1. False Creek
2. Mayfair
3. CSDC
4. Big Fish
5. Hydrophobic

What about the Beasts?

Where does Sudbury Chiropractic fit? Is there any reason to believe they are behind Hydros?

And Verdun?

How about a Top 10?

Before everyone gets excited, these are obviously not official "Power Demon" rankings and just some posters point in time musings.

For example it would probably take Big Fish a year of times and results similar to the island to break the top 10 let alone top 5.

For sure you would need to add, Beasts, 3 rivers, Level 6/Madawaska/EA, SCC, and Verdon to name just a few.

About PD's true rankings, is he still going to be doing them? Islands are now over, which usually serve as the basis for his rankings right?

So... when can we expect the 2009 rankings to come out? Now that Milton, Pickering, Toronto, etc. have passed I would imagine we'd have enough data... right?

I believe they said they are looking for someone to take over the Rankings as the previous "ranker" is now in a family way and doesn't have time to do this anymore.

fyi: Pickering was usually the standard for the rankings, not Toronto Island.

Anyone taking over for PD and the true rankings?

Have the rankings been removed from the DBC website? I just tried clicking the link and got "Page Not Found".

1. False Creek
2. Mayfair
3. CSDC
4. Big Fish
5. Hydrophobic


The Top 3 are definitely accurate. Don't about 4 and 5 though?!

I agree that more teams need to be considered here.

Verdun comes to mind. They looked very strong in Pickering but got shafted by a bad first round lane draw.

Chiro's also have not had a chance to compare themselves to Quebec and GTA crews.

Scotia/WRCC may also be better than they appeared at TIDBRF due to their morning draw when conditions were worse. They did very well in their final out of a shore lane.

I'm sure there are others as well.

1. False Creek (VAN)
2. Mayfair (TOR)
3. Dragon Beasts (HAL)
4. CSDC (TOR)
5. SCC (SUD)
6. Verdun (MTL)
7. FCRCC "B" (VAN)
8. Big Fish (TOR)
9. Hydrophobic (TOR)

Thoughts.

10. Rouge

Verdun is a top level team, but I dont think they are 6th this year... more closer to 8 or 9

rouge at 10? I would put Hammerheads ahead of them.

Rouge consistently beat Hammerheads, at Pickering and Island. So yup, I would put Rouge ahead of Hammerheads.

1. False Creek (VAN)
2. Mayfair (TOR)
3. Dragon Beasts (HAL)
4. CSDC (TOR)
5. SCC (SUD)
6. FCRCC "B" (VAN)
7. Big Fish (TOR)
8. Verdun (MTL)
9. Hydrophobic (TOR)
10. WRCC (PIC)

Put Verdun ahead of Big Fish based on fact that at Pickering, they had the 2nd fastest 2k time and beat Big Fish in 500m and 200m. From there, I think the Power Rankings look set. Just need descriptions for each team.

Hanalei and Piranhas should be in consideration too.

What about 3R gold or whatever their called? Surely they have a top crew that would hit the top 10 somewhere at nationals. Are they going?

Are there any preliminarily crew lists for nationals?

How's that for a top 12? After these teams there is a case to be made for a bunch of teams (Hammerheads, New College, Jetstart, Piranhas, Chaos, etc.)

1. False Creek (VAN)
2. Mayfair (TOR)
3. Dragon Beasts (HAL)
4. CSDC (TOR)
5. G & G (PIC)
6. SCC (SUD)
9. Verdun (MTL)
7. Big Fish (TOR)
8. FCRCC "B" (VAN)
10. Hydrophobic (TOR)
11. Hanalei (TOR)
12. WRCC (PIC)

Sorry... got the numbers mixed up, the order was correct:
1. False Creek (VAN)
2. Mayfair (TOR)
3. Dragon Beasts (HAL)
4. CSDC (TOR)
5. G & G (PIC)
6. SCC (SUD)
7. Verdun (MTL)
8. Big Fish (TOR)
9. FCRCC "B" (VAN)
10. Hydrophobic (TOR)
11. Hanalei (TOR)
12. WRCC (PIC)

My thoughts

1. False Creek (VAN)
2. Mayfair (TOR)
3. Dragon Beasts (HAL)
4. SCC Chiro (SUD)
5. CSDC (TOR)
6. Verdun (MTL)
7. FCRCC "B" (VAN)
8. Big Fish (TOR)
9. Hydrophobic (TOR)
10. Piranhas (TOR)
11. WRCC (PIC)
12. Hanalei (TOR)

These rankings are all pretty similar and I think they are also pretty accurate for a right now point in time.

I would like to see SCC and FCRCC B actually go head to head against a couple of the other teams on this list to see where they would rank. I have little doubt they would both be top 12, but the where is a pretty subjective guess at this point.

You may also want to think about adding Heat to this list. I think they are Senior or Grand Master, but they made "A" in Pickering and beat SCC a couple times in Perry Sound (I think that's where) before most of them did a 14k race for lunch and then lost to SCC after that. And no, I'm not trying to justify anything, maybe SCC just put a stronger boat on the water or executed better in the afternoon so it's all good.

In any case, Heat was right there so deserves some consideration. 3R would also probably hit the top 12-15, but again until they race some of these other teams who's to really say. I'm not a big fan of guesstimating based on time at races with no common elements.

Chaos and Jetstart need to race some of the teams on the list to get included also. G & G would also need to race some of the others to hit my list. I don't think they are the same entity that was G & G in the past however I could be wrong as I am not very familiar with the current iterations structure.

So based on what I consider to probably be the closest ranking so far, I have the following comments.

1. False Creek (VAN) - No brainer
2. Mayfair (TOR) - No brainer
3. Dragon Beasts (HAL) - No Brainer
4. SCC Chiro (SUD) - top 15 for sure, but where?
5. CSDC (TOR) - Could really be in SCC's spot depending on where they fit. Could also be behind Verdun.
6. Verdun (MTL) - Could also move up as far as SCC's spot. Would like to see them race the others head to head at another venue.
7. FCRCC "B" (VAN) - top 15 for sure, but where?
8. Big Fish (TOR) Sounds about right. Could move up depending on FCRCC B & SCC, but could also move down depending on 3R and Heat
9. Hydrophobic (TOR) - Top 15 for sure, but where. Would have had them here or higher after Pickering, but not so sure after the Island.
10. Piranhas (TOR) - Top 15 but probably a bit lower behind Hanalei, Heat and 3R.
11. WRCC (PIC) - Not really sure if this is a set crew or not, so hard to gauge.
12. Hanalei (TOR) - Top 15 for sure and maybe a couple spots higher depending on variables mentioned in others comments above
X. 3R - Top 10 somewhere I would guess and maybe top 5.
X. Heat - Top 15 for sure, but need to see them race the others again to really gauge.
X. Chaos and Jetstart - either or both could be top 15, but we will only know once they race the others.

Interestingly, from the ranking above, places 1, 2, 3, 5 (racing seniors I think), and 7 (I don't think are traveling) will most likely not have entries for the Nationals. It's so wide open after that.

Thoughts?

3R really hasn't shown us anything this year to give us any reason to believe they belong on this list. Much less top 5.

Pickering is a horrible way to gauge team since its one of the most lane dependant courses in Ontario. I wouldn't take a placement from Pickering to mean much.

Rouge is interesting on a few fronts. Sure they finished 4th at Pickering but see my comment above. They also posted some really bad times at TIDBRF qualifiers. Sure the weather was bad, but that doesn't justify them posting worse times then the Blades and Mofos who all raced in the morning heats. Their combination with the Piranhas will also be very interesting and could net us a top 5 team if their men are any indication.

Looks like someone at GWN has updated their timed rankings. Unsure how closely this is related to the original true rankings.

It's garbage

Garbage?

Just took a look and their top 20 have all the crews mentioned above plus a few more we never discuss including a couple from the States and more from the west. Seems pretty close to what everyone has suggested as the top 20.

Look at the order. It's garbage.

Yea I agree, it's garbage.

Is New DBT the same as New College?

Yeah, that's part of why its garbage.

Piranhas, Rouge (Scotia/WRCC), Quicksilver, MDBC Adrenaline, NY Wall Street Dragons and of course New Dragons, are all on there twice too - that's just first few pages.

1. False Creek
2. Mayfair
3. Beasts
4. Allience Senior
5. Sudbury
6. Big Fish
7. Hydros
8. WRCC - Scotia
9. Verdun
10. Hanalei
11. Pirhannas
12. Hammerheads
13. New College
14. BMO Montreal
15. New College

Heat did not race in Parry Sound , it was the Canadian National Grang Masters team racing as Eat Trout. Several Heat paddlers are on the team.

Who's silly enough to put New College in the top 15 not just once, but twice? Silly NC students.

The problem I see with the GWN rankings, aside from all the duplicates, is with so many new teams added. I think the times being entered for them is just way off, looks like someone just took the times and averaged them, when even their methodology says they are suppose to adjust for course conditions.

According to methodology, the times are based on a rolling scheme. So as of right now, times include all of this year's times plus last year's times of regattas that weren't done this year so far.

Makes sense why some teams are still ranked higher/lower than what was observed this year. But I disagree that this ranking methodology should be used. If GWN wants to do a "Major League" approach, then they need to eliminate the rolling ranking scheme and do it on a season-by-season basis, just like how PD did with his annual rankings (or any major league sport for that matter).

I think the rolling scheme is sort of interesting. With events running from March - November there is only a short off-season, why not keep it going yearly. Golf does a similar thing as do most other major sports (FIFA, Tennis, etc.) Really the major leagues with a prize at the end of the season are the only ones that start fresh each year.

I understand the benefits to both ways and don't think it is the end of the world to use this system.

Well part of the problem is that while a golfer may be better or worse from year to year he doesn't have personal turn over.

For example "And this year, golfing for Tiger Woods, is John Daly". Rankings U-Turn.

I would say that you take the average of all of the previous years time and use that as one event up until a team has raced 2 or three times in the current year. The problem with the yearly rolling ranking is that by the time a teams true ranking for the year is known, that team may not even exist any more or be in the process of changing significantly prior to its next race in the spring. In a perfect world, we want to know how any given team would rank at the festival today so we want to be able to get as close to that as possible while still not only going off one statistical event.

Team hasn't raced yet:
Average of last years times is used for the rankings

Team has raced once this year:
Take last years average and the adjusted time for this years race and use that for rankings

Team has raced twice or more this year:
Use the adjusted average for the two or more times the team has raced this year for rankings

You may even want to weight averages that are farther in the past less and races that appeared more recently as a higher overall impact their the teams average time.

For example: Your most recent race counts at 100%, the race before that counts at 75%, all races prior to that this year get weighted at 50% and the average of last years times gets weighted at 25% or something. This allows for a larger sampling while at the same time putting a much higher emphasis on more recent events and would theoretically be a more accurate representation of a teams next performance.

To be counted as a race, there must be enough of the other ranked teams there who also participated in other events to facilitate the "adjusting of the averages across courses/regattas". For example with that criteria, I'm not even sure you could count Ottawa among many others.

I would also suggest that if a team hasn't raced by a specific date, you just drop them off until they do. Say the end of June or July at the latest.

And unless a team actually races in events with the other teams I don't see how you can effectively rank them. Yes, I know and agree fully that FCRCC is the fastest crew in Canada, but if they don't race any of the Eastern teams this year then they get dropped from the rankings. We still know or suspect that they're the fastest, but we would have no actually race results to support/compare/align that to Eastern teams times. I wouldn't go just off Jetstarts trip West as it's simply not a large enough sample size to be reliable and therefor the Alcan event itself would not and could not be include.

Agree with the above, its just a mixed bag right now, and as some people have already said potentially just garbage. Without enough teams East/West crossing racing each other, a timed ranking system as shown in MLDB seriously flawed.

Well also remember that GWN is a Marketing organization. They market Dragon Boating, events and things associated with that.

Having teams listed from other markets in their power rankings simply serves to promote interest and discussion in those markets.

Unless they were to adopt and maintain Power Demons ranking system then you have to look at it from a GWN marketing perspective. And if they did adopt Power Demons system then they wouldn't be able to list some of those teams so it's a catch 22 for them.

The rankings listing that have been posted here look a lot more accurate and are for the most part at least based on head to head results.

New College DBT was the team New College entered into the sports open division at Toronto Island, which was composed of 15 guys and 5 girls, and had a best time of 2.00.07.

The New College New Dragons University Team is the normal mixed team.

Same paddlers in both instances, just different divisions, hence why they appear twice on the ranking.

New College DBT was a one time only thing, and the second New College ranking is more accurate and realistic.

This doesn't detract from the overall merit of the ranking itself, but is just the result of some small confusion

Great times NC, but what is an open team doing on the rankings for mixed teams?

I believe all the duplicates can be traced to open/women's teams vs. their mixed counterparts.

I agree with the rankings for the top 15 to a certain extent... there are definately teams better than Jet Start by a large margin out in the west, and they're not included in the rankngs (This can be seen simply looking at the Comp A results at Alcan)

Both Magnum and Masters were respectively 4-3 seconds faster than Jet Start. And i'm sure other teams that are also active, but didn't participate in Alcan (Navy, Gorging Dragons, Pacific Reach) would rank higher than Air Canada Jet start as they come close if not by even .01 seconds to the teams that came 4-6th in Alcan. Jet Start is really the only team to compare east and west this year so far... so with that in mind, the rankings aren't totally accurate by only counting two west teams. And this year, the west isn't fully represented with their strongest teams at CCWC although the strongest is going.