On the value of the 2-day local tournament
When I take a look at the CoCo tournament calendar as it stands right now, one thing becomes clear - what we lack in quantity, we most definitely make up for in quality. There's the next California Open and the next Crescent City Cup already high atop our list of events, and - spoiler alert - the next Word Cup will be on there pretty soon, too. These are some of the biggest and most prestigious events in all of Scrabble, and we're proud to be a part of them.
The question now is how we build upon that. These flagship events make for a great skeleton, but we're still striving to put some more meat on those bones, so to speak. If you ask me, what we really need now is to add to our offerings when it comes to mid-sized regional tournaments. Events like the CO and NOLA are great - they bring people from all over North America and all over the world. But little weekend events, a day or two long, that attract people from nearby cities and states to drive an hour or three, are important also. Those, at the risk of overusing the food metaphors here, are a Scrabble organization's true bread and butter.
This was heavy on my mind a week ago, during our 2-day event in Charlottesville, VA. That couldn't have been a better weekend. We were with a great group of people in a charming little town, at a venue that showed us wonderful hospitality. And the field, all 14 of us, just had this positive vibe that you can only get from a regional community of players who enjoy each other's company and like playing together. Some players were native to Virginia, others were from nearby D.C. or Maryland, and still others traveled from a little farther away. But the group had that homey feel to it, just the same.
My dream for the CoCo is to have lots and lots and lots more weekends like it, all across the land. And I don't think that dream is all that unattainable. Why would it be? After all, when you travel around North America, you see plenty of local areas that have rich, vibrant communities of Scrabble players that should be able to support such a thing.
From a CoCo perspective, different local areas are in different situations. We've got some cities, like Seattle and Portland, where tournaments are already booming (though more can never hurt!). We've got others - like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Austin, St. Louis, and Atlanta - where we've had some success, but we're definitely interested in making tournaments a more consistent thing. In still other places - think Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Madison, and Boston - we've dabbled a bit, but we could really use more of a presence. And then you've got places like New York, Phoenix, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, where we're still trying to get things off the ground in the first place.
All of these places have something in common - they have great communities of players in place already. And think - that's the hard part! All that's left to do now is seize that opportunity and get some events going. In all of the above places, we have the potential to build bigger, happier, thrivinger (if that's even a word, which it isn't) local tournament scenes.
None of this will happen overnight, of course. But that's OK! Our whole CoCo team, we're eager to put in the work. And we'd happily accept any help that anyone out there in the community is willing to offer. So if you have any thoughts on how we can grow the Collins tournament scene, hit us up. We would love to hear from you.