A few weeks ago, the strength bid allocations came out for
the series, and my region (mid-Atlantic mixed) got one bid. I changed my gchat status to “Well, I got
what I wanted” with a link to the official USAU announcement. This triggered a flood of questions of why I
would only want one bid to Nationals.
This has been a funny year for me. I spent part of the spring/summer out of the
country and moved out of Philly in August.
I went from thinking I should take the season off to seriously considering
playing with my old team to ending up on a non-practicing mercenary squad. While my current team is a ton of fun (and
rather talented), it’s a low investment team.
Someday soon, this type of team will be just my speed. But not quite yet. This year, I still wanted to be in the
trenches. I want a team I can put a lot of
myself into and get a lot out of. And
that’s just not possible on a team like this.
It’s not that kind of team.
So why is one bid a good thing? Well, it gives more meaning and consequence
to Regionals. For most of my club career,
if not guaranteed, making Nationals was more likely than not. My focus was to peak at Nationals. But on a team like this, setting lofty goals
at Nationals is pointless. We’d do
alright and upset some teams, but we wouldn’t be rolling in looking to win
it. I’ve used a college football analogy
of “Regionals is like our conference championships. Nationals is a bowl game.” Maybe that’s another way of saying we’d “just
be happy to be there.” But the key is
we’ll have to play not just well, but Really well if we’re gonna qualify. If there were two bids, I’d give us a better
than 50% chance of qualifying*. With two
bids, we could qualify for nationals and go all season with no meaningful wins
in consequential games. With the higher
barrier of entry, the challenge is of course greater, and there will almost
definitely be consequential games (hopefully meaningful wins too).
Now this is purely a selfish attitude. This team is not one built around meaningful
or consequential experiences of this type.
It’s built around enjoying the ride and each other’s company for as long
as the ride goes. Clearly it would be
great if that ride ended in Sarasota rather than Poolesville. Let’s hope we all get what we want.
* I’m saying this with 3-4 regional opponents quite capable
of beating us, so that 50% number is purely based on gut feel and
over-confidence.
