/3 of the playing time.

I know some will argue that we shouldn't be worrying so much about this issue right now, because official recognition and multi-sport games are a long ways away. That may not be the case. With our rapid growth, and the connections we are making with the wider sports community, these opportunities will be available to us sooner than expected. IQA is in a great position to pursue some amazing opportunities in the near future, if the community is interested in striving towards becoming a legitimate mixed-gender sport.

2. Charitable Status

Quidditch organisations speak to the ideas of inclusion, diversity, and equity when promoting the sport to the public. Most include this somewhere in their goals and mission. Organisations that fail to deliver on those goals will rightly receive some criticism.

For registered charities like USQ and (hopefully) IQA, we risk more than just criticism. IQA's application for charitable status highlights charitable initiatives that promote our values of inclusion, diversity, and gender equity. If IQA is not delivering on its charitable objectives, it risks its status as a charity.

Many of the rosters we saw at World Cup show that we're not achieving the charitable goals of the organisation. I don't blame our NGBs for this, as the rosters we received are a product of the gender rule that we have been enforcing. This is why we need to modify the gender rule.

For a charity to vote against working towards its own charitable objectives would be a dangerous thing to do. IQA needs to show that it is pro-actively pursuing these goals, rather than merely talking about them.

3. It is the Right Thing To Do

Even if we weren't aiming for official recognition as a sport, and even if we didn't have charitable objectives to be concerned with, working towards diversity and equity would be the right thing to do.

These goals are not easy to achieve. If it were easy, there wouldn't be any need to work at it. This community is very capable of achieving difficult tasks when they set their mind to it. It was not easy to take a sport that didn't exist 10 years ago and spread it all across the world. Achieving greater gender diversity amongst our participants should be a very realistic goal, especially given how welcoming and inclusive our community is.

Conclusion

For these reasons, I believe quidditch needs to make it a goal to make changes to the gender rule. The current rulebook proposal from the IQA Rules Committee gives us the best way to make progress towards this goal within a reasonable time frame. The changes being proposed for 2016-2017 are not drastic, but they do show an effort to take steps in the right direction. If we don't make a modest effort for the sake of gender equity, we may miss out on a lot of other important initiatives.

In the long term, fairest solution would be a 3 max gender rule, becoming 4 max when seekers are released. This would put us in line with what other legitimate mixed gender sports do. It is not something we will achieve overnight. It can remain a long term goal for us to keep in mind, while we take reasonable steps to improve in the short term.

An Exercise in Nation Building - Quidditch Canada's First Year

Given recent criticism of Quidditch Canada, I thought it worthwhile to take a big picture view of the organization’s first season.

The locations that were chosen for events, especially Nationals, have been scrutinized by many teams. However, there were a number of good reasons for the selections that QC made:

1. Feedback from teams. When surveyed, teams were strongly in favour of Nationals taking place before final exams, and were strongly in favour of off-pitch seeking. To achieve these objectives, an outdoor venue in late March or early April was required. Only the west coast has grass fields that can be booked at that time of year, and even then, the facility that was booked had to be persuaded to open early.

2. Fairness to all teams. Last season, every league team had one event that was easily accessible to them. To attend both Regionals and Nationals, every team would have had to fly once (except for the team which drove over 3300 km). There could not have been a more fair events schedule. It is also fair to all regions to have Nationals rotate through the country, rather than host it in the same area every year.

3. Development of the sport. With the East already being very developed, placing Nationals in the West was a good move to help kick start their development. Placing the event in the East would’ve only served to widen the already existing gap between the regions. The combination of a Regionals in the prairies and a Nationals in Vancouver exposed a number of new Canadian teams to competitive quidditch.

One goal of any national sporting body is to build a sport that is played from coast to coast, and each event played key a part in achieving this. Hosting Nationals in Vancouver persuaded Victoria to join the organization, and gave three brand new teams (Vipertooths, Clippers, and Whomping Willows) their first taste of championship quidditch. Every western team took part, which would not have happened if it were hosted anywhere outside of Vancouver.

Western Regionals in Moose Jaw provided Winnipeg their only league games against Canadians. Without that experience, Winnipeg doesn’t sign up for Nationals, and their season might have ended in October. The event also brought in players from Regina, which could someday form the basis for a Saskatchewan team. Having two western events allowed many Alberta players to participate, which has led to the addition of a new Alberta league team for the upcoming season. A year ago, there was almost no quidditch at all between BC and Ontario, which would not be acceptable for a legitimate national organization. Now we’re seeing the genesis of a prairie region, thanks in part to the hard work and foresight of QC.

Eastern Regionals in Kingston hardly needs any defence from me. Kingston was the most central location for the region, and the event was very well attended. At the time, it was the largest Quidditch tournament that had been held outside of the USA. This is a great achievement for a first year organization.

There were of course some downsides to this approach. Few teams were willing to make the long trips last year, with the high cost and late notice being factors. There were a much smaller number of nearby teams to attend the western events, which made them less enticing for others to travel to. Many eastern teams considered the season to be basically done after Regionals.

However, the work of this past year creates some exciting opportunities. Future western events should have better attendance, thanks to ongoing growth. With Nationals almost certainly being in the East, the region has two big events to look forward to. There is the possibility to add league teams in new locations, such as Quebec City and Halifax. Imagine a Nationals hosted in the eastern portion of the region (somewhere like Montreal), accessible to all the established eastern teams, an easy drive for any new Quebec teams, and a long but feasible trip for Halifax. Add in a few teams from the West, and we have the largest quidditch tournament in Canadian history, involving all parts of the country.

It would be remarkable progress for quidditch in Canada to go from a small handful of teams playing for the Eastern Canada regional title, to a 20+ team National Championship with teams from coast-to-coast, all in just two years time. This goal is well within reach, if Canadians band together and support Quidditch Canada in their nation building efforts.