SC Report Aug01.2017
For my second installment, it seems appropriate to give you my views from the 40th IPSC Canada Nationals held in Calgary July19-22.17. It was another landmark match for both IPSC Canada and IPSC BC. The weather was smoky. In the road trip from Vancouver to Calgary, the forest fire smoke was always present but especially thick through Banff where the Rockies were virtually invisible. That’s tough to do with those mountains. Once we hit the exit to the range, smoke became better but still there.
The range was down along a dusty bumpy gravel road, no big surprises there, many ranges are. Range setup was wide spread and walking was a must. Lots of water, not so much food. They ran out of food 2 out of 3 days. Room for improvement there.
A lot of match reports go into great detail about stage setups, etc. etc. I am not going to bother you with that, talk to those of us who were there. We WILL tell you about the teeter totter stage which you NEVER want to emulate (ask Don Chang) and the, as they thought it was, 270 degree range but it wasn’t. Scary stuff. The strangest thing we saw was during the RO match when a “Temporary Safety Area”(don’t get me started about their Safe Area signs, many of which mysteriously ended up with a felt pen correction to Safety Area. That happens at a lot of nationals, hmmmm?:) which popped up like a mushroom on a range. The Range Master was made aware of this and, TA-DA! Like another mushroom, a real Safety Area appeared the next day.
There were some really well thought out short and medium courses and we, IPSC BC, need to move more in that direction with our course design. On some stages you spent more time moving than shooting, never a good idea in a pistol match. Remember the “S” in IPSC is “shooting”, not moving, running, lifting, balancing, etc. Our IPSC BC policy, Section 6 CoF Requirements, b.) i) reads, a) “It is recommended that: i) There be no more than three meters between shooting areas. If you are an RO you understand better than most new shooters how important that is to surviving a match to shoot or work your best without being exhausted at the end of the day. Match Directors(MD), pay attention for the coming season, please. Watch for more HR clarity and direction for the coming seasons.
Highlights from the results:
http://www.ipsc2017.com/results/
OPEN Division
1st Michael Lam Canadian National Champion (1st Canadian, 2nd OA)
2nd Don Chang (2nd Canadian, 3rd OA)
3rd Chris Yang (3rd Canadian, 4th OA)
6th John Simmons (6th Canadian, 7th OA)
STANDARD Division
7th Robert Caunt (7th Canadian, 8th OA)
10th Oleg Matveenko Jr. (10th Canadian, 11th OA)
PRODUCTION Division
☹ No top 10 finishers but Kam Yip at 17th, Mike McClelland at 18th and Curtis Young at 20th were our top 3 IPSC BC finishers.
CLASSIC Division
5th Randy Fisher (5th Canadian, 6th OA)
10th Brian McCoy (10th Canadian, 7th OA)
REVOLVER Division
1st Dom Piluso
3rd Jim Wilbur
2nd was a Jr. Lady at 83%. There are two areas we can look to develop, Jr. and Ladies.
If there had been something for 4th Super Senior, Open Division, I had it nailed. They didn’t but I still had it nailed☺
There was a Shoot Off event and many of our shooters made the Top 16 to qualify. As many of the Top 16 in a Division didn’t show up, the door opened for anyone with a gun to play. Oleg Jr. even went to Open after getting bumped in Standard and did OK. All our crew showed not only their ability to shoot but tremendous sportsmanship by shaking their opponents hands before and after the shoot regardless of how they did. Damn, you bunch make us proud!
The awards banquet had great food, well done by our hosts. But, as seems to happen too often, awards get bogged down. It is an area that needs guidance and simple to do as we find out at our major events here in BC. There is a script to follow that makes it flow very well. Ask and I will give you a copy.
I have to comment on a back step they made in prize awards. Eons ago, when guns were plentiful, prizes were awarded by finish. Top shooters got guns, I got a baseball hat and can of oil. Then, we figured out that the majority of shooters were buying guns for those who didn’t really need guns or encouragement to compete and gun sponsorships dried up. From there we developed the “everyone’s name in a hat, pick a prize, draw a name and that was your prize” process. Now everyone had a chance to get a top prize and were VERY encouraged to return. Personally, I believe that is the best method of prize awarding.
But, there were some very class acts at the nationals. The Open match winner, Miroslav Havlicek, gave the gun he won to the 1st Canadian in Open. That’s style! Matching Miroslav’s generosity, Production Division winner, Ben Stoeger, did the same for Alexandre Berdat, to Canadian. And finally, Jason Koon, sponsor Atlanta Arms, made it a complete wrap as well. We were fortunate to have such great athletes attend our event, thanks everyone.
There are many more stories but we will share them at a match some time.
Here are how our teams did:
Open Team 1st
Michael Lam
John Simmons
Mark Hamrol
Felix Ng
Classic Team 3rd
Randy Fisher
Brian McCoy
Brennan Sheremeto
Michael Chan
Standard Team 3rd
Robert Caunt
Oleg Matveenko Jr.
Sam Yu
Egan Wuth
Production Team 4th
Mike McClelland
Jon Price
Jeff Robison
When you see these people at matches, thank them for being great ambassadors for you and IPSC BC. These are the people who populate our qualifiers to qualify (doesn’t that make sense) to be on our teams. One of our goals for the BoD is to cultivate that process, mentor and promote all our members to play this great game we have.
Watch for more next time.
DVC
Murray “DOC” Gardner
Section Coordinator