Hello Everyone, at this moment in time, I would like to bring to your attention a small adjustment to the first round of the playoffs that the competition committee proposed at the coach's meeting back in April. They were mandated with trying to figure out a way to shorten the first round, ensure that all games were relevant and important and to eliminate the need for any particular team to be required to play up to 5 games in order to advance. Their proposed solution was brought to the attention of all the coaches and the executive. It was debated, voted on and approved unanimously by all those present at the meeting. So this year, we will be adjusting the first round format accordingly. Here are the details:

Under the existing playoff format Round 1 requires a minimum of 17 games and a maximum of 23 games with 1 surviving team possibly playing 5 games. It also allows for games which are meaningless for one of the teams involved, thereby creating potential conflict situations (throwing games, not trying one’s hardest, etc).
The proposed revised format for Round 1 (below) would require a minimum of 17 games and a maximum of 20 games with 1 surviving team playing 4 games. There is no possibility for any meaning less games.Here is the New Format:
Best of Three (6 teams involved, 3 advance)
Series A:   Division 1  First Place   versus  Division 2  Seventh Place
Series B:   Division  2  First Place   versus  Division 1  Seventh Place
Series C:   Best Second Place team   versus   Worst Sixth Place team.
Round of 8  -- Must Win Twice to Advance  (8 teams involved, 5 advance)
8 teams involved are ranked 1 thru 8 based on Overall Season Standings
Game 1:   8th  versus  1st
Game 2:   7th  versus  2nd
Game 3:   6th versus   3rd
Game 4:   5th  versus   4th
Game 5:  Loser Game 1  versus  Loser  Game 4  (higher ranked team is Home team)  [Loser is eliminated - 2 losses]
Game 6:  Loser Game 2  versus  Loser  Game 3  (higher ranked team is Home team)  [Loser is eliminated - 2 losses]
Game 7:  Winner Game 1  versus  Winner Game 4   (higher ranked team is Home team)  [Winner Advances - 2 wins]
Game 8:  Winner Game 2  versus  Winner Game 3   (higher ranked team is Home team)  [Winner Advances - 2 wins]
Game 9:  Winner Game 5  versus  Loser Game 8   (higher ranked team is Home team)  [Winner Advances - 2 wins, 1 Loss]
Game 10:  Winner Game 6  versus  Loser Game 7   (higher ranked team is Home team)  [Winner Advances - 2 wins, 1 Loss]
Game 11:  Loser Game 9  versus  Loser Game 10  (higher ranked team is Home team)  [Winner Advances - 2 wins, 2 Losses] 

Loser of Game 11 is eliminated with 1 win 3 losses
END of ROUND 1

All the coaches and executive feel that this should further improve the level of excitement and relevance of the first round. Hope you all feel the same way! 

Welcome to another installment of, "What is going on in my League?"

Two major events have transpired since we last updated our blog. The coach's meeting came and went and the draft was held yesterday. Let me share some of the highlites from this year's events.

So what happens during the coach's meeting? This is where we set the ground rules of how the season will unfold. We discuss expectations, both from the coach's perspective towards the executive and vice versa. We hold a post-mortem of the previous season, what worked and what didn't, and most importantly what steps have been taken to better the league and avoid any pitfalls. The underlying theme is that the executives are just the care-takers of the KMSPL and in the end it is all of us who dictate what this league is all about. As trustees, the executive ALWAYS acts in a manner it feels is in the best interest of the league. The decisions are not always popular but are done to ensure the integrity of the league is always upheld. The ground rules that are set at the coach's meeting, alongside our constitution and rule book is (and always has been) the basis on which all decisions are build on.

One of the topics that was discussed at the meeting was how the draft would ufold.

These are the rules of engagement that were agreed upon for the remaining 12 rounds of the draft. These measaures were adopted on the premise and hope of speeding up the draft:

For rounds 3-8, each team was given 1 minute for them to announce and draft their player and for rounds 9-14 the teams were afforded 2 minutes per pick. Each team was also alloted 2 (1.5 minute) time-outs to be used at any point in the draft. Should a team's time have run out prior to it announcing a pick, they would have been penalized one spot in the rotation. Meaning that they will pick after the team slotted directly after them. We hoped by reducing the amount of time per pick and being more stringent on the alloted time, we could cut down on the duration of the draft. Which I believe was achieved. 

As far as the draft itself, it went very smoothly and in the end everyone was laughing, eating drinkng and having a great time. We held the rookie tryouts at 11:45, just prior to the draft and added 4 new players to our league roster. We managed to go through 12 rounds in just over 4 hours with almost no glitches. I would like to salute all of our coaches for respecting the process and ensuring that the draft went off without a hitch.

I would like to thank Rene Roy for setting up all the AV equipment, putting the music together, creating the timer and helping create a nice ambience for the event. Also, kudos to Andy Sher for putting together a wonderful calendar for our membership. He managed to imporve on last year's handout which was great to begin with. Pierre Hupe, John Chretien, Andy Sher, Neil and Frank for all the preparation and food. Thanks to everyone and let's have a wonderful 2010 season!

Hi Guys,

A lot has transpired since we last wrote to all of you. So we have some catching up to do. First off, for those who are curious, the new ratings are out. Just go to the link from the home page and enjoy. You will find the complete list of all 196 eligible players for 2010. We have 12 non-returning players from 2009, they are (Fitleberg, Lazzara, Pedicelli, Mike Chretien, Tony Stabile, Bouclin, Gilbert, Riley, Laliberte, Timotheatos, Kossek and Fiata). And they are to be replaced by 7 returning players (Harding, Larocque, Mitchell, McEniry, McLeod, Lee and Ciarla). And 5 additional players - all residents of Kirkland,  (Michael Tymchuk, Matt Bruno, Jason Pepper, Mario DeLuca and Mike Pasquini). Let's make sure we give them all a KMSPL welcome.

Second important note, there has been a lot of chatter about going to 16 teams this year. Just to shed some light on the matter, this was never a consideration by the executive for the upcoming season. While it might have been possible to go to 16 teams, we would have had to lower the number of players per team to 13 and we would have greatly depleted our spares list. As you are all well aware, without a healthy number of spares available to the league, we leave ourselves open to a shortage when it comes to crunch time. On top of that, many of our rules are predicated on having 14 players per team, these in turn would have needed to be re-examined.  We are not closing the door to 16 teams for future seasons but we would need to make sure that all the winning elements are in place. Meaning that the rules would have needed to be tweaked accordingly, a membership push would have needed to be put in place in order to ensure a healthy player and spare list, and all the other logistical issues would have already needed to be present (for example: sponsors, coaches, uniforms, etc..). 

And lastly, now that the ratings are out, our 14 coaches will go about the business of drafting their assistants on April 7th. Here is the initial order for the opening round of the draft: Groombridge, Fitzgerald, Semenchuk, Rochette, Spensieri, Binette, Sher, Corsi, O'Connor, Lavis, Leblanc, Sorin, Akzam and the last pick of the round goes to Lemay.

Let the predictions fly. This year's assistant round will prove to be an exciting and unpredictable exercise.

Can you believe that it is already February, cupid has come and gone, registration is in full swing (3 weeks remaining), the message board is buzzing about all that is the KMSPL and a sure sign that the season is fast approaching, the ratings committee has begun deliberating over the ratings.

One of the most hotly talked about topics in a long time was the proposed fence in left and center fields. First off, I could not believe the amount of participation that we received on this matter, a question that was posed in January and run through to February garnered over 125 votes! And here I thought no one visited the web site during the off-season. Of those, 116 were in favour of the idea for a fence. All I can say is thank you for your involvement and concern over league affairs.

As most of you already know, the request for the fence was denied by the city of Kirkland. City council felt that the building of the fence would limit and restrict the use of the field to softball only. While I would like to thank them for the consideration that they showed on this matter, I do not share that point of view. We pushed our point in front of council and managed to get this on their docket on two different occassions but to no avail. C'est la vie.

As we do every year, we put together various committees to help us with areas that are very important and crucial to the functioning of our organization. None more so than the high profile Ratings Committee. No other committee comes under more scrutiny than the folks who have the challenge of rating all our players in our league. There is no tougher job, open to second guessing and criticism in this league than this one. Let's support these guys as they do the best that they can.

Ratings Committee: Pierre Hupe, Joe Rainone, Mike Kennedy

We also have the Disciplinary Committee who are mandated with ensuring that the sanctity of our league in maintained and should any member curtail the rules or act in a manner that is unbecoming, they have the responsibility of proposing and handing down the appropriate punishment.

Discipline Committee: Ian McGregor, Steve Woodsworth and Rob Sonier.

The Competition committee consists of a set of league members that are mandated to look at different aspects of our game and league that can be improved. They then offer up recommendations to be considered by the executive and all the players in our league. This year they have been asked to try and find ways to condense the round robin portion of the playoffs by trying to find a more efficient tie breaking scenario. We'll see what comes of it. Members of the competition committee are: Howard Sorin, Al Groombridge, Joe Rainone, Bruce Hnatyshin and Rick Corsi.

Also, coming back this year as spare coordinator: Tony DeLuca.

It has been a very busy month since we last corresponded and I hope that this offers all of you an insight on what is going on in our league.

PS: Our golf tournament, due to course restrictions, will be held on the 18th of June and the Family BBQ day has now been moved to the 13th.

Things are falling into place for the 2010 season. We have now finalized our coaches for the upcoming season, made some tweaks to the schedule that should make things a little more interesting and settled on the dates for our various events.The operation is in full swing as we are purchasing all the equipment that we will need for this season, you know, the bats, balls, BBQs and bbq equipment. The individuals on the executive are now in the process of planning, reserving and leaving nothing to chance for all our fabulous events. So here are some of the highlites of the last couple of weeks:

• Registration is now open!
• June 11 - Golf tournament, same place, same time
• June 20 - Family BBQ day
• October 2- Awards night
• November 6- Banquet 
• November 8- AGM

The schedule for 2010 is now available (just click on schedule from the home page). You will find two little changes that we believe will make the start of the season and the family BBQ day more fun and interesting for everyone. As the season approaches, every player is thinking about the start of the season, that first pitch, first game, the anticipation. But every season for two teams, that was not the case. Their season started on the Tuesday or Wednesday, they miss out on the experience of opening day, that festive celebration of the start of the KMSPL season. So this year, on opening Sunday, there will be 7 games played, every team and every player (all 196), will get to see a pitch, swing the bat, eat some food and drink with their buddies. The same was true for the family BBQ day, there were always 2 teams that would miss out on our day. No food for them, no music, no celebrating with the rest of the league. So on June 20th of this year, you will also find all 14 teams on the schedule. Everyone gets to play on these two important and festive days of the season!

One more thing before announcing the coaches for 2010, we might have the opportunity of having the outfield fence extended from the current right field fence to enclose the whole outfield. It would finally be a real softball park, we can now, regrdless of the hitter, play the ball off the fence, no more running into the trees or directing traffic on a busy Sunday afternoon. The only hiccup is that the league, as we are the primary beneficiary, would need to pony up anywhere between $3K to $4K. Which essentially would be half the cost of the fence. The decision is all of ours of course and I will be posting the question on our website and hope that all of you take the time to answer us. Based on those results, we will decide if we ask the city to build it for us or not. We have reviewed our financials and seeing as we would offer to pay over a number of seasons, it would have little or no impact on our financial situation. Please share your thoughts with us. 

Coaches for 2010 are: Returning - Groombridge, Sher, Lemay, Rochette, O'Connor, Fitzgerald, Corsi, Semenchuk, Akzam, Spensieri and Lavis. New - Sorin, Binette and Leblanc. Until next time!