Flyball Championships
Both U-FLI and NAFA have official championship racing that clubs and teams may choose to participate in. Each organizations' program can be found in its Rulebook and on their respective websites. Each program is quite different from the other.
U-FLI has an annual Championship Series, which includes several qualifying tournaments leading up to their national event. The 'series' is similar to other professional sports whereby a team enters several tournaments in a 12-month period and at least one qualifying event where the team must place in the top three positions in any of the time divisions.
Each year, the qualifer tournaments are held in several locations across the country with the culmination and final Tournament of Champions held in the later half of the year at a central location within the USA. Last year, it was held in November, in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2012 it will be held in August in Kearney, Nebraska.
In combination with the final championship event, there are also competitions for Singles, Pairs and Dream Team racing which can be entered just like any other tournament and no qualification is required.
NAFA's program has Regional Championships which are an annual, cumulative achievement. Within the organization, each area of the country is separated into a 'region' (e.g., Region 1 is for Michigan and Ohio flyball clubs/teams; there are currently 22 separate regions throughout the USA). A regional champ is determined in each region based on how many tournaments a club/team chooses to enter and then based on points earned if a team places in the top three at each tournament. At the end of the racing year, the points earned are added up and a winner determined.
The racing year in NAFA flyball ends September 30. Each region's two champions are declared and recognized at an annual meeting held the following January. Not all regions are able to declare a Regional Champion because their region may not have been able to host enough tournaments nor a team able to attend the required minimum number of tournaments. In addition to champions per region, there are two overall NAFA Champions determined each year. They are based on fastest time throughout the yearly tournaments and are also declared and recognized the following January.
[Information for winners of U-FLI Tournament of Champions can be found on their website. Currently 2007-2011 is available.
Regional and NAFA Champions can be found on their website. Past champions back to 2000 can be found. 2011 information was published this month.]
The above paragraphs revised 8/9/12.
NAFA does not hold a national-type championship event. There is, however, a separate regular tournament called the Can Am which has been held for the past few years in October in Indianapolis, Indiana. This event has evolved over the years from a Cynosports-sponsored event previously held in the southern part of the country. While information about Can Am is not in NAFA's rulebook, it can be researched and found on the internet via BoD meeting minutes, leadership and candidate chats, as well as on it's website.
I hope you have enjoyed this blog and that it has helped you in some fashion. Thank you for taking an interest and for taking time out of your day to share flyball with me.
Sincerely,
I Like Flyball!
(This is my final blog post because, thankfully, the I-Flyball Blog is coming back according to it's Facebook page...yeah!)
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