Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000
From: Jim Geary
To: cgp
Subject: Re: [cgp] Re: Canadian team for 2001

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 phil_appleby@uk.ibm.com wrote: 

 What are the rules for taking part in the Canadian WSC qualifying
 tournament in June? I assume Canadians who are no longer resident in
 Canada would be eligible to play? What about people with Canadian
 citizenship who have never been resident in Canada??
 
 My mother was Canadian (born and brought up in London, Ontario), and
 I took dual UK/Canadian nationality when I was in my teens. Does
 this entitle me to play in the qualifying tournament?

Per, http://www.scrabble-assoc.com/tourneys/2001/wsc/can/: 

"In what follows, a Canadian is deemed to be a person who is either a
Canadian citizen, or a has been a Permanent Resident of Canada for the
five years preceding the WSC"
and also you must: 
"To be eligible to play in the QT, a player must have played at least 2N
fully NSA-rated games during the Qualification Period and must not have
qualified based on QR."  (solving later word problems reveals n=17)
BUT, it also says: 
"Some Canadian players who placed in the top 25% of the previous WSC
qualify for the Canadian team in recognition of their achievement, and
their contribution toward the expansion of the Canadian quota. The number
of such players is limited to half of the size of the new Canadian team,
rounded down and not including the reigning World Champion. If this limit
needs to be applied, players will be ranked for this purpose according to
their final standings at the previous WSC."
so you might not have to play in the QT. You could already be in! 
PA: Would the fact that I've represented the UK in three WSCs preclude me?
It should. Even tho you're a friend, I would fight in whatever forum I could to prevent you from representing Canada after representing the UK. Thing is there is an absence of framework for handling these situations. But they come up. There should be a defined way for picking the first country you represent(even it is merely just to state for the record "this is the country that I represent") or for whom you attempt to represent and there should be a clear definition of why you might be representing a new country(even if it is merely to move to Manhattan and swear off haggis)[1] Does resident alien count? If the sport wants to take itself seriously, the crown jewel should have some set of rules on how to qualify for it. Anti-federalists would say push the decision making responsibility down to the national federations, but there IS something to be said for standardized expectations.

JG

[1] UK-Scrabble List members will recall no doubt on Mar 30th I wrote tongue-in-cheek but trying to make a point: 

Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 13:20:42 -0700 (MST)
From: Jim Geary 
To: UK Scrabble List 
Subject: Re: [uk-scrabble] New Format of National Championships
On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, K Khoshnaw wrote: 
 Joel Wapnick, a Canadian, is the new national Scrabble champion of Great
 Britain!  It sounds and is ridiculous!
 In the same way, the US champion should be a US citizen .....
Shit. What were we thinking when Joel won the 1983 National Championship? I heard he won the Canadian championship one year as well. What a dishonorable homelandless man.

I propose a checkbox on one's Visa wherein one oncely and forevermorely declares the one country whose championship one will play for and whose sovereignty one will solely defend at international competitions.

Last Modified 3/12/01

Back to Scrabble Correspondence Page
Back to Scrabble Main Page
Back to Jim's Main Page