Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 12/22/16
As a face-off midfielder, ever wonder what area of the country produces the best? Ever read about face-off guys from other areas and wish you could go against them?
There are plenty of individual tournaments out there where individual players are crowned champions, but what area has the overall best?
The I-95 Cup is not your ordinary face-off tournament. It’s the ultimate challenge to see which AREA of the country has the most talented face-off midfielders. The top 7 players from 8 different areas will meet in Long Island on February 25 for a 1 day tournament in an intense, never before seen style tournament.
Last year Team DC/Maryland/Virginia took the cup in a great battle against Team Philly. This year four more areas are joining the tournament. The top seven face-off specialists from Ohio, Atlanta, North Carolina, and Massachusetts will all be joining the tourney February 25th.
So who is choosing these teams?
Anybody familiar with the face-off position has heard of the Face-Off Academy and their coaches. Greg Gurenlian, Chris Mattes, Jerry Ragonese, Brendan Fowler, Anthony Kelly, and Mike Gurenlian are constantly traveling the country working with face-off athletes. When they are not on the road, all five have set up training combines where they live. All 6 FOA coaches will represent and coach their respective AREAS at the I-95 Cup.
The Philadelphia team will be chosen by Philly Face-Off League co-founders John Bodnar and Mike Dolente. Both highly respected face-off coaches in the area, the Philly Face-Off League is where the most elite face-off midfielders in the Greater Philly area can practice and train together on a weekly basis.
The Philly team will be selected through an evaluation process at our Sunday PFL sessions at Main Line Sports Center. If you are interested in trying out for Team Philly you must be at the January 8th or January 15th PFL session. The team will be announced on January 22.
*For all other areas please contact your local coach for tryout dates and details.*
Well how is this tournament going to work?
Each team will have to play each other once in order to determine playoff seedings. When a matchup between 2 areas has started, it’s a 7 round best of 7 face-offs. At the start of each round, there will be a coin toss. The losing team has to send out their first face-off guy. This gives the other team an opportunity to see who they are sending and the coach of that team will choose who will face him.
For example, New York is playing Philadelphia in the first round of the day. New York loses the coin toss and therefore has to send out their first face-off guy. Philadelphia sees who they are sending and sends out somebody. Let’s say the New York player wins his best of 7 with a score of 4-2. Because the NY player won, he is automatically awarded 3 extra points. Therefore the final score is 7-2. This score then gets reported to the scorekeeper, and Philly then has to send out their next player for the 2nd matchup. Whoever loses that next matchup will have to send out the next player, and vice-versa until all 7 players have faced each other. Whatever team has the most points at the end of the 7 face-off battles will win. This format continues until every team has played every team.
How do we crown a winner?
After all 8 teams have played each other, the total points that each team scored in every matchup will be counted and the 4 teams with the highest points (total faceoff wins) will make the playoffs.
In the playoffs, the #1 seed will play the #4 seed, and the #2 seed will play the #3. The winners will play in the championship and the losers will fight for 3rd place.
Again, this is NOT an individual tournament; only one team on February 13 will walk out winners! This is strictly bragging rights until next February!
In order to play for the I-95 Cup you must be a current high school student. Anybody in the 2017-2020 grades have the opportunity to try out and be a part of history. Please e-mail John Bodnar at phillyfaceoff@yahoo.com or Greg Gurenlian at foabeast@gmail.com if you have any questions.
The 2nd Annual I-95 Cup will take place at the Long Island Sports Hub on February 25, 2017 from 9 AM-2 PM.
The address for Long Island Sports Hub: 165 Eileen Way, Syosset, NY, 11791.