First Eastern Canadian Tournament. The Results are IN!
For those of you that might have missed all our original posts on the subject, on the 5th of February 2017, Archers Arena has hosted the first eastern Canadian combat archery tag tournament! From far in wide, Toronto has received a team from Ottawa, one from Windsor, two from Montreal, and we had five teams representing us. With intense gameplays fought, ridiculous turnabouts, quick moves and quick thinking, there is only one word we can use to describe this event: epic.
On the eve of the battle, both Ottawa and Montreal teams came to practice at the Arena, leading to the first contact between the various people who were going to play each other the next day. The comradery was frank and forthcoming, although you could tell that no one would go easy on the others the following day. It was great to see so many passionate people that just love the game of archery dodgeball, and who work at bettering themselves all the time.
When the morning came, coffee and breakfast were awaiting all the players, but the hype was already alive and going. The atmosphere was unreal, the anticipation crackled in the air as all awaited to take each other on. The game was on. Bows at the ready, getting the stretches in, focus was all on strategy and gameplay. Friendly banter in the air, with the underlying current of rivalry made it even more intense, yet still fun.
Throughout the morning, the plays were non-stop. Teams were learning how to face each other and strategies had to be changed and adapted to who was playing who. Evaluating the other players and understand how they play combat archery tag, and how to counter them was not an easy task, but it had to be done in order to win the tournament! After the first few rounds that comprised Round Robin style of play, Toronto came out on top with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, while Montreal took 4th and 5th.
However, in a complete change of pace during the finals, Montreal worked together for an epic comeback to win the tournament, and won against the newly reformed team Kyron’s Angels, known previously as Wetshots, which did end up winning our 7th local tournament. As prizes, Montreal Originals ended up going home with six of our beautiful, hand-painted 26 pound bows.
All there is left to say is that it was truly our pleasure to host such great teams from all over. All we can hope for is to have an even broader turnout from more Canadian cities in the next major tournament, which will be hosted sometime during the summer. We will be working out, and standardizing, Canadian rules so we can all train and play in the same frame of mind. Looking forward to the next epic combat archery tag Canadian tournament!
Teams at the 1st Ever Eastern Canadian Combat Archery Tournament
As we have been posting about for the last few weeks, our first ever Eastern Canadian combat archery tournament is coming up in just a few days! Teams from all over are coming to our Archers Arena facility to play each other in what promises to be the most exciting tournament we have hosted thus far. From far and wide, here is a quick look at the different establishments and where they hail from.
For Toronto, represented by yours truly, come our two champion teams: Wetshots, and Bloodbath and Beyond. Both these teams are used to playing each other in our local tournament, and perhaps that will offer them an advantage during play, already knowing previous applied tactics. Although Bloodbath is the older team, having more experience playing together by coming to multiple tourneys we have held over time, Wetshots is comprised of younger talent that keeps growing and surprising everyone. Both teams always end up meeting each other in the final rounds and always offer quite the spectacle when confronting each other.
Coming in from Ottawa, we are happy to present to you Archery Games. This establishment has been open since the 21st of August 2015, meaning it opened its doors pretty much at the beginning of the new trend wave that would bring combat archery tag (also referred to as archery dodgeball) at the top of the new and fun things to do around the city. They also have managed to branch out all the way to Calgary, in a real testament to both the increased love for combat archery tag and the potential for growth this new sport really has. The capital of Canada will be represented by two teams.
Representing Montreal, Combat d’archers are sending two (or three) teams, which will add a little bit of French spice in this mix. Perhaps they will even be using their language to communicate without any other team necessarily understanding them, which would evidently provide an advantage, and perhaps push other players to come up with a strategy to counter this. Having been there myself, I can attest that they offer completely bilingual services, and are very pleasant people to deal with.
Next up, from London (Ontario obviously, for now), we are receiving two teams from Hood Archery Games. Looking up their website, reading “You’re not going to have quite this much fun anywhere else in London, Ontario, that much we can guarantee” made me definitely want to go check out their location. Their whole website gives off a very friendly yet professional vibe that induces a sentiment of trust that a good time will be had.
Last, but not least, Clever Archery in Waterloo is still in decision about sending in a team. What is really cool about them is that they can move around and bring their setup to you if you want to host an event say at your school, or at your workplace. They can accommodate any kind of venue, but details will have to be worked out through them.
In total, we are looking at eight to ten teams to represent eastern Canada in our tournament, all of which have really good setups in their respective town. This promises to be a very intense, competitive field laid out for the tournament. It is a huge step forward in the history of combat archery tag. Perhaps in a near future, we will be able to expand even further out and reach the higher goal of eventually getting a national championship, with teams hailing all the way from Vancouver. Until then, we will keep you posted on the results of this event, which takes place on the 5th of February.