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! 

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!

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.

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.

• 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! 

Here are some of the important dates to keep in mind up to and including the start of the season:

Registration (electronically) runs from mid-January until March 13th, 3pm.*

Registartion forms will be emailed out to all players by the first week of February, must be completed and received at KMSPL box office no later than March 12th, midnight.*

Registration day at Holleffeur Chalet will take place on March 13th from 11am - 3pm.*

* Please note that any registrations received outside of these deadlines, will not be processed and deemed undelivered unless there are spots still open after the registration closes on March 13th at 3pm.

Coach's Meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 7th at Holleffeur.

Draft Day and rookie evaluation will take place at Holleffeur, on Saturday, April 24th.

And the season will open on Sunday, May 9th!

We will be getting back to you soon with all other related softball items as they get firmed up. In the meantime, I would like to leave you with some New year's quotes that I hope you find as amusing as I do:

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions. - Mark Twain

Youth is when you are allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to. - Bill Vaughan

The proper behaviour all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to. - PJ O'Rourke

New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. - James Agate

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. - Bill Vaughan

New Year's Day...now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. - Mark Twain

May your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions. - Joey Adams

Stay warm and until next time!!

For those who might not recall, the season started out very cold and rainy. In fact, for the first 6 weeks, we played ball games every Saturday night, to the chagrin of many! The warm weather never really came, it was only in August and most of September that we had nice weather but those long hot sunny Sundays eluded us all season. But no matter the weather, the games played on.

We held our annual golf tournament in June this year (in conjunction with the KOHL) as opposed to August in the hopes of having greater participation, to ensure a shotgun start and to promote camaraderie with our cousins of the KOHL. It was another unmitigated success, we had well over 100 golfers come out and play and from the feedback that we received, it was enjoyed by all.

After 5 months of softball, 250+ games, 800 cases of beer and tons of food, we crowned our champions, coached by Tony Spensieri, Remax/Morielli. The series between them and Dolce Vita was one for the ages, like 2 heavyweights battling it out, it went down to the last at bat to decide the outcome. Both teams are champions in their own right.

I would now like to share with all of you some of the main points from this year's AGM: We elected 2 executives, voted on 8 constitutional amendments and 24 rule proposals. There were 44 members present to help take on the difficult task of voting on all of these possible changes to our game. In the end we adopted a code of conduct and disciplinary guidelines that will better equip us moving forward and 1 rule change - outlining how the net is to be used by pitchers. All other adopted amendments pertained to house cleaning and language. For more detail to go the AGM page by clicking on the AGM button from the KMSPL web site.

Your new executive is the same as last year's, as Rene Roy was acclaimed as equipment manager (Nick Theo withdrew his candidature) and Andy Sher defeated Bob Mancini 23-19 with 2 abstentions for the position of VP.

The alternates for the 2010 season are (in order): Marc Rochette, Derek Dooley, Bob Mancini and Dave Lavis.   

So please everyone, have a happy and generous holiday season and you will be hearing from all of us very soon!

The coach's meeting has come and gone and the one thing that I can share is that beer was drank, bad food was consumed and oh so many bad jokes were uttered. So, what was the result of all this. Well, for the most part, most of it went according to plan:

Al renewed his vows with Guy, Frank chose the sweet swinging Doug Ellison, Neil picked his pal Homsy, Tony Campanelli teamed up with the power hitting RBI machine of last year (Dino DiPardo), Marc picked family with Ricciardi, Spensieri went for compatriot DiCrisio, Corsi for smooth fielding Ravenda, O'Connor for the power of James Pye, Andy goes to his sure thing Rainone, Dave Lavis picked up long-baller Timmons, Bob Argitis decided to go with youth, power and enthusiasm by taking Stacy Bousquet, Michel went for the turf muncher (I can cover all fields) Pierre Hupe, Paul Lemay went for quiet, reliable Pierre Travers and Joel, with the final pick, took slick hitting Howard Sorin. 

Team colours:

Al - Calzone

Frank - Aeromotion

Neil - Lerner Promotions

Tony C - Dolce Vita

Mark - IGA/Rochette

Tony S - Remax/Morielli
Rick - GMS Muffler

Kevin - La Trattoria

Andy - Johns

Dave - Image IT

Bob - Hannah Promotions

Michel - Dagwoods

Paul - Westmount Florist

Joel - The A-Team

All right everybody, don't forget to come out to our Rookie camp and draft day on April 25th. The evaluation camp will be held at Des Benevoles field and the draft this year is at Kirkland Arena, second floor. Hope to see everyone there.

I just thought it was time again to give you all an update on league affairs.  Ok so the players have registered and the list has been sent to all the coaches. Now everyone is preparing for the coaches meeting where the assistants will be picked, in essence, the first round of the draft. Like every year, there will surely be at least one surprise. What will make this year's draft that much more interesting, is that we will have about 20 rookies. These are players that will be given ratings on the day of the draft at the evaluation camp. With that many new faces, it will definately have an impact on the teams this year.

For those who might not be too familiar with what goes on at the coache's meeting, draft and rookie evaluation, let me shed some on light on that.  

On April 8th we will have our coache's meeting and that in effect is the kick-off to the season. It's at this meeting where the executive explains to all the coaches how the season will unfold. We will talk about all the events that will be going on, what is expected from alll the coaches, all the new rules and their impact on our game. We will explain to them how the draft will operate, so as they can be as prepared as possible. After all the operational aspects are taken care of, the coaches will then draw, raffle like, to see what team they will be representing this season. There is a smal break that allows the coaches to trade jerseys, should they wish. Some coaches try and negotiate to represent the jersey that has some meaning for them.

From there, the fun begins, the coaches will then pick their assistants. The pick goes according to rating, meaning that the lowest rated coach gets first pick and so on. In case of a tie, we have a very sophisticated tie-breaking system in place, we flip a coin to determine who picks ahead of the other. Here is the order by which the coaches will pick their assistants this year:

Al Groombridge - 9.75, Frank Fitzgerald - 10.25, Tony Campanelli and Neil Semechuk - 11.75 (coin toss), Marc Rochette - 13.00, Tony Spensieri - 14.00, Andy Sher - 16.00, Kevin O'Connor - 16.25, Rick Corsi - 16.75, Dave Lavis - 17.50, Michel Akzam - 18.75, Paul Lemay and Bob Argitis - 19.00 (coin toss), and finally Joel Fitleberg - 20.00.

The next important date on our calendar is April 25th, the evaluation camp and draft. On evaluation day, we ask that all new players come out and go through various exercises that will help the ratings committee along with the coaches rate the new players. All new players without ratings, MUST take part in this event, otherwise they will not be eligible to be drafted and play as a regular. After the camp, all coaches, executive and ratings committee members get together and hammer out ratings for these players. This has to happen quite fast, we only have about 1 hour and half between the end of the camp and the draft. 

The draft is one of my favourite days of the summer. It is always exciting, with all the coaches, sitting side-by-side with their assistants, coming up with all kinds of drafting startegies, each of them confident, that they will assemble the strongest team. There are 14 rounds, after each round, the cumulative ratings are tallied and the draft order is re-aligned depending on the total score of the players drafted. I encourage all of you who have never witnessed the draft to come out and watch the fun. There is always beer to be had, and you can follow the draft on the giant board. Watch how each coach tries to outsmart the rest of them. The great part is that every team that is picked that day, is going to win it all, the coach that drafted it is convinced of that.

Registration is over, and from the feedback that we have been getting, people are getting very impatient, wanting the season to start already. Well, we are close, first pitch of the year is on Sunday May 3rd at 10am!!

For those who might be curious, we will be putting up this year's schedule and player ratings in the coming days. I am sure that you are all wondering if your rating has changed, did it go up, down or just stay the same? It will all be revealed in short order.

Now that registration is closed, I thought that I would share some fun facts with all of you. Here is an interesting breakdown of our league:

The average age of a player in this league is 47 years old.

1% of our players were born in the 30s

8% were born in the 40s

30% in the 50s

46% in the 60s

12% in the 70s

2% in the 80s

Aside from Kirkland of course, where the grand majority of our players reside, the second highest number of players come from Pointe-Claire followed by Pierrefonds and thirdly Beaconsfield. With a single player coming from each of these municipalities: Pincourt, St-Hubert and Brossard. Our players truly represent every corner of this region!

A couple of changes to note: Dennis Timmons will be replaced as coach by Kevin O'Connor. Also, the coache's meeting will be moved to April 8th at Hollefeur and not April 7th as first indicated.

Very important: The rookie camp will be held at Park Des Benevoles on Elkas street and the draft will have a change of venue this year, it will be held at the Complexe Sportive (Kirkland Arena). 

Alright guys, start training for the upcoming season, we need to ensure that we keep those BBQ skills sharp. They say that most burger eating injuries happen early in the season, so please, start expanding those bellies! Until next time.