Additional Questions after reviewing pro History
Was there a 1976 IRA Pro Nationals? Won by Hilecher, can he claim a national
championship because of it? No 77 IRA nationals, but Hogan d Brumfield in 78 IRA nationals.
I can't find listings for 1980, 1981 Ektelon Nationals in LA in results, but
apparently they occurred. Were these sanctioned events? How get results?
In 1987, it looks like both Ektelon and DP/Leach Nationals came to an end.
What was happening at this point? Why did these two tourneys end?
To Marcus/Negrete:
When did the seedings go random in the quarterfinal matchups?
Answered
What was the "Memphis Tanner" tournament? Was "Tanner" the sponsor? event name? Answer: Tanner Classic was the tourney name.
Why was "Colgate" tacked on to tourneys between Oct 77 and Nov 78? Sponsor?
Answer: yes they were the sponsor.
When did we start giving top8 players a bye into 16s? Answer: Aug 1999.
It seems to me you can declare a champion pretty easily for the 73-74 season;
Serot won two of four events (Keeley and Brumfield won other two). Was it just
too early to declare a champ? Or was there no official champ because there
was no "Nationals" that year? Answer: too early for a "tour" and hence too early
for a champion.
Did the Miami/Coral Gables "tournament of Champions" event carry any additional
weight/value to the players, or was it just another tourney? Answer: Invitational
tourney, open to top players, not counted in the points tally each season.
What are the "CBC" events in Winnipeg? any special event? Does "CBC" refer
to another tour or an event name? Or does it just refer to "Canada, British
Columbia" in the match history? Answer: The CBC Classic tournaments in Winnipeg
circa. 1980 were match ups between the best US and Canadian players. CBC stands
for Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The matches were taped and then shown on TV Saturday
afternoons. I think they happened 3 years in a row ('79, '80, '81?) at
the Court Sports Racquet and Fitness Center in Winnipeg.
One of Hogan's claims to fame was making "62 straight finals" winning
of them. However between 76 and 81 I see 6 finals losses and another
5 losses in earlier rounds ... so where are these numbers coming from?
Are there missing tournament results in the historical match records? Is Hogan counting
local tourneys, not just pro events, in this 62 straight finals claim? Answer:
"professional" tournaments during the heydey of racquetball (late 70s early 80s)
were not just limited to the "official" events in the database. There were
plenty of tournaments that drew all the top players and had top prize money
that were not part of the "official" list the NRA used to do rankings points
(and hence, the tournaments in the database). If information is available
about these non-NRC tourneys, we'll put it online.
In the 1982 troubled year, was any non-Catalina tournament considered under
the milieu of NRC? Lone Star Pro/Am, Ektelon nationals? Can't be if there
was no NRC: no tour affiliation? Answer: after failure of Catalina, it was
decided that the title would be determined exactly from a set of tourneys:
The 6 catalina tourneys, Lone star, and the 3 nationals (omitting the NRC
Winnipeg 81 tourney).
How can Hogan claim 1988-89 championship? Why were the first two events
ignored? It seems to me these two events should have been factored into a "season"
This seemed to be an issue even at the time. I've got 4 events in 88-89 "season,"
Harnett winning 2, Swain one, Ray one. How does Hogan obtain a tour championship
out of this? Answer: while declaring a tour winner for this troubled year
may be problematic, the rules were decided upon and played under, and they
resulted in Hogan's triumph for the year.