FollowingAlong
Swing Artist
Registered: Mar 2006
Location:
Posts: 459 |
Same story everywhere
I don't believe this issue is unique to eastern Ontario. The associations running these playdown events face this challenge - they have to have enough funds to run the events so when the number of entries decrease, they have to raise entry fees. Can everyone see how this cycle goes? The fewer the number of entries, the more the per entry cost is - go to start of sentence and repeat....
The question becomes, "At what point does the per entry cost start preventing teams from entering?"
It would seem that the threshold has been reached. Decent club teams no longer enter playdowns. I don't know if cost is the exclusive reason but it does play a factor. When every team who aspired to be provincial champion had to go through the same process, there used to be the allure of perhaps getting a chance to play last year's provincial champion in the zone playdowns and maybe even upset them - the underdog's "Brier" title for the year, in essence. It used to be an inexpensive bonspiel with all the best teams in your region. Now, all the very best teams have auto-berths to provincial championships and the next tier of teams leap-frog the first level of playdown competition so marginal teams just simply do not see the benefit of entering playdowns. Cost is a factor and the regional and provincial associations aren't making any effort to address that.
That being said, if the cost of entry was free right now, I honestly do not believe the number of entries would increase significantly. Too many teams get to watch the same dozen "professional" teams on TV and on near-perfect ice and simply acknowledge that they have no chance against a Kevin Koe, a Mike McEwen, a Brad Gushue, a Steve Laycock, etc. and have decided that being an armchair critic is easier than trying to defeat the likes of the teams mentioned above.
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