The US Open will also be combined with the Youth Club Championships.
July 11, 2016 by Charlie Eisenhood in News with 11 comments
USA Ultimate announced a new calendar for the 2017 Triple Crown Tour and club season. Let’s first take a look at the current calendar and new calendar side-by-side:
| Dates | Current | 2017 |
|---|---|---|
| Early July | US Open | - |
| Mid-July | Elite-Select Challenge | Pro-Elite Challenge |
| Late July | Pro-Elite Challenge | Select Flight Invite |
| Early August | YCC | US Open / YCC |
| Mid-August | Select Flight Invite / Pro Flight Finale | Elite-Select Challenge |
| Late August | Sectionals | Pro Flight Finale |
| Early September | - | Sectionals |
| Mid-September | Regionals | - |
| Late September | Nationals | Regionals |
| October | - | Nationals |
Here is a summary of the biggest changes:
- The US Open and Youth Club Championships will be held simultaneously at the same location in early August. The tournament will host “more than 100 teams and 2,300 athletes with the possibility of growing in the future.”
- The US Open will now be a three-day tournament instead of a four-day one.
- Nationals will move back into mid-October after being held in late September and early October over the past two seasons.
- The postseason Series will look closer in timing to what it did before the start of the Triple Crown Tour, with Sectionals and Regionals being held in September.
USA Ultimate said that the US Open and YCC will be held in 2017 at the National Sports Center in Blaine, MN, although no specific date has been set at this time.
This, in many ways, is a radical restructuring of the club season and moves away from the trend that USAU had started over the past three years of moving the competitive club season earlier in the calendar.
The governing body’s decisions came after a “considerable amount of working group discussion and additional survey feedback.” Notably, this restructure follows a survey from earlier this year asking about moving the National Championships into August. The proposal drew widespread criticism from players.
