I haven't been to all the World Cups but I would certainly say this year's was the best ever.
No question the best venue. Beautiful grass fields, professional and courteous Disney staff. Great layout for the king of tournaments.
Gigantic leaps in quality of officiating. Lane Wright (with the backing of the big-wigs) sweat blood to get plenty of refs which gave David Oshel (he and I ran the 5 and 10-player), Dan Fagan (who ran X Ball) and me the resources with which to do the job much better than it has been done in recent history. The fact that we had so many meant that those there did a better job because we were able to make changes as soon as we became aware of the need. Dave and I stayed on top of the reffing constantly and got a lot of praise from many players about the way reffing was run.
Air services, players' staging area, trade show: all great.
Grandstands alongside every field meant for a lot of spectating (and many who confused, purposely or not, X Ball coaching with non-X Ball). The Empire field was used for the 5 & 10 finals and had much more seating.
NXL was also a blast. Because I didn't have so much to do between the 5-player and 10-player I wound up on the NXL field reffing with the elite reffing crew of the world regulating the fastest, most aggressive playing. The pucker factor was definitely high since I had Dick Clark's smiling face gazing down at us from the VIP stand along with Richmond, Jerry and the owner or coach of any team not playing. Fortunately for me I didn't make any screw-ups that cost any team the championship.
Finally got to meet Baca, Chris Raehl and Manning26.
Mad props to Lane, Rosie, David Oshel, Paul Sadler, Dawn and Bill Mills, Dan Fagan, Teresa, Peg, Mike Ratko and to Chris Raehl, who despite whatever you think of his personality contibuted greatly to the whole Cup.
I also want to shout out to the NXL reffing crew who are a tight, solid, dedicated and fun-loving group who let me into their fold for a little while. (Thank God I didn't drink all the shots they were sending around Sunday night!) I learned a lot and am richer for the experience.
Steve
PS. The greatest props go to all the refs that really gave of themselves to make the reffing so good. A gigantic thanks, especially to Rowdy's boys, Jose, Ricky M, Jaime, UK Cougars and the Slamdancers.
SM
