WTFL Wpg. Touch Football League - WTFL

25 Posts

lol... this is all so funny. i have tried to go without posting anything but have reached my point. First off stop comparing a rec touch football league to "any other league." Touch football is played for fun, when u cant play with friends because ur forced to decide between them that isnt fun. if u wanna start a professional touch football league okay maybe then itll work but that would kill prolly 95% of the teams an leave more ppl than that without a team. u would be left with an elite division and thats it. oh and if ur worried abou not having teams move up division its maybe because they dont want to. nothing wrong with top teams recruiting good players from lower teams, ive seen many amateur leagues like that. i especially like how the exec (volunteers that work in best interest of the league) came up with getting rid of the multi team rule. why the **** wasnt this idea presented at the agm that u forced team reps to attaend or else they wouldnt get their money. if u wanted to get rid of teams that bad because u didnt have refs (that actually wanted to be there not conscripted)then set a cap on teams. ya so what if one guy plays on 5 teams in the league and joe blow doesnt play on even one because his team didnt get in this year. guess what, there are other leagues. maybe make a waiting list for the next season if some teams drop out or break the rules you have possible replacements in line. i think my favorite line of why the league ran out of funding was that it spent money training refs. well why did u spend money on training refs that didnt want to ref. next time dont make conscript refs. conscription is bad and doest work anytime its enforced(history can teach u that). there are many ways to reduce the reffing work load, restricting the amount of teams, reducing the schedule(i hate playing the same teams 10 times in a season, gets really boring). oh, and how can u expect teams to move up divisions if they complain about seeing an elite player in a lower division. some advice for teams that complain about that, find a friend that can play sports. this rant should be good enough to last me a while. i just couldnt go any longer without posting anything.

#9

PS sacked

96 Posts

Paragraphs!

You are right. Touch football is for fun. If it wasn't fun, we wouldn't be playing. But also keep in mind, there are teams that do take it quite seriously too, traveling across Canada playing tournaments and each spending thousands of dollars every year to play.

The multi-team rule basically catered to us top tier teams, having access to all of the best players in the lower divisions. Was this right, well that's the question. Over the last few years, you've seen all 4 elite teams take players from the lower divisions, making them stronger and more competitive with the rest of Canada. But at who's expense? The lower teams basically are somewhat forced to stay in their lower divisions because of conflicts, preventing them from playing better teams, and ultimately move up if they could.

Then there's the argument of top notch players going down in divisions and playing, which is somewhat unethical too. When these teams win their divisions, they unfortunately can't progress to the next level either because of roster conflicts. And it's not fun for the teams who are indeed playing for "fun" to be facing guys that are more experienced and talented.

The arguments could be had back and forth who it benefits and who pays the price. Obviously the guys who played on a number of teams definitely felt victimized, as some of them started their own league. As a player in the elite division, the thought of a 4 team division in elite forever is quite sad. As things were formatted, that's basically how it was going to be for a long time seeing as no team really had the opportunity to advance.

That's my 2 cents anyways. The politics in touch football in this city are absolutely pathetic and all parties should be ashamed of themselves. I've never been not looking forward to a football season like I have this year. Quite sad.

112 Posts

Completely agree with your comments Jkull.

44 Posts

Jeff,

You are 100% correct, especially your last two paragraphs.

This league endured the multi team rule for many years and as you say there were pros and cons. Usually, whether it be in business or sport you want to pattern yourself after the best. In my opinion, no league does it better than the one in Ottawa or all of Ontario for that matter....and how may leagues do they have in each jurisdiction? You don't need a bunch of fingers and toes to figure that one out.

So now we have what,4 leagues which will make us the laughing stock of any players checking our website from other provinces. And try to explain that one to anyone who asks from say TFont or even Regina for that matter.

I say we try for a fifth league and the reason is I think offside penalties should be 6 yards and not 5.

Give me a break. And my question to all those teams that have changed allegiances would be whether you have truly thought this through. I would suggest you really think hard about what you are doing before you play one down this year.

Jeff, again you are 100% correct in your analysis and you are objective as well; no one can argue.

There is a real irony about it to if you look real close......anyone want to venture a guess at what it is?

Oh and Jeff, I don't like the color of your uniforms so I am going to start a new league...make that 6 now in the city.

It simply leaves me shaking my head; haven't seen anything like it in over 20 years of playing in this league.

40 Posts

The Cobras have decided to move to another league because of the multi-team rule. We had three players on our team in a higher division (not much higher), who went to those teams after playing with us. But, if forced to choose, would have left the Cobras with an insufficient number of players for a team, given our various schedules.

We loved the W. We would have continued playing in the W if we felt we had an option. Our desire to continue playing as the team we've loved outweighed our loyalty to the W, though. It wasn't a lightly made decision, that's for sure. We had a great rapport with the refs, enjoyed the other teams, and preferred the fields (yes, it's true).

That's our story, and maybe it's another team's story. But it isn't one borne out of resentment or bitterness or pettiness; we wanted to stay a team and play some football.

5 Posts

Touch fb is probably the only sport where players are allowed to play for multiple teams that might play each other. How many years was the multi-team rule in effect? 5?...the league survived for 20+ years without it. If you talk to players from other provinces they just shake their heads.

5 Posts

Guys and gals. I don't understand the bitterness. From what I see this is what was expected. The multi-team players were told if they wanted to play more football with buddies who were not going to or not able to play in other higher divisions, they should play elsewhere... so they did.

It seems like the teams in the other leagues are made up by multiteam players or teams such as the Cobras who would lose some players to higher division teams and thus not be allowed to play in the W. In regards to other rec leagues... spongee.. rec hockey... v-ball.. ultimate frisbee.. do allow players to play on multiple teams.

In fact, the UTFL who does allow multiteam players has been doing so successfully for years.

I was also there before the Multi-team rule was integrated... and I don't remember many teams moving up. In fact, I saw lower division teams disintegrate as the best players on these teams were taken by the higher division teams. Teams that didn't want this fate decided to play elsewhere.

I can understand losing some refs and some teams that don't have anything to do with the Multiteam rule but they are intelligent people who made a decision in the free market and decided against the W for whatever reason. Examples are the Outsider's and the Woody's.

Guys it is simpler now.... everyone in the W is playing on one team. Hopefully it helps the teams and players in div A,B,C,D get better (if they even have aspirations of moving up divisions) or enjoy playing.

And trust me Kully... I am not looking forward to running into each other 6 games a year... assuming there are not going to be crossovers... which I think was not popular in some circles.

Jim, you're alive!!! Good to see you back for another year.

Politics suck.

Third post in 17 years... someone congratulate me.

Kanwal.

679 Posts

Please don't speak for the outsiders. You don't have a clue.

30 Posts

Kanwal had it dead on. There is no reson for bitterness.

Ways this all could have been avoided;
1- cap number of teams
2- maybe put this multi team thing to a vote, as was also mentioned above
3- only one team per player at start of league play, and anyone wanting to join a second team must have the request approved by league ( has worked in utfl for years)

p.s. congrats Kanwal.

679 Posts

Denying a team entry into the league, but still allowing others to play on multiple teams doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. How do you determine the cap structure? Do you just allow returning teams in, but new teams are locked out? What determines a returning team, just the same name, or X number of the same players? I could go on and on, but don't think this hasn't been brought up. If you have a good idea for a cap solution, I'd like to hear about it.

To vote in something at the AGM, a member team needs to make a motion, another team needs to second it, and then the vote occurs. There was nothing stopping any team from making such a motion. Just thought I'd clarify that since there seems to be some confusion.

12 Posts

the woodys left? what the hell, half the reason we stayed (dogg pound) was to get another shot at them. after losing in both winter and regular league last year we needed to avenge ourselves. curses. alright vipers it's up to you to beat us in close games from now on, lol.

but really, as far as the league stuff goes, the quality of the football is what matters most to me. when we registered we were really excited about playing a division up. we want to be a better football team and the only way to do that is to play better teams. now it seems the divisions have all been mashed together into two possibly uneven divisions and many of our favorite teams to play (woodys, ninja malitia, etc.) seems to have left. i'm not saying the competition won't be good. teams that were in lower divisions last year may well kick our butts, but i'll have to admit, right now, i'm a little worried.

we joined the w because it was the best league in the city. it offered us the best competition and most fun football experience at our level. if it continues to do that, we'll be back year after year. however, if this split and animosity over a rule change changes that, i can't be certain. it's really a wait and see thing. i just hope everyone can keep the football first, cause that should be what these leagues are about in the first place. just my two cents. take care all.

j

5 Posts

Again, Marc... this isn't about bitterness. You're right, I don't have a clue. Like my post said... the Outsiders and Woody's left for "whatever reason." I don't pretend to speak for the Outsiders or know what those reasons are nor do I or anybody else need to know. Nobody should have to justify their reason for wanting to play football wherever they want.

The good in all of this is that we do have a passion for football and rec sports in this province that is second to no other province. As for the Ottawa and Ontario thing, these teams play in Trillion Tour tournaments for a majority of weekends with a mixture or multiple players from different teams. In essence they have Multiteam players playing every weekend. If we tried that here, people would be complaining about weekend games during our cottage country season. In fact, our teams that have ventured to the National championships that do have multiteam players on them (ie. Assassins, Avengers, and Eagles) have fared and competed well.

These are just my two cents. Sorry, I'm off for a week, was getting a bit bored and I just couldn't pass up a good conversation. I'll be quiet now.

Kanwal.

112 Posts

What's wrong with having a team cap per division of 8 teams.
Elite always stay the same at 4 anyway. Div 1 is much the same. Div 2-4 never have more than 7 Teams in the past anyway. Div 5-6 would fit the cap for 8 teams a piece, and keep the REC div for new teams or teams that are still early developing.

Cap how many teams a player can be on at any one point in time. Player can be on no more than 2 teams in the year. Teams can have no more than 1 higher division player on their roster. That way if they move up to a division where one of their players is on an opposing team, they lost that player but the team isn't much affected by the move up. (One player does not a team make)
Maybe put a limit on how far down a player can go down if they are playing multiple teams. Ie DIV1 guy probably shouldn't be playing on a Rec League team. (I dunno i'm just babbling thing out at this point)

That's just my view. Does it work? Does it satisfy most people? Who knows? I suspect those who play on like 3 teams would be unhappy but how many play on 3 teams? I would suspect those would be an outlier overall.

679 Posts

For this suggestion:
"Teams can have no more than 1 higher division player on their roster."

I think that would still cause most teams that use multi-team players to want to go elsewhere. If you are using 3 multi-team guys, how do you cut 2?

For fun, I put up a little graph of how the each team links to each other with the mult-team players. It's from last year:

http://wtfl.ca/league_file/file_name/331/player_graph.png

It's also available under the "Forms and Files" section on the left hand side. Each line represents 1 player who played on both teams. There are probably a few lines in error there, but for the most part it should be fairly accurate. The teams that folded mid-season last year were removed from the graph.

679 Posts

To answer a few of the other comments:

Capping 8 teams per division would probably make more sense with 7 or 10 per division if you want to have a balanced 18 game schedule. Capping the division to 7 teams but having 12 divisions doesn't get us anywhere in the grand scheme though (field and ref limits).

Having a limit of 2 teams per player doesn't help much. The vast majority of multi-team players only do 2 teams in the W.

For the limit on how far a guy can go down, I think position also comes into play. A div 1 receiver who wants to try out QB for the first time, would probably be a rec level QB in most cases. Of course this was part of the original intent of the rule along with players trying to help others get better. Like anything else, there is a debate of whether this actually occurs.

Another thing to consider is that the more restrictions you put on the multi-team rule, the more things have to be watched and enforced. That means even more work then it already is.

For anybody that says "we had enough refs last year" you obviously were not at the 2nd ref draft. People were taking way more shifts then they obviously wanted to do, and the league definitely thanks them for doing so. People didn't want to have conscripted refs but they want 3 refs at all the games. I also love cake (which is obvious) and love to eat it too (also obvious).

p.s. I'm not bitter, I'd just prefer people who don't use my team as a defense to their point, without knowing the facts. Other than that, please keep the comments coming! Discussion on the website is more interesting than no discussion, even if this has all been discussed before :)

20 Posts

That Graph looks like a sask. family tree it goes around so much.

679 Posts

Owen, it "goes around" almost as much as your mom.

Sask 1 - Owen 1

132 Posts

Kanwal can't speak for the Woody's either. We would have preferred to stay in the W. "Intelligence" would dictate that teams should stay in the W. But since this is isn't about bitterness, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. :-)

5 Posts

I apologize for using your teams. My point was some teams "left for whatever reasons." Again, no one but the teams themselves need to know that reason. I only know they left.

I used the aforementioned teams as examples of this, not to delve into their reasons. That is your business.

Once again, the opinions voiced by me represent only my opinion not the opinions of any other team or individual. They do not represent the opinions of the Woody's and the Outsiders nor do I speak for these teams.

Alright stop it guys... I got important TV watching to do.

See you on the fields.

Kanwal. I'm bitter.

132 Posts

No prob Kanwal. You do realize this is your 3rd post in one thread....

112 Posts

Easy just cut 2. If they move up then the 3 would have to go anyway. if a team really wanted to move up, they would evolve/advance out of the need to have upper division players.

As far as the DIV1 player going to Rec level to try QBing example, that would be a case where it would have to pass executive ruling to determine if it is valid or not. I believe similar rules exist in many other leagues.

679 Posts

The limit of 1 has been proposed before in meetings. It didn't go over well. People don't like cutting players.

112 Posts

babies

25 Posts

hi kanwal. how are u doing? you know what buddy its okay to be bitter. im bitter about how some ppl jump around my questions.
for exapmle: "To vote in something at the AGM, a member team needs to make a motion, another team needs to second it, and then the vote occurs. There was nothing stopping any team from making such a motion. Just thought I'd clarify that since there seems to be some confusion." EXACTLY MY POINT. so back to my question - why didnt anyone bring up the multiteam rule at the agm? instead the exec voted on it behind closed doors without a care of what teams in the league thought(asking a couple bias opinions dont count).
There are so many simple solutions that can govern the multiteam status of a player but instead the league took the easy way out and decided to get rid of any teams that incorporate it. a few solutions have been mentioned but it was obvious that the league isnt concerned with those because anyone can think of 10 viable solutions if they actually want to consider them.

PS two quick things...
one- the arrow in that graph from the avengers to air assault is goin the wrong way (i would know)
two- bye kanwal hope u enjoy your time off

132 Posts

You were a member of the WTFL weren't you? Did you not attend the AGM? Therefore you could have made the motion at the AGM. Not sure why somebody else has to do it. And rather than complain about things, why not offer your 10 solutions to the league and your services to help govern it. I would be interested in hearing your solutions on how to keep the MTP rule.

12 Posts

on an aside, captainwoody, shoot me an email, let me know what happened. if you'd like to share it, we at dogg pound would love to know what happened. we're really gonna miss playing you guys. you were a good bunch and you really did play into our decision of what league to play in. take care.

j

25 Posts

Our team moved.
Reasons...multi team rule.
Both Drew and Damian played on a higher division team so we wouldn't have had those players in the W. Damian and I have been playing together for years (with the exception of the Glen Dyck era....short but painful) and in order for us to continue to play together we needed to change leagues.
I'll miss playing teams like Dogg Pound and Woody's as we've played against them for years and have a lot of respect for those teams.

I spoke to marc about this, and even mentioned that you could have a "cap" if you assigned value to higher division teams.
Example....
If you have 5 divisions, then the top division player is worth 5 points to a 5th division team, 4 points to a 4th division team, 3 to a 3rd, 2 to a 2nd. Basically, the bigger the separation of skill between the team and the higher player, the more that player counts towards a "cap" so to speak.
So if 3 first div players want to play on a 2nd div team, the total against the cap is 6 points.
Those same players on a 5th division team count 15 points.
Figure at least it would put some balance on the amount of higher division players playing on lower teams.
You could also work it the other way where you got points added to your cap if you brought players up from the lower division to play on your team.
You would only get those points though if that player continued to play on his lower division team. This would help in developement.

Now this may all be bunk, but I'm just trying to find a creative way to find a balance between "none" and "unmanaged".

I miss some of the teams in the W, for sure, but will admit that we have had 3 games in the "other" league that were down to the last play of the game in 2 of them and the other was pretty close to the same.

Where did the Woody's go to? See they aren't on here anymore?

1155 Posts

Multi team rule is simple.

1.) Reduce the number of guys that go down. Make it two guys not three. (Three guys can play catch with each other and potentially leave everyone else out and dominate. This situation has happened 2x in the past 5 years in playoffs.) Two guys?? makes it a bit more difficult. Still allows multi-teams, plus lower skilled players still play an integral part of the strategy. Win-Win situation.

2.) Limit multi-team players to top 3 (or 4?) divisions. A natural progression in life and maybe a sports league is for a team to try and improve? Create the environment (policy) that encourages it,and a need for the multi-team player. Teams not interested in "competition" but merely "recreation" wouldn't need 2 Upper div guys. If they got competitive, move up a division , get the extra 2 Upper guys and start competing, but still bulding with what the existing roster was.

I have played sports just for recreation/fun, and the score wasn't the biggest thing. Playing with my friends, having fun, getting some exercise and socialzing after, were more important.

3.) "League exception" policy: If a team in divs 4- ? want an Upper guy to teach/coach,.... allow it with approval from the league exec. One guy can be super, but he'd have to involve the others to make the team better. And that would be what it's all about.

4.) Get rid of hidden agendas.

Simple.

13 Posts

This league as well as other leagues is for fun. I felt the league was alot less fun for alot of teams and players with the multi-team rule. The other sport leagues do not allow muti-team rules and their leagues thrive. All these stipulations to multi-team rules are complicated and take far too much time and effort to implement, remember this is the only touch football league that is run by voluneers.

As far as I see it, now, everyone has their way. Play on one team in the WTFL and on as many teams as you want in the PIT and the Utfl.

The most simple solution is to have no multi-team players allowed. This league did very well before the multi-team rule began, I feel it is better this year and my prediction is that it will continue to thrive.

5 Posts

No reason you couldn't put one team in the W. As Andy said the league operated for nearly 30 years without it.