I just folded in lots of new data points.

Thoughts? Send them to me by Noon tomorrow (5/9).

Click to enlarge each image:

Here’s the 1st draft of the overall rankings and pools for the Open teams.

We are accepting feedback on this data until Tuesday, 5/9 @ Noon. (josh@pvinvite.org)

To create these rankings and pools we:

• Used ScoreReport.net data.
• Considered PVI2022 final ranking data.
• Tried to create geographic diversity in each pool.

Click to enlarge:

Here’s the 1st draft of the overall rankings and pools for the Female-Matching teams.

We are accepting feedback on this data until Tuesday, 5/9 @ Noon. (josh@pvinvite.org)

To create these rankings and pools we:

• Used ScoreReport.net data.
• Considered PVI2022 final ranking data.
• Tried to create geographic diversity in each pool.

Click to enlarge:

The same data for the Open teams is on its way.

This email was just sent out:

Hello everyone,

I have made a first draft of division assignments.

You can view them in the column “Division – Draft 1”right here.

Rankings inside each division have not yet been drafted.

Please reply to this email immediately if you see any issues or have a good reason for wanting to change divisions from what’s drafted. (josh@pvinvite.org). Division change request will be accepted for the next 24 hours.

Also, while you’re looking at that sheet, please look over your team’s whole row to see if there is anything else you need to work on.

I am hoping to finalize everyone’s division AND ranking by this Sunday night. If all goes to plan, I’ll be able to release a finalized schedule by Monday night.

– Josh

ps. At this point, please DO NOT mail checks for housing or dinner payments. Send your payment in via PayPal. Info on how to do that is right here.

9 days ’till first pull!

I made a typo in the overall game schedule I sent out on 4/28. Last games on Sunday have a hard cap at 4:40pm. Key game-related timing info:

• Saturday and Sunday: Half of all teams will start their first game at 8am. The other half will start play at 9:30am.
• Saturday and Sunday: Half of all teams will have a last game that ends at 3:10. The other half will end play at 4:40pm. These times are the hard cap times. (Games could certainly go a few minutes past hard cap.)

Teams are doing a great job at rostering! All teams should look over their row on this spreadsheet and let me know immediately if they see anything that looks off.

Please make sure you post ALL of your game scores to scorereport.net.

Please make sure you complete the division selection form by Noon on Friday, May 5th.

Dinner payments and housing payments are due immediately. You cannot purchase food at the dinner. It must be paid for in the next couple days. Dinner costs $14 per person. Housing costs $52 per team. Info on how to make your payment is here. You can check the status of your dinner and housing payments on the team status sheet.

And now an important message about stewardship:

We are making extra efforts this year towards minimizing waste and environmental impact at the Pioneer Valley Invitational.  We will be sending around environmental ambassadors during the tournament to meet with your captains, coaches, and chaperones to support these efforts. 

We will be giving a Green Disc Award at the tournament’s end to the team who best exemplifies these goals:

FOOD: Please bring as little individually packaged food as possible.  Beyond what we are offering at the main tent for free, please bring big bags and boxes to share, (especially without plastic packaging if possible). Please empty your pizza boxes in the compost bins and recycle the cardboard, etc.. 

DRINKS: Please refrain from the use of single use bottles and cases of gatorade or water, whenever possible.  We will have plenty of water in coolers at the fields, and cold gatorade available continuously at tourney central.  We will also have reusable PVI water bottles for sale at the merch tent.  We hope to cut down on single use bottles at the tournament. 

TRASH/RECYCLING: Please do a trash sweep of your sideline each time you switch fields during the day.  At the end of each day, please bring trash/recycling bags to the dumpsters next to the main tent.  Please do not leave anything on the fields, including windblown tents.

COMPOST: Please put compostable food products in the green bags we will be distributing, or in the compost bins at tourney central (not in the trash). This will save our volunteers from having to sort trash at the end of the tournament.

CARPOOLING: If you can drive together, please do. The fewer cars and fuel, the better.

Together we can make PVI an example of how large youth sporting events can minimize waste and protect our environment for the benefit of our community and all living things. Thanks for your support and efforts towards this goal.

First pull is in a little over 2 weeks! Here’s what you need to know at this point:

At this point your paperwork should be 100% complete, or you must be very close to being complete. The online system gets locked on May 6th. Please make sure your rosters are PERFECT by then. The teams that have yet to start their online roster and/or have no chaperone added are listed below. All team’s can check the status of their items (as we see them in our systems) on this page. The teams listed below should reply to this email immediately and let us know when your roster is projected to be complete.

All teams should complete the division selection form by Noon on Friday, May 5th.

There is a speed limit of 15mph on Island Rd, the one and ONLY road leading into the Oxbow Marina, our field site. Please abide by this limit. Heck, go 10mph. I just drove the whole road several times a couple days ago at 10mph and each time it took 2.5 to 3 minutes. PLEASE GO SLOW.

Orders for Saturday night dinner tickets can still be made using this online form by May 1st. The Saturday night dinner will take place at Northampton HS.

We’re very happy to report that we are able to house all 17 teams that have requested housing! PVI’s housing director, Mary Clark, will be in touch very soon with housing information for each team. If you don’t hear from her by Friday, May 5th, or you have any immediate questions, please reach out to her at marylclark@gmail.com.

Also, we are now at our housing cap and can’t house any more teams. If you’re still in need of housing at this point, please check out our local guide page.

Please report all of your scores to scorereport.net. Please. We need the data. It’s crucial for the (basically impossible) pre-tournament ranking process.

Teams will be ranked on Friday evening, May 5th.

The overall competition schedule is listed below. There will be 6 rounds of play on Saturday and 6 on Sunday.

There will be no crossovers between divisions this year. You must place in the top 2 in your pool on Saturday to advance to championship bracket of your division.

Most teams will have 6 games. Very few may have 7.

The female-matching division of 24 teams will have an A division of 16 teams and a B division of 8 teams. Pools of 4 on Saturday, bracket play on Sunday.

The open division of 49 teams will have an A division of 16 teams, a B division of 16 teams, and a C division of 17 teams. Pools of 4 on Saturday, bracket play on Sunday. (C division will have one pool of 5.)

We’re projecting a total of 223 games will be played at the PVI2023. Cool.

Teams that have not started their rosters and/or have no chaperone listed:

Competition schedule:

Questions? Send them in ASAP!

See you soon.

Oh, and here’s what the fields currently look like 🙂

Today’s the paperwork due date! How’s your team’s paperwork going? We will be looking over everyone’s paperwork status in our systems this coming Monday. As long as you are already deep in the process, you’re all set. If you’re not far down the paperwork road… get on it. Now. Please. Background checks can take a while!

The dinner, housing, and rostering form has been temporarily reopened. If your team has yet to fill out this form, please fill it out by May 1st at the latest. At this point housing is not guaranteed, but dinner tickets are as long as you complete the form by May 1st.

And now a message from Tiina Booth:

Dear PVI Teams,

Greetings from the National Ultimate Training Camp! I usually visit teams at the PVI every year, dropping off a NUTC disc and stickers and chatting with players about our camp.

However, this year we may be sold out by the PVI. We are already 50% full, with campers from 13 different states plus Canada. Registration has only been open for 3 weeks. If you have players who love our sport, our camp will be perfect for them!

These are our July sessions:
Session A July 2-7
Session B July 9-14
Session C July 16-21

More info at www.NUTC.net

Scholarships are available. If you have any questions, please email us at NUTC.information@gmail.

John Rice from BUDA in Boston has a message to share:

I’m writing to let you know about a youth club tournament coming this summer in Amherst Massachusetts co-hosted by Valley Ultimate and BUDA that I’d love to invite your team(s) to attend.

We will be having the first “Northeastern’s” on July 22nd and 23rd in Granby Massachusetts (next door to Amherst & Northampton). 

The planning is still in early stages but we hope to have divisions for U20 open, gx, U17 open and gx as well as Mixed.

Right now we have commitments from BUDA (boston), Valley Ultimate (Amherst), and Maine Ultimate. We are in the outreach phase and hope to add a bunch more clubs as we proceed. We aim to make the tournament very affordable and fun for the players.

Please let me know if you think you might have interest.

ALSO – we would love to invite more Canadian and upstate NY teams. If any of you have contacts you could share along either of those lines (or for any clubs elsewhere too!) Please let me know.

If there are other people in your organizations I should be contacting instead please let me know!

Best regards,

John Rice
john.rice@buda.org
617-803-0174

See you all soon!

The snow is (almost done) and the sun is out, which means that spring ultimate has arrived! We can’t wait to host you in Northampton in May! Here’s what you need to know at this point:

If you have yet to send in your $525 bid fee, please do so ASAP. Please remember that bids are not locked in until your payment has arrived in Easthampton. Information covering how to submit bid fees is online here. You can check the status of your payment here.

We are one again able to provide a limited amount of housing with local hosts! Housing will cost $50 per team and priority will be given to teams that are coming in from far away. To be considered for housing, please fill out this form by April 1st. ALL teams, regardless of dinner or housing needs must fill out this form.

Please make sure you’re familiar with all of the paperwork you need to complete for the event. You can read all about that right here. Please do not wait to start your paperwork and remember that it must be complete by April 21st.