http://www.dragonboats.com/documents/Racebook2006.pdf

Enjoy!

120 teams

looks like it's all Scotia Rouge this year unless Tour East Rice Rockets are the TCBA dream team du jour.

Where are the Imps?

How many teams were there last year?

Hey look at that, Hammerheads have dropped Marvin Star this year but they're heading back as Miami

I'm surprised, I thought more teams had dropped out.

Looks like TIDBRF is alive and well.

120 teams. Last year around 144. Two or three years ago 210 teams. Alive and well? Slowly waiting for another festival in Toronto to come around and put them out of their over charging misery.

last year 144, this year 170. So it's actually on the increase...

Not to be disrespectful, but look at the calibre of teams that are attending. With the exception of a couple of teams (ie SRS and hammerheads), there are a small handful of mediocre teams. The remainder are beginner teams going for their first race and corporate teams that don't know better. This is not the exciting competitive level of racing that the Island had in the glory days.

Alive yes, but hardly well.

I counted 163 teams by looking at the overall team list, but only 153 teams going by categories. So I'm not sure what the actual number really is, but it does seem to be an increase over last year.

For the person who said 120, how did you get that?

Another Festival in TO.
And, you think they'll only charge $1,000 !!

Think of it this way. Great White North Costs over $1500 with taxes in.

That's still a far cry from the cost of $2400 + tent + fairy or water taxi. I'll take a regatta at $1500 on the new course, with more competitive teams around the same weekend. Fingers crossed for next year.

Three problems (no, FIVE!):

Where do you hold it?
- not a lot of quality racing venues in Toronto, and most will be under the thumb of entrenched parties

When do you hold it?
- have you looked at calendar? most weekends have either one festival, two or even three scheduled already.

How do you attract teams in a saturated market?
- many teams often book their entire season practically a year in advance, so how do you break in?

Okay, this is looking familiar. Let's finsih out the 5 w's

Who holds it?
- newcomers are often not trusted, have no cachet, and can run into road-blocks set up by the old guard. conversely, if the old guard is running it, they have their own baggage to worry about.

What kind of festival/regatta?
- for all the crying about it, sport festivals are only very slowly catching on. Most successful "regattas" are actually community "festivals". So is the new event going to be a small, poorly attended but highly competitive sport regatta, or a large but sloppy "festival"? I'm willing to be that the business case favours the "festival".

You will might have three festivals.
GWN stays for the first weekend in September, okay course, great for spectators.
TIDBF still runs the traditional Fesitval to coincide with the Cultural aspect - has to drop prices to get teams there.
Sharifa tries to market away another event...possibly Mid July, guessing $1,500 would have to be the benchmark as someone suggests - how much does the new course though actually cost to host an event ?? When you are trying to recapture dollars spent, you have to have some kind of re-turn.

So what teams are racing under aliases due to sponsorship this year? Are the Wongs Imperial Dragons the same imps we know and love?

No, it's a community team that's been around for some time.

The new watercourse is a public facility. Anybody can hold an event there. Is the Toronto race scene really that saturated? You've got Pickering and the Island in June and GWN in September. Pickering is in Pickering, TIDBF runs a shoddy event and gouges paddlers and GWN does a fun event on a crap course.

If somebody picks an open weekend, secures the new watercourse and puts together a well-run event for a competitive price it might not make a huge splash in year one but it wouldn't take long to catch on. They could even incoporate the cultural festival aspects. There's plenty of space for that at Marilyn Bell.

I hope TCBA gets a clue and makes a pre-emptive move with TIDBF. If they don't they will have the rug pulled from under their feet.

So there are upwards to 170 teams? This festival is far from dead.

170 teams yes, but.. how many decent teams?

There are around 120 mixed teams. I guess that is what the previous poster was saying.

From pade 10 of the race book you can clearly see division "U" is the lowest ranked mixed teams which are 118th - 122nd.

The rest are Womens, Juniors/High School or double dipped industry races.

That said, this is probably roughly in line with previous years. I challenge anyone to argue that the competition level/depth is anywhere near previous years.

Basically a whole bunch of people contributing to give the national team some free tickets. Not necessarily a bad thing since there is no other support for them so why not.

Interesting to see how the National Team gets the tickets when they aren't in attendance!

Love those posters that know everything!

So what's NDBC-SRS

here's a hint re NDBC-SRS... which races are they entered in? Look it up and figure it out for yourself.

"Interesting to see how the National Team gets the tickets when they aren't in attendance!

Love those posters that know everything!"

NDC-SRS are in the International Mixed. Race 81. However looking at the heats they have no qualifying race. This means they're not eligible for the prize.

Predictions:
1. Scotia Rouge
2. Miami
3. Imperial Dragons

Rouge goes to HK and kicks ass.

It's about time that we sent another team to the Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Race.

Did anyone go after BMO in 2001? I could be wrong but I don't think so. It seems like the tickets get used to go everywhere else BUT Shatin.

If you want to beat the Phillipines in the Mixed race, either stack the boat hard or learn to stand.

No one has gone since..
2001 - Imps (Taiwan or Thailand)
2002 - Imps (Taiwan or Thailand)
2003 - Huron (Some other Asian race)
2004 - Flexogan (???)
2005 - SRS (???)

The tickets will be won by whomever (Insert National Team filled team name here) and used for the national team to go to Australia. People who don't know $hit, shouldn't be shooting off at the mouth and telling people who actually know stuff that they don't know anything.

Anyway, no point in arguing it's a fact and you will see when the dust settles.

No, the tickets will not be won by (insert National team whatever) as they're not competing at the Island. The winner of the Island this year will go to Hong Kong in 2007.