Canadian world team members must be the best we can send to compete against the top dogs of the U.S., South Africa, Australia, France and another dozen or more countries.  Canadians are considered among the best shooters in the world and we have a real chance of fielding winning teams at WBC13. 

At St. Louis these 12 Canadians will each displace other Canadians who want to go. 

That’s what makes the U.S. team so competitive, they took the spots of a lot of good shooters and they are shamed if they don’t perform.  What does a stroke look like?  The face of the guy who shot four on the record in South Africa, had a rain shot in France, cross-fired on a blank target in Australia. 

Does that sound harsh?  We play nicer as Canadians, but those of us who know the feeling of not doing well at the worlds can tell you it’s no easier to come home without finishing in the top. 

Today we’re debating the fact that competing against each other in small shoots in Canada is all that’s needed to pick teams capable of performing under world pressure.  I contend that basing this choice on who does well at a Canadian shoot against 20 or so other competitors will not accomplish our objective, at least not if we want to field competitive teams.  Multiple countries appear at the large U.S. shoots, not just the Americans, and the presence of the big dogs brings match pressure.  There’s no better proving ground. 

The idea of one ‘wild card’ spot for small agg doesn’t make sense.  The idea of agg comparison not being meaningful has been discussed.  This sounds like having a last chance qualifier for guys who don’t travel outside the country.  If you insist on having one spot on Team ‘C’ chosen from ‘only in Canada’ results, then I’ll lay money that somebody who has experience at the big shoots will take that prize home anyway.  Sounds like this is a moot point of discussion. 

Is the argument really that some folks do not have the time or resources to travel?  Surely time isn’t an issue, we have very little discretionary time but will make the time during 2014 to get to the matches that we need to in order to qualify. 

So it must be all about money.  Not having enough money to shoot is really unfair.  Realizing you’re running out of bullets or primers mid-match is distressing.  It really sucks when the top 20 shooters all put in teen aggs at a Nationals when our shot-out barrels don’t have a chance of grouping under a quarter inch in trigger-pull conditions.  Living with a broken (fill in the blank) at home because you bought a new rest, action, stock takes creative justification.  Looks like many of us are on the same page. 

Not having enough money still doesn’t negate the issue that besting shooters on a home range doesn’t qualify you for the worlds, and it won’t demonstrate you are capable of handling the pressure of a big shoot against the big dogs that will show up at the worlds.  If you haven’t shot with the match pressure of a big shoot then maybe you shouldn’t be booting another Canadian off the WBC bus. 

If you are positive that you would qualify if given the chance but don’t have enough resources to travel, you can still be resourceful.  You might need to share gas and a hotel room with somebody else who’s going, ask to stay with a friend who lives nearby, stay at the range, cut discretionary spending, or work to get sponsorship funds to make it a possibility to go.  We’ve done all the above.

Vera

You have valid questions, some we foresaw years ago, and some concerns were not on our radar screen.  In Australia we discussed the need to have the qualifications proposal reviewed by all stakeholders.  So this discussion is right on the mark.  I’ll attempt to answer your questions in as personal a way as I can. 

Apparently many of us in the East are unaware of a rift between East and West, at least the topic doesn’t come up at our shoots.  I knew there would be a healthy East/West rivalry come out of this; however we compete against many friends but that doesn’t ever come between our friendship. 

Frankly until very recently we were unaware of the great job that Rick has been doing to increase memberships in the West.  We could definitely learn from this, we have steadily lost almost all our local ranges in the East due to increasingly rigid range restrictions.  Concerns over declining memberships is an ongoing discussion at our matches.  The subject of a different thread, I suspect it’s as much an urban issue as any. 

In previous worlds we’ve had representation between East and West evenly distributed through our teams.  I can’t speak for 1996 but Bill made this a priority in 2005, mixing our folks together perhaps to quieten any perceived issues.  In 2007 John VM and Lawrence W selected the teams as they were not eligible for participation due to their residence, I facilitated the process but their decision was final.  In other years the teams fell together subjectively based on how folks were shooting leading up to picking the teams. 

We’re all patriotic.  Flag waving on the overpass when our fallen soldiers come home from Afghanistan patriotic.  Bring the Canadian flag around the world patriotic.  I love your passion for our country, let’s just say we’re all patriotic. 

In Austria we foresaw the day when sponsorships would be available enough to pay for a competitor’s fare to travel to far off shoots, and we would need a form of choosing teams when the flood gates opened.  We didn’t think this would take the form of St. Louis, but it has the same result.  Then we chose the qualification that past supporters of WBC shoots, either working behind the scenes, raising sponsorships, or paying money to travel, would be the deciding factor.  This year we agreed to leave this criteria behind in favour of a method that allowed the same chances for anyone, regardless of their past participation or lack thereof. 

Why do we shoot then in the U.S. in addition to our Canadian matches?  Because we love the sport.  Hall of Fame is on both our bucket lists, easier said than done, I shot a .1600 agg at the Nationals in Weikert and got second place, missed my first point by that much.  Wish we had more time to gain points for the Eastern Region Shooter of the Year (NBRSA Eastern Region includes Ontario and Quebec).  Winning the SuperShoot is on my bucket list, I got my top 20 patch but want more. 

Why can’t we just shoot one match in Canada to decide the worlds team?  We decided to let everyone pick their own aggs so the Western guys didn’t have to fly/drive to the Eastern shoots and vice versa.  We don’t want to make the long trip to Rosebud any more than the Western folks want to travel to Elmira for the equivalent of a week-end match.  It’s as simple as that. 

We thought about using smallest aggregate, but this varies from range to range and with time.  Didn’t seem fair.  Although we settled on using it for a tie-breaker. 

Also we are using six aggregates of the shooter’s choice, rather than one shoot, because sometimes a gun malfunction or error at a single match can take you out.  That isn’t fair.  I think we have improved on the U.S. qualification process in this method, they are required to travel to five pre-selected matches and if they miss one and have a malfunction in another they are eliminated from the worlds, period. 

Lastly, why not just compare our results from the Canadian shoots, after all, the best of the East shoot at Elmira, and the best of the West shoot at the BRSC Nationals.  Fact is, unfortunately, that these are small shoots.  Prior to long gun registration these shoots attracted large numbers of U.S. shooters, increasing the size of the shoots.  This raises the match pressure.  I think you’ll agree that the large matches are different than our local shoots where we compete against our local friends.  The worlds are about competing against the world at a large match.  To see whether someone is capable of finishing a large shoot they need to shoot at a large match.  So the big shoots get more weighting than the small ones, for a very practical reason.  There’s no favouratism over the U.S. shoots here, its about size of the shoots.  Western folks can travel to big shoots in the U.S. Western States, and Eastern folks can travel to big shoots in the U.S. Eastern States, and we will compare the results.  But the small shoots just don’t add the match pressure needed to demonstrate whether somebody can perform at the worlds. 

Hope this helps explain. 

Vera