(this is pasted from an email Shanti sent on 2021-01-17)

Social Team Leagues

Frequency

• Ideally we run these twice per year to compliment the Interclub season.

• Once in the Spring after Interclub finishes but ideally ending before start of Dec as participation really drops off by then.

• Once before Autumn Interclub starts. Typically good to kick this off to coincide with schools starting up again (early Feb) to allow for 5 to 6 weeks of play before Interclub starts.

Cost

• $10 for members and $35 for non-members.

• Non-members are welcome but priority should really be given to our own club members. We’ve never turned anyone away however.

• Fees allow for the purchase of food on the last night, cover balls and leave some left over as a contribution back to the club.

• Note – we charged more in the past ($25/$40) and did a free drink for each person, pizza & salad and prizes but upon reflection and discussion with club & squash captain, decided it was better to keep it really inexpensive for members since we all pay a membership fee – the main driver for the team leagues are club spirit, encouraging participation for all (not just the super competitive) and most of all, fun 😊

Format

• Number of weeks and number of registrations will ultimately influence the play format.

• All 4 courts get booked out (speak with Club Captain or Squash Captain for help to book if needed).

• Teams should be 4–6 players, meaning 4–6 games a night.

• The number of teams will depend on the number of weeks the competition runs:

  • 4 teams → 4 draw → 3 weeks
  • 5 teams → 5 draw → 4 weeks
  • 6 teams → 6 draw → 5 weeks (or 3 weeks with type B/C)
  • 8 teams → 8 draw → 7 weeks, or 3 weeks Swiss

• If numbers don’t work out, we try to encourage a few more players we know to register, speak to those who are reserves but can maybe play most nights or if all else fails, see if a few players want to play twice

• Book courts out from 6:15pm.

• 6:15 to 6:30 setup / optional warmup – not necessary but helps things run smoother

• 6:30pm start

• 9 to 9:30pm finish (most courts will be done by 9, but good to keep a few til 9:30)

• Games are not for points

• Ideally every player and every team get to play each night

• Depending on number of players per team, can choose from the following:

  • Best of 5 (takes the longest, preferred by most but not required)

  • 3 games (this works quite well time wise, especially if more than 4 players per team)

  • Best of 3 (fastest time wise but often over too quickly for lower graded players)

TournamentControl

The way to put this into TournamentControl is by creating a div for every player in a team, i.e. if teams are 5 players, create 5 divs. In each div, there'll then be all the players at that seed from all the teams, and now it's just a round-robin within each div.

It's a bit finnicky to get this set up because you basically have to hand-craft an iSquash draws export, but it's doable…

Last Night : Food, drinks & recognition

On the last night, we encourage people to stay around after the games finish for food and drinks along with recognizing team results (placement based on team performance throughout the league)

• Pizza is usually the easiest and drinks from the bar.

• The organizer(s) usually say a few words and announce the team results

• Generally no prizes but can usually give away a few free drinks or something similar

  • Last round we did free drink for members of team with best spirit

  • Teams were given a colour and one team in particular made a good effort each week to dress in their colour

• Try to encourage team support and player feedback for the newer players

• We have tried getting some dress-up / team spirit going with limited success

• I think the longer we stick with this, the more people will join in