Potentially in the future, the Cap City Classic can be moved to a different date by the Metro organizers so that Metro teams can play in the Triple Crown NIT. It waits to be seen.

Happy Friday, everyone.!!!!

Anonymous wrote:No one thinks there’s a literal smoke-filled room with villains twirling mustaches. It’s much simpler: when the host club prioritizes this over Triple Crown (for valid historical reasons), then seeds itself high at its own event (don’t kid yourself that it’s not a Metro event), and the founder’s kid is front and center on social, the “optics” do the heavy lifting.

And yes, the best teams end up in gold, especially when a chunk of the actual other national contenders are in Kansas City. So it’s dominating a field that thinned itself out.

Metro regionals not sweeping lower divisions isn’t the gotcha you think it is. Even a homer tournament can’t manufacture talent across that many teams.

You're 100% correct that CHC is not a particularly competitive tournament. And the reason Metro is invited to play in Triple Crown is because they are a highly ranked club, based pretty much exclusively on the performance of the Travel teams. That's why I don't understand why every year there are rumblings about conspiracies to rig the tournament in favor of Metro. The Metro Travel teams should always be in contention to win most of the open divisions. The Metro Travel teams should be seeded highly because they are amongst the best teams inthe tournament - that's how seeding works.

As far as teams from local clubs not getting into the tournament in favor of teams that have to travel (and which generate hotel revenue), that is an unfortunate side effect of the economics of running a big tournament. On the bright side, it is somewhat nice though to have a different group of clubs to play against than you see regionally. For teams that aren't going to multiple qualifiers, it's a chance for the CHRVA teams that do get in to play some different competition. And I think the shift of CHC from being a large mostly regional tournament is one of the reasons CHRVA started having their "Power League" tournaments - to allow larger numbers of mostly regional teams to play in a multiday format https://www.chrva.org/page/show/6330580-girls-power-league.

We can debate the team acceptance criteria and pool seeding but these are not unique to tournaments the size and popularity of CHC.

As a person who will be attending in support of a "local" team I'll do my best to welcome the out-of-towners. The clubs coming from other states/countries have nothing to do with how the tourney organizes itself, most want to enjoy the Nation's Capitol and I can chip in by being a good representative of the DMV.

Anonymous wrote:No one thinks there’s a literal smoke-filled room with villains twirling mustaches. It’s much simpler: when the host club prioritizes this over Triple Crown (for valid historical reasons), then seeds itself high at its own event (don’t kid yourself that it’s not a Metro event), and the founder’s kid is front and center on social, the “optics” do the heavy lifting.

And yes, the best teams end up in gold, especially when a chunk of the actual other national contenders are in Kansas City. So it’s dominating a field that thinned itself out.

Metro regionals not sweeping lower divisions isn’t the gotcha you think it is. Even a homer tournament can’t manufacture talent across that many teams.

Over the last decade at least Cap Hill hasn't been a tournament that draws national contenders. This was true even when Triple Crown wasn't that big of a tournament and it took a while for Triple Crown to get to the size it is now. Cap Hill has historically been a good "super-regional" tournament that drew a large number of CHRVA teams as well as a reasonable number of teams from adjoining regions. That's what made it successful. Its disappointing they've moved away from what made it great while simultaneously lowering the competition level.


For seeding the easiest way to figure out if Metro teams are being favored is to compare their rankings right now to the pool seeding they receive this weekend. None of the Central, East, or South U13-U17 teams are ranked above 1500. Some are in the 3000-4500 range which would place have them seeded 4th in pools at most tournaments and near the bottom overall seeds. If those teams are seeded 2nd or higher in their pools, then there's likely some kind of bias in the process.

For example, in U14 Metro South PW & FX are ranked 4536 and 4540, there are only a couple CHRVA teams lower than them in the 14 club division. In U15 Metro South PW is #4257, which appears to be lower than all but a few teams in the 15 club division. In U16 Metro North is currently #3853, which should have them at or near the last seed in the Patriot division.

No one thinks there’s a literal smoke-filled room with villains twirling mustaches. It’s much simpler: when the host club prioritizes this over Triple Crown (for valid historical reasons), then seeds itself high at its own event (don’t kid yourself that it’s not a Metro event), and the founder’s kid is front and center on social, the “optics” do the heavy lifting.

And yes, the best teams end up in gold, especially when a chunk of the actual other national contenders are in Kansas City. So it’s dominating a field that thinned itself out.

Metro regionals not sweeping lower divisions isn’t the gotcha you think it is. Even a homer tournament can’t manufacture talent across that many teams.

Anonymous wrote:Ahh yes, the wonderful privilege of paying a cover charge to watch my daughter do something I’ve already paid a large sum of money for. The atmosphere of constant whistling, blazing fluorescent lighting, kids “practicing” off the court sending balls into the back of unsuspecting parents heads is super lovely. The filthy floors and bathrooms always let me know the additional charge is making the special extra touches possible.
Can’t wait.

Exhausting

I went back to see what I paid for CHC weekend passes in previous years:

2023: $50 each
2024: (Did not attend)
2025: $60
2026: $70

...

As for getting more CHRVA teams at Triple Crown, clubs basically have to be in the top-100 nationally to be invited (https://www.tcvolleyballnit.com/invitation-protocols). Metro and Paramount are the only local clubs that make that list. I think this is Paramount's third year going to Kansas City. I wonder if Blue Ridge could make it to that level if they got serious about accepting USAV bids (non-Open) and do well nationally. I don't know if there are more than 5 or so clubs in the Northeast that would make it on the invite list.

...

What I do not recall is whether there have been qualifiers on Presidents Day weekend in the past. There are two 18s qualifiers this upcoming weekend. In prior years, I think this weekend was the first were college coaches to attend tournaments for recruiting purposes. With the new NCAA rules, I believe coaches can now start attending events as early as MLK weekend. FWIW, it's not like the transfer portal has blown up the entire process of recruiting non-blue-chip kids out of high school (for any sport).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe Paramount is the only local team invited to Triple Crown NIT while other teams like VA Elite, American, Vienna Elite, VA Jrs, Blue Ridge, Metro, MD Jrs, MVSA, etc play in the Capitol Hill Classic.

Good luck to all these teams competing this weekend.

I wish more teams went to Triple Crown NIT - Cap Classic is stacked for Metro to win the divisions and it drives me crazy. This is our 6th year and year and year it's the same story... Metro players and teams just so happen to have the easier brackets and seems to win "best players" when they actually aren't.

I agree it would be more appropriate for Metro Travel teams to go to Triple Crown, but whether due to some contractual arrangement or loyalty to the Goldbergs, most Metro teams are at Capitol Hill. But the reality is that Metro is the only club invited to Triple Crown that attends Capitol Hill instead. Historically, Metro and Circle City (from Indianapolis) are the only major clubs invited to TC that don't attend.

I don't agree that the CHC seeding is done to somehow stack the deck in favor of the Metro Travel teams. The Open divisions have between 48 and 64 teams in them, meaning there are between 12 or 16 first round pools on Saturday. It would be nearly impossible to predict the the outcomes of all of those matches to insure that Metro had the easiest path to the gold medal match. Yes, Metro teams are often the first seed in most age groups, but not always. In my opinion that's because they are usually the strongest teams. Results from qualifiers and other tournaments throughout the season generally validate that to be true. It would be dishonest to suggest that a Metro Travel team shouldn't be among the top seeds in their age/division at Cap Hill. There will always be disagreements about seeding but it's usually outside of the top tier of teams. It's really hard to seed a tournament with teams from all over the country this early in the season, particularly in the middle of divisions - a team being a 2 seed versus a 3 seed in their day 1 pool can have a real impact on the outcome, but how do you decide how to seed teams ranked between 500 and 1000 in AES? AES is an imperfect system on its best day, and this early in the season there just isn't enough data to do an accurate comparison. Those 2 and 3 seeds in the day 1 pools are where a lot of movement can happen that impacts the end results, but that does not usually involve the top teams. Unfortunately in a 3-day tournament, if you don't make it to the top half after day 1 (coming in 1st or 2nd in your pool) there isn't a way to fight your way back up to a higher finish. But that's an issue for all tournaments formatted like CHC - there just aren't enough matches to allow for a team to have a bad first day and then recover.

In my 8 years of attending Capitol Hill, the best teams are generally in the gold bracket on day 3 and they have to beat the other top teams if they want a medal. Of course there are upsets on days 1 and 2, but that's sports. And if it really was possible to "rig" the tournament for a particular club, why aren't Metro regional teams winning the lower divisions?

In terms of the best player awards, your complaint isn't unique to Capitol Hill. Almost every tournament that gives out these kinds of awards selects the players from the top few finishers at the tournament, which for Cap Hill (in which Metro historically wins a majority of the open divisions) means a lot of awards will go to Metro players. Is it possible that the "best setter" or "best server" were on teams that didn't make the gold bracket? Absolutely, but I don't know of any tournament that regularly hands out awards to players on teams outside the top finishers.

Anonymous wrote:I believe Paramount is the only local team invited to Triple Crown NIT while other teams like VA Elite, American, Vienna Elite, VA Jrs, Blue Ridge, Metro, MD Jrs, MVSA, etc play in the Capitol Hill Classic.

Good luck to all these teams competing this weekend.

I wish more teams went to Triple Crown NIT - Cap Classic is stacked for Metro to win the divisions and it drives me crazy. This is our 6th year and year and year it's the same story... Metro players and teams just so happen to have the easier brackets and seems to win "best players" when they actually aren't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe Paramount is the only local team invited to Triple Crown NIT while other teams like VA Elite, American, Vienna Elite, VA Jrs, Blue Ridge, Metro, MD Jrs, MVSA, etc play in the Capitol Hill Classic.

Good luck to all these teams competing this weekend.

Metro gets invited to Triple Crown too, but turns it down because they're committed to CHC in honor of Barry Goldberg.

I don't think it's a goodwill gesture. Metro would rather be at Triple Crown. It's a contractual thing. When Barry sold the club to the current Director in 2015 (for those who don't know, Barry started Metro in 1999 and grew it into the most dominant club in the area, before selling it in 2015), part of the deal was the new director had to guarantee that Metro's teams would always participate in Cap Classic.

This is probably the case, but declining and waitlisting many better CHRVA teams has the impact of making it come across as Metro stacking the tournament for Metro. That discredits the tournament and makes it look like a cash grab in my opinion.

Which "better CHRVA teams" have been declined or waitlisted?

I checked 15s, and the top ranked CHRVA teams are here (expect for Paramount 1 at NIT):

Here's the list of just local teams in the top 1500 in rankings this year that aren't in the U15 tournament. There are 40+ more teams not in the tournament that are ranked above the lowest ranked club teams in the tournament. We don't know if these local teams applied for the tournament, but given the back and forth discussion here its likely that many did. We do know that Capitol Hill didn't let more than one local team from a club into any division U13+, except for Metro. They did let traveling clubs do that though and some of those teams are ranked very low compared to the 2s and 3s teams from local clubs.

FVBC
Blue Ridge 2
MVA
No Panic
MDJRS 2
Delaware Juniors
LEVBC 1
MVSA 3
NPSC
ECEVBC 2
BEVBC 1
BVC 1
MDJRS 3
Hub City
SYA

I wonder how many of these teams tried to get into Capitol Hill? Before they revamped SportsWrench you used to be able to see which teams registered and then which were accepted or rejected. It could be that some clubs are trying to keep costs lower for 2s and 3s teams. Even without having to pay for a hotel, Cap Hill is an expensive tournament. It's $1100 per team entry fee for the club. And as noted in the post that started this thread, parents and families have to pay for spectator admission, parking, and food in downtown DC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe Paramount is the only local team invited to Triple Crown NIT while other teams like VA Elite, American, Vienna Elite, VA Jrs, Blue Ridge, Metro, MD Jrs, MVSA, etc play in the Capitol Hill Classic.

Good luck to all these teams competing this weekend.

Metro gets invited to Triple Crown too, but turns it down because they're committed to CHC in honor of Barry Goldberg.

I don't think it's a goodwill gesture. Metro would rather be at Triple Crown. It's a contractual thing. When Barry sold the club to the current Director in 2015 (for those who don't know, Barry started Metro in 1999 and grew it into the most dominant club in the area, before selling it in 2015), part of the deal was the new director had to guarantee that Metro's teams would always participate in Cap Classic.

This is probably the case, but declining and waitlisting many better CHRVA teams has the impact of making it come across as Metro stacking the tournament for Metro. That discredits the tournament and makes it look like a cash grab in my opinion.

Which "better CHRVA teams" have been declined or waitlisted?

I checked 15s, and the top ranked CHRVA teams are here (expect for Paramount 1 at NIT):

Here's the list of just local teams in the top 1500 in rankings this year that aren't in the U15 tournament. There are 40+ more teams not in the tournament that are ranked above the lowest ranked club teams in the tournament. We don't know if these local teams applied for the tournament, but given the back and forth discussion here its likely that many did. We do know that Capitol Hill didn't let more than one local team from a club into any division U13+, except for Metro. They did let traveling clubs do that though and some of those teams are ranked very low compared to the 2s and 3s teams from local clubs.

FVBC
Blue Ridge 2
MVA
No Panic
MDJRS 2
Delaware Juniors
LEVBC 1
MVSA 3
NPSC
ECEVBC 2
BEVBC 1
BVC 1
MDJRS 3
Hub City
SYA

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe Paramount is the only local team invited to Triple Crown NIT while other teams like VA Elite, American, Vienna Elite, VA Jrs, Blue Ridge, Metro, MD Jrs, MVSA, etc play in the Capitol Hill Classic.

Good luck to all these teams competing this weekend.

Metro gets invited to Triple Crown too, but turns it down because they're committed to CHC in honor of Barry Goldberg.

I don't think it's a goodwill gesture. Metro would rather be at Triple Crown. It's a contractual thing. When Barry sold the club to the current Director in 2015 (for those who don't know, Barry started Metro in 1999 and grew it into the most dominant club in the area, before selling it in 2015), part of the deal was the new director had to guarantee that Metro's teams would always participate in Cap Classic.

This is probably the case, but declining and waitlisting many better CHRVA teams has the impact of making it come across as Metro stacking the tournament for Metro. That discredits the tournament and makes it look like a cash grab in my opinion.

While there is the connection between the Goldberg family and Metro, Metro does not run the tournament. I don't believe Metro has any input at all into who is accepted to the tournament nor do they have any input into seeding, although it does seem fair to say that more Metro teams are accepted than other clubs are able to get in.

Is it likely that the tournament limits the numbers of local teams to maximize their revenue from hotel stays? Sure, that seems probable. But I agree with the prior assessment that I don't see any top CHRVA teams that didn't get in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe Paramount is the only local team invited to Triple Crown NIT while other teams like VA Elite, American, Vienna Elite, VA Jrs, Blue Ridge, Metro, MD Jrs, MVSA, etc play in the Capitol Hill Classic.

Good luck to all these teams competing this weekend.

Metro gets invited to Triple Crown too, but turns it down because they're committed to CHC in honor of Barry Goldberg.

I don't think it's a goodwill gesture. Metro would rather be at Triple Crown. It's a contractual thing. When Barry sold the club to the current Director in 2015 (for those who don't know, Barry started Metro in 1999 and grew it into the most dominant club in the area, before selling it in 2015), part of the deal was the new director had to guarantee that Metro's teams would always participate in Cap Classic.

This is probably the case, but declining and waitlisting many better CHRVA teams has the impact of making it come across as Metro stacking the tournament for Metro. That discredits the tournament and makes it look like a cash grab in my opinion.

Which "better CHRVA teams" have been declined or waitlisted?

I checked 15s, and the top ranked CHRVA teams are here (expect for Paramount 1 at NIT):

15 Open:
American
Blue Ridge
Columbia
Delaware United
Loudoun Elite
Maryland Juniors
Metro Travel
Metro National
MOCO
MOJO
MVSA
VA Juniors
VA Elite

15 Patriot:
BAVA
BRYC
Legacy
Loudoun Elite 2
Metro North
MVSA 2
Paramount 2
St James

15 Club:
Alexandria
Baltimore Elite
Battle
Columbia 2
Dulles Youth
East Coast Elite
Libero
Metro Central, East, South FX, South PW
MOCO 2
MOJO 2
Monument
Platform
Stars
SYA
VAAVBC
VolleyViet
X-Factor

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe Paramount is the only local team invited to Triple Crown NIT while other teams like VA Elite, American, Vienna Elite, VA Jrs, Blue Ridge, Metro, MD Jrs, MVSA, etc play in the Capitol Hill Classic.

Good luck to all these teams competing this weekend.

Metro gets invited to Triple Crown too, but turns it down because they're committed to CHC in honor of Barry Goldberg.

I don't think it's a goodwill gesture. Metro would rather be at Triple Crown. It's a contractual thing. When Barry sold the club to the current Director in 2015 (for those who don't know, Barry started Metro in 1999 and grew it into the most dominant club in the area, before selling it in 2015), part of the deal was the new director had to guarantee that Metro's teams would always participate in Cap Classic.

This is probably the case, but declining and waitlisting many better CHRVA teams has the impact of making it come across as Metro stacking the tournament for Metro. That discredits the tournament and makes it look like a cash grab in my opinion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe Paramount is the only local team invited to Triple Crown NIT while other teams like VA Elite, American, Vienna Elite, VA Jrs, Blue Ridge, Metro, MD Jrs, MVSA, etc play in the Capitol Hill Classic.

Good luck to all these teams competing this weekend.

Metro gets invited to Triple Crown too, but turns it down because they're committed to CHC in honor of Barry Goldberg.

I don't think it's a goodwill gesture. Metro would rather be at Triple Crown. It's a contractual thing. When Barry sold the club to the current Director in 2015 (for those who don't know, Barry started Metro in 1999 and grew it into the most dominant club in the area, before selling it in 2015), part of the deal was the new director had to guarantee that Metro's teams would always participate in Cap Classic.