2012 WFTDA All Star Game – by Dave Wood
- July 3rd, 2012
- Posted in Editorial
- By Megatron
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Photographer extraordinaire & derby fanatic Dave Wood of Dave Wood Photography sent this article to us today, and I believe it’s worth a read:
2012 WFTDA All Star Game
This needs to happen.
I’ve been lucky enough to be an in-person witness to all three of the public Team USA scrimmages that have taken place to date. Each one has been an absolute treat to watch and I absolutely love Team USA. We need more all-star roller derby! The good news is that there’s already a time on the calendar where many of the best players in the WFTDA will be in the same place: The 2012 WFTDA Championship Tournament. The final Sunday of the Big 5 is typically a slow day with only two games on the schedule. Why not move those games up by two hours and add an all-star game after the championship? Sure, it might be somewhat anti-climactic for the championship-winning team, but for everyone else, it would be 60 minutes of bonus awesomeness.
It would be easy to say that it’s too late to make this happen for 2012, but I disagree. Here’s how I think it could work:
- Two teams: East/North Central vs. West/South Central
- Each WFTDA member league submits up to 6 of its players as nominees for the team. Teams are strongly encouraged to submit only their most elite players. Very few teams would be justified in submitting 6 players. Many teams should realistically have none.
- Cut off nomination submissions on August 1st.
- Each league gets one 20-player vote. You can’t vote for players in your own league. Each of the 20 players selected by each league gets one vote.
- Cut off voting on September 1st.
- The players receiving the top 14 votes from each 2-region team are declared the “1st Team” all-stars. The next 14 are declared the “2nd Team” all-stars.
- 1st Team players have until October 14th (one week after regionals) to commit to coming to Atlanta. Any open spots will be filled by the 2nd Team players with the highest number of votes.
- Coaches for the all-star game would be taken from the four #1 seeds coming out of regionals (one coach from each team).
- All-Star games takes place on November 4, 2012, immediately following the 2012 WFTDA championship game.
Please?
NOTE: I don’t for a moment think I’m the first person to think of this. I know it’s been discussed…I just don’t know how seriously. My goal in writing this proposal is to start a serious discussion that might result in making this happen.
~Dave Wood
I was thinking it could be more of an “all-star weekend” type thing. You vote for players in a way not-too-dissimilar than what you’re proposing (except giving non-skating fans a say in the voting process is a must) and once enough players are decided on, you have two days’ worth of games:
Day one: Regional All-Star Battle
West All-Stars vs. South All-Stars
North All-Stars vs. East All-Stars
Loser vs. Loser
Winner vs. Winner for regional bragging rights
Day two: National All-Star Game
JV All-Star Game – The second best 28 players in the country
WFTDA All-Star Game – THE best 28 players in the country
I’d pay money to see it (as long as the rules made for a game worth watching, natch)
@WindyMan
I like all of WindyMan’s ideas. My concern with making this a separate event is that it makes it a lot easier for it to never happen. Money is a big issue in this sport…but if 50% or more of the players will already be together in one place anyway (Champs), it might be a bit easier to justify.
As for fan voting, I totally agree with that playing into it also. I left that out for 2012 in the interest of keeping it as simple as possible in hopes of making it actually happen this year.
I’d love to see an WFTDA All Star Game event happen as well, but preferably separate from the WFTDA Championship Tournament: Many of the best players in the sport who will in all likelihood be skating in the Tournament may not be as physically and mentally fresh and prepared for the competition as the fans would like to see them or I suspect in some cases as fresh as the skaters would like to be. I’d rather see something this event happen in the early to the middle section of the derby year when the skaters are still pretty fresh and haven’t been taxed by the grind of a long season and the pursuit of the Hydra. Loses that anti-climatic feel as well.
Dave, maybe in a few years, the sport will hopefully get enough business sponsors and backers to help make it happen as a stand alone weekend.
I like the idea of an All Star Game, although it’s probably too late to get any kind of voting organized by Champs; leagues are already planning for the 2013 season. It may not be to late to start a ‘prototype’ All Star Game at Champs.
Perhaps Sunday morning before the main event, since most of the leagues invited to Champs will be eliminated by then, there should be plenty of all star talent available. It could be organized along the lines of a ‘black and white’ scrimmage or a themed challenge bout.
I agree that it should probably have it’s own date, I believe the idea has already been mentioned in the derbyverse that Rollercon would be a great place for it. If so, planning for 2013 has to start almost immediately. Fan voting would be a big plus too, of course, skaters would have to make travel commitments before their name would be made available for voting.
@Dave Wood
in other words, you want a 2012 WFTDA Pro Bowl, right? (/sarc)