Captain’s Log, January 4th, 2015

 

Happy New Year to all of you! We absolutely love our San Diego APA community and we hope your 2015 brings you all prosperity and happiness. We said goodbye to many friends from our community in the past year, and they will never be forgotten. I’m sure many of you have heard that the Hungry Stick is now closed. It was a business decision that was hard for ownership to make, but it was in the best interests of their family going forward. Sadly, it will not be reopening as a pool room as the new owner will be converting the property into a dentist complex. We also lost Players Sports Bar on Clairemont Mesa Blvd in that same week. That’s 20 bar tables within 1 mile of each other that are now gone. This displaced more than 60 APA teams and had the league office frantically rescheduling playoff matches and contacting teams to help them find new homes.
  
And now for the million dollar question everyone is asking, what is APA going to do with the Blast and City Championships? The Fall Session Blast will be split into two locations on Saturday January 24th for 8 Ball, with half the matches taking place at The Break Room in Clairemont Mesa and the other half taking place at the Library. All 9 Ball matches will take place at the Library on Sunday, January 25th. We will do a random draw for the Blast and then make sure that matches take place at a single location for any players that are on more than one team. This is probably not our permanent fix for future Blast tournaments, but this one should get us by and give us more time to sort out what to do going forward. These closures were a surprise to us just as much as it was to all of you, and we have feelers out on where to do future events. We have grown pretty accustomed to doing everything at one location and we’d like to continue doing that, but we need a location with 10 or more tables in order to do that. If we don’t come up with a location that size, we will look for alternatives that will work best for everyone. Basically when we know something, we will let all of you know. We thank you all for your continued support and for your patience.
  
It is membership renewal time once again. We allow the first 4 weeks of league play (byes count as a week of play) to get everyone paid up in membership dues. Anyone not paid up by the first 4 weeks gets dropped from the team. Qualified teams cannot make changes to their Spring Session roster after the 4th week, so make sure you have all of your players paid up by that time. You can renew your membership online through our web site or submit fees through your team packets. We recommend paying them before the 4th week just in case your captain doesn’t get the score sheet mailed in on time in that 4th week.
  
New members and teams join every session, and we’d like to extend a warm welcome to them, and we ask that you do the same and help them feel welcome and help them get off to a great start in the APA by helping them learn how to keep score and helping them with general rules of play and taking care of paperwork. First time members in our league get 2 coaches per game in that first match they play. New members are players who have yet to achieve a skill level in our league, and if they are already listed on the score sheet, should show a “0” for their skill level. Players who are better than the starting skill level suggests should be started at a skill level that reflects a closer resemblance of their true ability. As much as I know how much you would like to start someone lower than the starting skill, we are not allowed to let you do that. The starting skill in 8 Ball is 4 for men and 3 for women, and in 9 Ball it is 4 for men and 2 for women.
  
We are starting up the San Diego APA Junior Academy this month. We currently have two locations secured for this new 10 week program that will feature basic pool instruction and offer individual match play to possibly qualify to compete in the APA Junior National Championships in July. We are taking sign ups for 10am classes on Saturdays at La Bella Pizza Garden in Chula Vista and 12:00pm classes on Saturdays at On Cue in La Mesa. Students can be 7 to 18 years of age. We will allow 19 and 20 year olds, but they will not be eligible for the Junior Nationals. The fee for the session is $120. $20 goes towards the APA membership and includes a pool cue and tshirt. See the flyer on our web site for more information. The Session begins January 17th. Sign up by January 10th.
 
Please check the web site for schedule changes after each week of play. Any team added or dropped to a division could change where you play the next week. The score sheets you receive should be checked as soon as you receive them and will be accurate for location unless we contact you. Have a great week and…

Shoot Pool Good!