Why doesn’t Canada do better? Part 1

The raison d’etre for the existence of the Canadian Bridge Federation is the selection and funding of Canadian teams for international competition. It does neither well. It is time that the organization took responsibility for the proper selection, adequate funding and competitive preparation of our teams. Too much is simply left to members of the teams to organize for themselves, usually with far too little time before the event to do anything properly.  Over the next few weeks, I’m going to post my own thoughts on how we should approach some of these issues.

I know what the problems and obstacles are, better than most.  I’ve attended more World Championships than most Canadians, in one capacity or another; I’ve even been President of the CBF.  I know how limited the CBF’s resources are, in money, time and manpower, but in the end, those aren’t acceptable excuses.

Let’s start by looking at the sine qua non, the problem that needs to be addressed before we can really tackle the others with any hope of success.

1) Funding

The biggest single problem is money. Members of my Venice Cup team in Shanghai had to pay most of their own expenses, and were out of pocket to the tune of perhaps $4000 each for the privilege of representing their country. That does not even count cumulative (and possibly unpaid) time off work to play in qualifying events and the VC itself. And they got lucky, because Mexico declined to send a team to play off against us for the VC spot, so no money or time was required for that event.  There was, however, essentially no money for coaching or other team preparation.

By contrast, I listened in Shanghai to US players complaining that their stipend for expenses from the USBF was only about $7000 each, and that this paltry sum didn’t really cover business class travel. My heart bled for them. Much of that funding comes from the ACBL, and at least some of that money comes from Canadian players.

All 3 Canadian teams (Open, Women and Seniors) at an event like this should be fully funded. In addition, the CBF needs to be able to underwrite an adequate coaching program, so the teams are properly prepared for what they will face on world competition.

Fund-raising for international events has to be a year-round pursuit.

There should be a permanent CBF sub-committee that takes responsibility for ensuring that funds are available, through sponsorship, or national fund-raising events, or both. When I was president of CBF I appointed someone to chair such a committee, but I don’t think it ever really became active (it certainly didn’t before I left the CBF Board to deal with some pressing business issues of my own).

Money can be raised, for example, through tournaments and events across the country — and as long as masterpoints aren’t involved there’s no need to go through the ACBL and pay its exorbitant table and directors’ fees. Just as an example, it wouldn’t be hard to attract prize donations from sponsors, and it isn’t expensive to license something like the Ecats software to run a nation-wide computer-scored game in the clubs. The ACBL is sucking enormous amounts of money out of Canadian bridge players — much of which resides in the bank accounts of ACBL Units and Districts across the country. We have to find a way to tap into that income stream.

The CBF obviously needs to make a serious professional attempt to market the game to wealthy individuals and corporate sponsors. Both those adjectives are chosen deliberately.

Unless the financial underpinnings are put in place, nothing else matters a whole lot. We’ll just continue to be an amateur-hour operation, living from hand to mouth, and hoping the players can fund their own trips, figure out their own coaching and training, and not embarrass us too much at the world level. We can do better than that, and there’s no excuse for not doing so.

Next time:  selecting the best teams, and why we don’t.