Good luck to all travelling to Colorado to play in the Fireworks, Sparkler and Independence tournaments!
Safe travels!
PDad wrote:There are 3 events going on this week - Boulder IDT, TCS Fireworks and TCS Sparkler.
Boulder is very difficult to get into and their format is very straight forward - 6 pool games over 3 days to seed teams into 1 single elimination bracket.
TCS has blurred the line between Sparkler and Fireworks since they acquired the more highly-regarded Fireworks several years ago. Their format has evolved over recent years from straight forward pools seeding into different brackets into a very confusing mixture of divisions, pools and brackets. TCS uses a unique elimination format that begins with truncated 8-team double elimination brackets where final 2 teams from each are seeded into a championship single elimination bracket.
The top TCS bracket is the Super 48. All Power Pool teams are seeded into it along with just the top Supplemental Power Pool finishers. The Super 48 and Power Pools are "Fireworks Sparkler". There are separate Supplemental Pools for Fireworks and Sparkler as the non-qualifiers are seeded into other brackets specific to each.
All the Fireworks teams that didn't make it into the Super 48 are seeded into 1 set of TCS brackets.
Sparkler format varies by age group. 18U Supplemental Pool teams that didn't make it into the Super 48 (2nd-4th) are seeded with Open pool winners into the Mt. Elbert. The rest of the 18U Open teams are seeded into Longs Peak.
16U Supplemental Pool teams that didn't make it into the Super 48 (i,e, 3rd-4th) are seeded into the Elite Division. The 16U Open teams are seeded into brackets by their pool finish - Mt. Elbert (1st), Grays Peak (2nd), Longs Peak (3rd) and Horsetooth (4th).
The Kennedy Division is a recent addition where all teams are seeded into 1 set of TCS brackets. I don't know how it ranks versus Open Division. All elimination games are played at Kennedy and all pool games for each age group are played at one park, so teams should be able to choose hotels close to their parks.