Website Updated for the 2009 Season
This site has now been updated for the current season. The only page that hasn't yet updated is the framework for the 2009 Tournament Game Day Matchups... this due to some discussion we'd still like to have on the positioning of the seeds within the brackets.
Notes on the Regular Season Schedule
We've gotten a pretty great deal this year from the Park District with only (3) bye dates. Prolonged complaining about the extended lay-off for Lollapalooza has finally bore some fruit as well... we only have (1) week off this year as opposed to (3) last year. Conveniently, the Lollapalooza bye butts up against the Judicata Race bye, so for all those who don't like to miss any games you'll have a 3-week break (07/24-08/13) within which to plan your vacations... ;-)
Changes to This Years Schedule > For the past few years the schedule had remained pretty much the same. In other words, if Team A played Team B in Week 3 in '07... they played the same team in Week 3 of '08 with the only change being who was the HOME team... That has all been shaken up this year as we embark on a (14) team field. A simple little command line program that was found on the internet years ago was once again called into action to generate this years schedule through the first 13 weeks. Week 14 & 15 were used to accommodate requested rivalry re-matches. Weeks 16 & 17 were scheduled arbitrarily. If a rain-out occurs in Week 2, then that weeks slate of games will replace the games currently scheduled for Week 17... another rain-out in Week 7 would replace the games for Week 16... and so on. We'll hope for the best on the rain front as always.
Care was taken to make sure that each team has approximately the same number of HOME and AWAY games.... however the number of times your team plays a late game vs. an early game becomes too tedious to figure out... so on that front, it is what it is...
IMPORTANT > Please extract your own teams schedule as soon as possible to ensure that what has been said above is indeed the case for your team. Once we pass Week 3, the schedule is written in stone. No requests will be considered regarding how many early or late games your team plays... as was said, that one is what it is.
Open Call for New Teams
Hit hard by whatever forces are rumbling through the universe... the Design League saw its (16) team field and (11) team waiting list decimated once organization for this 2009 Season began. Once all the dust settled, we say goodbye to OKW, Pb&J and Henneman which are three teams that went quite a ways back... as well as d'Escoto who only lasted the one year... new to the league this season are FTG and our eleventh hour add of REX Electric, both of whom we're pleased to welcome to our ranks in an otherwise down year.
If you know of any potential teams that may have an interest for the 2010 Season, by all means guide them to this website and get them in touch with me here... The first two teams willing to commit for next year are IN... easy as flynn. From there we'll start to rebuild the waiting list that has served us so well up until this season. Hopefully the recession will ease off and things will get back to normal next year... 14 teams is more then fine for the regular season... but it makes the Tournament a wee bit funky to wrangle... we'll get through it though, we always do.
CDL Defending Champions - Goettsch Partners
Goettsch set some marks last season that will most likely prove next to impossible to match in future seasons. They posted the only undefeated season in (Grant Park) Design League history... then they ran the table on Tournament Day giving up only 8 runs over 5 games capped off by a decisive 16-3 win over 2007 champs Clune Construction. The bar is set high heading into the future.
Back Row (left to right); Scott Seyer, Matt McCreary, Dan Lipetzky, Melissa Venoy, Eric Schlickman, Tom Peak, Andrew Tarcin
Middle Row; Mike Bretz, Ed Zimmerman, Willie Chandler, Alyssa Simons, Brian Miller, Lisa Hill, Frank Mraz, Jason Shimp
Front Row; Seungpum Yoo, Geoff Brooksher, Hiroshi Sango, Claire Rudolph, JC Sanchez
Another great season in the books. The Tournament provided its usual handful of memorable happenings... the 9 & 10 seed reach the Final 4... A 1-0 bottom of the 6th walk-off win by Goettsch over VOA to preserve their undefeated record and advance to the Final 4... And an insane drinking game that broke out in the skate park, spawned by a guy named Jimmy who later passed out for a while... It was good to be back on Upper Hutchinson this year for the Tournament.
