Bethesda Premier Cup - What a joke

[Anonymous]

Ugh - on my phone. So many typos. We’re *not* a sac team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is U12. They changed the games so they only played 1 game on Saturday (with 2 games and the final on Sunday). And then just cancelled the whole thing.

I feel so bad for the teams that travelled here and paid for hotel rooms.

Most tournaments if they realize there may be very few games played and many out of town teams, make a call on Thursday before people travel and within the window that most people can cancel hotel rooms. The weather was not a surprise nor were the field conditions this year (or from experience prior years on these fields).

We also have a U12 and traveled from PA to this tournament. We are incredibly upset at Bethesda's tournament director, Brad Roos. It originally seemed like he was trying to get in front of this when he posted a message to the tournament website on Thursday, the first lines of which were:

"All grass fields have been completely saturated for most of the season and currently that continues to be the case. Just this past Monday and Tuesday we received over 2 inches of additional rain with more expected on Friday."

It is unclear to me whether Brad or anyone else at BSC walked the most saturated fields before making the call late Thursday/early Friday NOT to cancel any games. However, the message last night to our manager was that there was "standing water" on "nearly all fields" for the U12s. Brad is either incompetent at his job or, even worse, knew the grass fields were completely saturated late Thursday/early Friday and deliberately did not cancel any games before those of us from out of town had to incur significant costs traveling down to DC on Friday. My daughter and her teammates were in tears last night when told that the tournament was cancelled, and we are out several hundred dollars for this useless trip to DC. You can count us among the angry parents who will be quite vocal telling our club "never again" when it comes to the Premier Cup.

[Anonymous]

Our coach elected back in August not to have our team play this tournament. His exact comment was that the fields are not properly maintained (always muddy, frozen) and it doesn't provide a good developmental experience as a result.

We did it last year and it was a total mess--I am shocked nobody got hurt given field condition. So happy we are not playing this year.

[Anonymous]

Cannot agree more. DD (U17) was supposed to play one game each day, at 5 PM Thursday night we were alerted that they would only play 2 games and none on Friday. Her game on Saturday was late (ended at 10) and unbearably cold. Would rather have gone to Columbia tournament.

[Anonymous]

How did OBGC hold up? Playable?

[Anonymous]

BSC parents have been complaining about Muldoon for years. Maybe this will finally spur them to find some better fields for younger groups.

[Anonymous]

Fields were a muddy mess. Games were moved to 15 minute halves. Refs were terrible. For $1200(?) per team. What a total waste of time and money, and I feel worse for those who traveled here thinking this is an "elite" tournament. Of little consolation will be the speed camera ticket(s) when they get home.

With the millions of dollars invested in turf fields all over the place it is mind boggling that they are not used for tournaments like this. Whoever has the racket at Muldoon farm should be ashamed. And to the tournament directors, your having prioritized funnel cake concessions over player safety and a good experience just killed the future of this event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bethesda rapidly expanded this tournament over the past few years boasting of its size . Not only are the fields a complete mess, many of the other aspects are subpar. Compared to the true premier east coast tournaments, The tournament has minimal ref standards with refs often not knowing the rules for the age group. (Won’t get into quality of refs). The explanation is that the tournament is so large that you will get low quality. Fields are not marked either

Maybe instead of expanding the size of the tournament and increasing marketing, they should focus on a quality experience.


I did notice that some of the better DMV teams skipped this year in some of the younger age groups, so word is getting out. For all the teams that traveled, truly sorry.

What are the "true premier" east coast tournaments?

[Anonymous]

Jeff Cup

[Anonymous]

Wags

[Anonymous]

OBGC’s tourney over Labor Day is also very good. Hell, Discovery Cup and Arlington’s tourneys are better than Premier Cup, at least U-9 through U-12.

[Anonymous]

The lights went out at wootton causing a 2 hour delay to an hour delay on Saturday night.

[Anonymous]

Talking to many parents on different teams and they have all remarked that this year Bethesda has been a bit of an administrative nightmare (more so than in previous years).

[Anonymous]

Some just do it better, but you may have to travel to get it. Strikers do it well with Jeff Cup and Cap Fall Classic, the CASL tournament is run extremely well, and locally Arlington does a good one in Feb/March.

The comment stating that the goal for tournaments is to make money. Of course it is, but you still have to provide a product that is equivalent to the price.

[Anonymous]

Muldoon fields for the U13 girls were a mud pit with 1 game on Saturday and 2 games with 15 halves on Sunday. We drove down from NJ for this mess. Our club has said they will avoid this tournament next year