The last day and a half has seen some pretty big shake ups for the first SGL. I’m going to try and boil this down to a manageable size, with associated headings. It’s pretty important that you read this email.
Fields:
Yesterday, I went in to the Seattle P&R department to pay for our field reservations for the SGL. I was informed by the head of field reservations that “Championship soccer” (?) had had two solid weeks of rain outs, and that they were canceling the SGL reservations at Magnusson and Ballard to have room for make up games. No turf field site in the city would be available to us (and yes, I asked about each one).
Flustered, I made a ton of calls and visited a bunch of locations – and came up with few alternatives. The most viable of which was to move us indoors for the season.
So, the final field location will be the Arena Sports Complex in Magnusson Park. It’s two turf fields inside an old airplane hanger on the north side of Magnusson (next to the NOAA station). Full maps of this can now be found on the website at
http://seattlegoalty.com
What this means for the schedule:
Because of factors like a limited SGL budget and indoor field availability, rounds will now be 15 minutes each. Teams are guaranteed 3 games a night, and the dates WILL NOT CHANGE. We’re still on for Mondays in November (8,15,22,29) and the final tournament on Dec 4th.
However, the first round will now start at 6:45 PM on the nose, and the last round will end at 8:20 PM. There will be no margin for lateness for any team, any night. I will have a sample breakdown of the schedule for all format dorks on the website soon, and a full night by night schedule up by Saturday. If you take nothing else away from this section, it’s that every team has three games every SGL Monday.
What this means for you as a player:
- Playing indoors and on turf is awesome. The game moves much faster. Every throw is perfect and uncontested by the wind. On the last two Mondays of SGL, when it’s pissing rain and 32.3 degrees, you will be playing in short sleeves and shorts indoors – and you will be loving it.
- Games are shorter, and there will be a premium on smart subbing. Because the game is sped up, players will be expected to elevate their pace as well, and should think about pushing hard and subbing more often.</li>
- We cannot play in cleats. The turf is old school – like astroturf, and hard. Flats or turf cleats are not only recommended, but required. You will break your ankles in real cleats.
- Laying out is discouraged. The turf is hard. Falling is not an issue (3 of the captains field-tested this last night), but going full layout for a disc will get you bruised at best and broken at worst.
- Each of you will need to sign a waiver before playing. This is the ArenaSports house rule. I will be sending out a link with the waiver tomorrow so that you can print and sign it for next Monday.
I am sure there are a ton of questions regarding this information – and I am more than happy to field questions by email or phone over the next few days. Please check the FAQ section before reaching out to me, as I have put a lot of work into anticipating questions there.
Hope to see everyone at pickup tonight. (and I can answer more stuff there as well).
Best -
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