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| TWeissman
- 28 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 210
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Air Hockey Players worldwide,
As you likely know, two players recently created their own association (AHPA). They have planned an event for July 25-26 in Colorado, and requested sanctioning as a World tournament from the USAA.
The USAA board discussed it at great length then took a vote. The vote was not to sanction the event as the World's. The primary reason was that the promoters of that event were not willing to follow all the USAA procedures and guidelines which have developed over 40 years of Air Hockey history and tradition.
The USAA is in the advanced planning stages for a sanctioned World Championships in Houston in the Fall. Details will be posted as they become available.
The USAA is very willing to work with all promoters and consider sanctioning. The USAA board is happy to sanction events which agree to follow all the rules and procedures which have been created, refined and voted on by players across 4 decades.
We genuinely wish the best for all promoters hosting Air Hockey tournaments and encourage players to play Air Hockey, wherever that may take them.
Hope to see you in Houston in the Fall at the 40th Anniversary Year USAA World Air Hockey Championships.
Take care...
Tim Weissman
USAA President
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| Mole Hill Will
- 28 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 47
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I'll be there
William
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| brain
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 578
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AHPA is disappointed by the decision. We would have thought that the USAA would have liked to have seized this opportunity to work with us as a business partner and attach its name to what will be the the largest and most professional venue the sport has ever seen, hosting professional sporting events in more than 31 states. But the USAA is free to conduct its affairs as it feels best serve its interests.
We do take one issue with your public statement. We do not recognize that our request for sanctioning includes any violation of your sanctioning standards. We very clearly and publicly indicated our intent to follow USAA rules of play. To set the record straight, could you please clearly indicate, in this thread, which of your written guidelines our petition violates?
Regarding your event, I second Will's sentiment that I will be there too. Personally, to have the opportunity to participate in a quality World Championship event in which I don't have to lift a finger - well that's just music to my ears. Who knows. Without all that stress and drama and being able to focus on playing great Air Hockey, I might just win. I guess we'll just have to see.
This is truly exciting for the sport, suddenly having so much interest and activity: a new organization in the AHPA; a July AHPA World Championship event; a new USAA Facebook page; the announcement of a USAA-sponsored World Championship event; a sudden resurgence of activity and discussions among USAA members. Regardless of how you feel about the newly-formed AHPA, there's no denying the positive energy that has resulted from the power of competition.
Brian Accrocco
AHPA Co-founder
Xtreme Airhockey, CEO
Former USAA President and Senior member
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| Juggernaut
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 121
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brain said:
I'd like to be able to play in your tournament, so as a potential customer I would like to ask some questions about these three words.
Are you speaking in this post as an official representative of AHPA?
If so, how is this indicated? Will this indication then be the only way to distinguish brain the forum member from brain the AHPA?
If not, then are you reporting something you've overheard from other AHPA members?
This leads to another question: what is AHPA and who are its members? Chris also makes many posts that seem to be official AHPA posts, but then he also makes posts that he disclaims from affiliation with AHPA. How does Chris indicate when he is and isn't speaking as an official representative of AHPA.
Are there more than two members of AHPA? Chris implied there were in another thread when he talked about an "org chart" that is being worked on and will be released at some point. I've been working under the assumption that AHPA is two people, so the org chart should be pretty simple (unless there is internal strife regarding authority, control, and duties).
If AHPA is more than two people, then can you explain how you came to use the phrase "AHPA is disappointed"? I ask because that will go a long way toward answering the myriad questions that have been raised about the structure and purpose of AHPA.
Was there a board meeting at which it was decided that AHPA was disappointed? It's true that biological metaphors are common in organizations...there is a body of membership, for example. The phrase "AHPA is disappointed" is such a metaphor, since it personifies a business entity and assigns it emotions.
However, one could also read it as a statement that you believe that you are AHPA, making it a third person reference to the speaker, in this case you, brain (I use your forum name here to indicate that it is separate from you, Brian, not for any other purpose, because it may be that brain is the official spokesperson for AHPA, I don't know). You follow that up with "we," which could be a royal third person or it could indicate that you are speaking on behalf of others. If the latter, then I'm back to asking who those others are and how did they appoint you the authority to speak for them (in other words, I'm asking about the structure of AHPA...because AHPA has no affiliated players, I am not accusing you of dictatorship or however some of the other questions have come across).
I think those were three very important words and dissecting their meaning could help clear up a lot of confusion about the relationship between you, Chris, AHPA, the players, and the USAA. I intend these questions to help clarify, not to accuse (since you have indicated you're responding to bad blood with the same in other threads).
Final question: Why was an AHPA World Championship declared before AHPA itself was declared? I think that's causing a ton of confusion.
Hopefully this is helpful.
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| TheAirHockeyGuy
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 472
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The AHPA and the 2015 AHPA World Championship were announced in the same post on March 3rd.
http://www.airhockeyworld.com/forummessages.asp?forum=1&thread=2165&page=1#threadend
Chris Lee
Co-Founder, CEO
Air Hockey Players Association (AHPA)
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| Juggernaut
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 121
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TheAirHockeyGuy said:
You're correct! I misspoke. I meant before AHPA was created. There's no constitution, no structure, no members (beyond the founders), and no indication of its relationship to players. Right now it's just four letters and two people. That's what I meant. That's what's confusing to me as a potential customer.
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| tableman
- 29 Mar 2015
Total Posts: 690
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brain said: AHPA is disappointed by the decision. We would have thought that the USAA would have liked to have seized this opportunity to work with us as a business partner and attach its name to what will be the the largest and most professional venue the sport has ever seen, hosting professional sporting events in more than 31 states. But the USAA is free to conduct its affairs as it feels best serve its interests.
We do take one issue with your public statement. We do not recognize that our request for sanctioning includes any violation of your sanctioning standards. We very clearly and publicly indicated our intent to follow USAA rules of play. To set the record straight, could you please clearly indicate, in this thread, which of your written guidelines our petition violates?
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Brian,
I refer you to Chris Lee's Request for Sanctioning thread in this same section of the forums. In it he clearly states that AHPA not only will not pay the sanctioning fee, but will not let the USAA appoint head refs, and will only offer USAA a token representative on a 3-man tournament committee composed of the two AHPA principals, you and Chris. It is on the basis of what Chris said that the USAA board voted No on sanctioning.
Now you can argue, "well, some of these procedures aren't written in the rules and therefore are not enforceable, so we don't have to follow them." But if you've been reading the air hockey forums and listserver for the past 20 years you know that the USAA, like the United States, England, and many other Western countries, follows a common law tradition ans opposed to a strictly positive law tradition.
Briefly, common law is a body of law that evolves over years and decades from the natural interaction of individuals, and from case law decided by courts. Sometimes those decisions and organically evolved traditions are codified into written law, sometimes not. But they are part of the common law. Common law is inductive.
Positive law is more like a computer program, entirely deductive. It follows from a set of rules, and every further rule must be documented and written, or it's essentially nonexistent.
You've been around AH long enough to know that controlling the tournament committee and head ref position has been in the realm of USAA procedures for Nationals/Worlds for longer than you've been playing AH. So you can't claim innocent ignorance of what the USAA expects.
If you want to argue that positive law is way better than common law, in both sport and the legal system well be my guest, but that's irrelevant for our purposes here. Compared to some major sports, our rules and procedures are actually way more clearly written and documented.
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| andyy
- 18 May 2015
Total Posts: 14
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| Is there any word on the date for the USAA World Championships in Houston? I have heard that it might be in the fall, and am hoping to attend if the dates will work with my work. The sooner I know, the better, so please keep me ion the loop when this is announced.
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| Red puck
- 24 Jul 2015
Total Posts: 193
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Great to have Andy back in gear for some game, I was sad to learn that he left. although I understood that he hung up his mallet for good in 2005; but a good reappearance all the same. I think Andy left due to pride and ego, and in air hockey you have to let that go. Phil has been doing this since the early 70's and he hasn't won any events either. Find your vibe and flow.
Regarding AHPA, they have yet to develop. It is one thing to have an announcement for an event, an obscure website, two players; and call that an association. A real air hockey group has many, committed members forming a vibrant community throughout generations of air hockey competition and innovation. The USAA is close to that, with young, the old, and in between creating a family of air hockey that pit themselves against each other and grow closer together as result.
For Brain and Chris, it is a shout-out for change, to be out there. They did their own thing so they could attempt to make air hockey better. If everyone within USAA did their part to the fullest extent, just imagine where air hockey could[i/] be. As an example, Chris and Brian could have stayed and their support along with everyone else can get air hockey Mach farther than just the minimal existence that it is just starting to get out of.
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| Mike C
- 24 Oct 2015
Total Posts: 459
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it has been a week tomorrow that Colin was crowned again. It was a fantasticwas brilliant week as he also made the high school soccer team and got his first new report card with a GPA of 4.24 (taking 3 AP classes gets higher points). We practiced today for the first time and he is still on a high.
I want to thank Tim, Phil and Jacob and the rest of your team for a well orchestrated event. Being a planner and organizer, I questioned how 134 players could compete on 11 tables but after seeing the steps taken in the early rounds with the young Boys Club kids, it was brilliant.
We look forward to future events and the continued development of Air Hockey promotions. We are working on finding a venue here in Beaumont for tournaments and challenge matches. He has more than 50 people signed up in the high school air hockey club.
I would like to pull together funding to purchase tables for the Kelly HA AH club, Beaumont Boys and Girls Club as well as Buckner Children & Family Services Home (a large Foster home here. For people in Dallas, they know of the Buckner children). If anyone would like to contribute please let me know.
We are also putting together AH exhibitions here which i will give details soon. Take care.
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- 31 Oct 2015
Total Posts: 658
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| Why aren't the results of the tournament posted?
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