Hello All,
First off, we hope you and your membership are off to a fast start to the squash season and the courts are busy. I even have been playing! This took longer than intended, but I wanted to get back to you with regard to the 2010 State Squash Tournaments.
On behalf of the MSA, we want to express our sincere appreciation to each of you for submitting a proposal to host the tournaments. I also want to congratulate you all for "looking outside the box" on various ways we could host the tournaments at your facility or in combination with another facility.
At our last MSA Board meeting we chose the U of MN to host the 2010 State Singles the weekend of Thursday February 25 - Sunday February 28, 2010. We also decided to award the 2010 MN State Doubles tournament to The Commodore for a weekend in April 2010 at John's choosing.
I am sure you are asking why we made the selections we made. The Board had a lengthy discussion on what we thought would be best for the MN Squash community and our membership versus the proposals as submitted by The Commodore, MAC/MPLS Club and the U of MN.
I have summarized a few reasons for how we arrived at our selection:The Board likes the fact that there are 5 singles courts in one location.
As you know, we changed our philosophy with regard to sanctioning each draw. We are hoping a "low cost" state tournament that attracts U of MN students will help attract more casual players to the tournament format and will hopefully entice them to play in other tournaments.
Many Board Members didn't want to split the singles draws over two weekends. Many thought it best to have all singles players playing over the same weekend
Many Board Members were reluctant to commit to support running two singles tournaments over two weekends. (As you know it is difficult to get "volunteer" help).
With the MPLS Club in flux as to a GM, the MPLS Club is unable to make any type of commitments at this time
I plan to contact each of you directly to discuss the coming season to see what the MSA and your facility can do together to effectively promote the game we enjoy. We again want to thank each of you for taking the time to submit a proposal to host the States.
In the interim, please contact me or any Board member should you have any thoughts, suggestions, opinions, etc. Otherwise, I look forward to speaking with you soon and we are excited to have the U of MN and The Commodore as hosts for our 2010 State Tournaments!
Thanks again!
Paul Bischel - MSA President
on behalf of the MSA Board
