Dallas Chief,
We did get on with ball, on the one day where the weather allowed. See the AAR. It was quite a good day.
What generally bumfuzzles the Pandas is planning. Because "we" rarely had to plan anything. There was Argosy for their entire developmental period. Having one place to play more or less made Panda Corps organic, and of one mind on what to do, which was play ball, all the time.
I am pleased that we had a road team ready to go. It's too bad the heater malfunctioned during the crucial decision period. It will be hard to get a crew together again while the season is on down here.
If it is something you have not tried, opening a new venue is not easy. You have the benefit of being on good terms with Ilume management, which I definitely did not. But if you try to even walk down the street to that pool Scott used to live it, you will find the administrative elements of setting up game rise exponentially.
Down here we just have to raid places. And hope people are there. We tried to get an invite to Cityview from residents this weekend and failed. Which makes me think they are not as serious about ball as we, which leads to slaughter at best(!), or a waste of time (none of the locals actually show up); at worst, security/management comes down on your ass.
In short, finding a new place to play that will allow all players to go there is a long shot in Austin that is usually not worth it. The default is the Riata pool, which is a lot like yours, but with a much higher net--raise yours, the game will get better, and, since you play with a harder ball than we do (we did the same for many years), you're risking injury when big fellas can crash the net--interestingly, the big fellas tend to hurt each other more than the little fellas in this situation. Just a word to the wise, and I know you are wise...
I gotta say I like what you're doing. It's pretty much what I did at Argosy. But we have our hands full down here just making sure we can get game. I don't see us coming up any time soon.
Do not despair. We will follow your exploits, as you have followed ours. My recommendation is that you either continue training your soldiers until after ~ July 4, and then challenge Darth Nowell, or invite his boys to play your venue before then on some day that is too cold to play without a heated pool.
About 8 years of experience tells me Riata dies on Labor Day. That leaves a couple of months open for hungry Austin players who are ready for some post season action--your venue would be ideal for that, and both sides would have the benefit of a full season under their belts. So I figure we see ya in Sept/October.
Good luck to you. Maybe you can coordinate with Dan to figure out how any game film you choose to take can be accessed on our website?
And, as much as I'd like to invite you guys down here to play, no can do. The venue we play at is not my own. I cannot
_________________ Chief
Death from above! Fire down below!
|