NAHBPC 2016
NAHPBC will take place this year, but it will not be on three courts. For a number of reasons, none of the three court locations we have used in the past will be able to host this year. As such we are now focussed on making a smaller two court NAHBPC happen. We’d like to confirm Folsom, California as the host for the 2016 NAHBPC.
Folsom has two great mini-hockey courts (similar to those used in Weston, Florida for Worlds), situated in a park thirty minutes drive, or one hour light rail from Sacramento (the nearest major airport). It’s also less than two hours drive from San Francisco.
Jennifer Kutzleb will be the local organizer for the tournament, with help from the South West region. Thank you very much to Jennifer for stepping up, we are very excited to take NAHBPC to California for the first time.
Due to only having two courts, NAHPBC will be capped at thirty six teams, with no wildcard tournament. We are aware this will exclude many of the teams who were able to play last year, but the lack of available hosts has made this unavoidable.
Based on thirty six teams, the regional allocations will also need to change. We will give each region two spots, with one extra spot for each team in the top sixteen last year. The top sixteen consisted of five teams from Cascadia, three from South West, two from Heartland, two from Great Lakes, and one each from Great Plains, Mexico, South Central and Eastside. This would give total allocations of:
- Cascadia: 7
- South West: 5
- Heartland: 4
- Great Lakes: 4
- Eastside: 3
- Great Plains: 3
- Mexico: 3
- South Central: 3
- Northside: 2
- South East: 2
If any regional spots aren’t claimed, they will be allocated as a 3rd spot to the regions with the smallest allocations, ordered by highest finishing position last year. That would be South East (17th) and Northside (J47th). If there are still unclaimed regional spots after that, they will go as a 4th spot to the regions with 3 teams, ordered by the team with the next highest finishing position last year. That would be Eastside (17th), South Central (17th), Great Plains (J33rd), South East (J35th), Northside (J49th).
Updates will be provided as soon as we have more information, including the date (likely to be in September), and where to stay (no local housing, but there is a campsite two minutes away, and motels nearby).
All regions should organize qualifiers, and qualified teams should be confirmed to NAH before the end of July.
2017 Season
We are already working on the 2017 season, to make sure we have venue that can support three courts, and host an NAHBPC which is similar to the last few years. In addition we are working on bids for Worlds. Lexington are expecting to bid, and there may be other host clubs too.