Just to answer any questions like the one that came up in the OHDBC challenge thread:

After a lot of discussion toward the end of last year, it was decided that the rankings will be moving to a more objective (though not fully objective) rule for including festivals. Unfortunately it is just too time consuming to add each an every festival, and as well you run into problems of a low sample size and crews running without their best in the boat.

The rule will work something like this:
Festivals that had a "Competativeness Indicator" of 1 last year will get included, like:
Pickering, Lachine, Toronto Island, Ottawa, Sudbury, Montreal, Woodstock, GWN, Quebec Cup

Festivals that look like they will receive a "Competativeness Indicator" of 1 (based on my judgement as educated by the rankings so far, and from last year) will also get included.

I'll try to post the methodology for the Competativeness Indicator when the rankings start up. Look at Woodstock to get an idea of what it takes (the rule is based on the number of top 100 crews weighted exponentially by rank):
http://www.dragonboatcanada.org/rankings/2007_byFestival.htm

Happy racing all!

Power Demon

(Not "competativeness").

Thanks.

Sorry. Math degree. Never learned how to spell no good.

PD

Once again, thank you for the time and effort you put into this ranking - it really adds much need dimension to the sport. Keep up the good work!

PD, the 3000 metre challenge these teams (and others?):

Hydrophobic
Mayfair
Big Fish
Hammerheads
Quicksilver
St Joes
Chaos

Would you consider adding this to this year's rankings? I believe the race includes two 500m runs.

My only concern regarding the rankings is that no consideration is given to the amount of races a team participates in. As a result, Events Alive is ranked higher than the CDN. Senior DB Club, even though the CDN. Senior DB Club was faster at the only festival Events Alive participated in. Thus, by virtue of participating in more races than one, the CDN. Senior DB Club ranks lower than Events Alive.

3rd- Events Alive (Ottawa-2:01.6)
5th - CDN. Senior DB Club (Ottawa-2:01.4),(Pickering 2:01.8),(CCWC 2:02.4)


Is the competitiveness of a team limited strictly to a raw or raw numbers? Or should some consideration or weight given to what is arguably another dimension of competitiveness (how often you’re out there doing well).

Thoughts?

Not to mention why are some U.S. teams ranked and not others. If it's a Canadian ranking keep it to Canada if it's North American why are the top us teams not there? Also it does not take into account head to head races. There are many teams that my team beat head to head but we're not on the list at all.

At the end of it all it's a general refference guide and not to be taken seriously as your only as good as how you do in the final.

This has been discussed a number of times and I suppose the same issues will always tend to arise.

As we all know the rankings are rough justice, even with adjustments there are still a number of factors that can influence and distort team performance. All races are included in an attempt to help mitigate these factors - for example, you might get the "fast lane" for a race or two, but you are not likely to get it all the time. The more races the more reliable the number.

So yes, this does mean that the time for events Alive is perhaps less reliable than for a team that races often. Does that mean we'd expect the team to be faster or slower? No! They could be getting short changed, or they could have an over inflated number. We don't know so we don't adjust it.

Here is the mistaken assumption. "Thus, by virtue of participating in more races than one, the CDN. Senior DB Club ranks lower than Events Alive." Not true. Had the team raced faster, relative to their competition in Pickering and CCWC, then their time would have been faster. The number of races in no way determines your time - just look at all the teams that got faster the more races they did. The rankings try to determine the relative speeds of the crews, over all the festivals you participated in, and you don't get points for consistency or logging a lot of races, because that doesn't mean you are any faster as a crew.

Why was the CDN CCWC time slower than Ottawa? Likely strongly related to the gap between them and Mayfair and G&G, and more importantly, the relative placement compared to Chiro. CDN was ahead of Chiro in Ottawa in terms of average time, but fell behind in the CCWC. Did Chiro get faster on average? Or CDN slower on average? The rankings can't say, and this is a limitation of the approach that cannot be fixed, but they do tell you that CDN got slower relative to their competition for that festival, and thus got a slower time when compared to Ottawa. So, the rankings predict that if they had raced in Ottawa, and been slower than Chiro (like at the CCWC), they would likely have been slower than Events as well. This may not be 100% right because Chiro could just have gotten faster at the CCWC, but the rankings are a relative measure, the name of the game is if you move up on your competition to get faster times, fall behind your competition and you get slower times.

So in the end, the number of races is irrelivent in determining times. Furthermore, the same team will not always have the same performance throughout a year, they will have relatively faster and slower festivals. It is their relative performance that matters. Finally, times for those with fewer races may be less reliable that those with more so you can always take them with a larger grain of salt.

PD

...I can just feel the slew of confused posts coming.

"Not to mention why are some U.S. teams ranked and not others. If it's a Canadian ranking keep it to Canada if it's North American why are the top us teams not there?"

If you read the methodology, teams from outside the area (Ontario-Quebec) that compete only once are not included in the rankings. In order to be included US or "out of area" teams must show up twice in one year, or from year to year. This makes them "regular" competition in the area, and therefore they get ranked.

This is to keep the list of teams being compared from year to year relatively stable. Teams like the Beasts, though clearly not from "Central Canada", do show up in the festival circuit quite regularly. Teams like Philly tend to be much more occasional.

That being said I will happily post the times of out of area teams that competed once if they are interested (like I did for Gorging a few years back).

Quite a few regattas now. Updates in the works?

Yup! Keep in mind that the rankings need to follow an order to be statistically viable.

Toronto will be added and Pickering times adjusted to match. This will happen by the weekend.

After the montreal festival we can bring in Ottawa and Lachine and then adjust to the GTA festivals. I know this delay sucks for the crowd racing in Ottawa and Quebec but this order is key to getting credable results.

After that each festival gets added as they happen.

If my memory serves me the next festivals to be counted in the rankings will be Sudbury and Montreal.

PD

P.S. I'd better stop responding to these, I could have logged another 10 minutes on getting TO done

Hey PD...

Is there any latitude for dropping festivals that unexpectedly fall short in terms of depth of field?

For example, while it's still a few weeks away, the Sudbury lineup is looking thin. Chiro + 3 or 4 ranked teams. With DBC Nationals the following weekend some teams may be staying away.

If there are Quebec teams coming to Nationals (I believe several are) wouldn't that data be more helpful for the rankings? and a better use of your time?

Just a suggestion. Keep up the great work!

Thanks for looking out for me!

I agree that it may not be the best use of time to add a festival that falls thin for a given year. However, by the same token I have committed to trying to add any festivals that had a competativeness indicator of 1 in the previous year - in an attempt to keep the ranked festivals more consistent over time, and so crews can no ahead of time which ones will count. I'll definetly do my best to uphold this, but as you so rightly pointed out the more competative ones may take priority.

ahem,... know ahead of time

PD

Rankings 2008?

Here:
http://www.dragonboatcanada.org/rankingmenu.html

Interesting to see annual evolution. Clearly, Mayfair has built separation between themselves and the other crews, but it seems like everyone in Ontario/Quebec has slowed down this year. Even Mayfair is slower after 5 races than they were last year. The number of crews registering sub 2:03 has declined precipitously.

Can we assume weather conditions have slowed everyone down? or should we read in to this a decline in caliber or paddler and results? everyone has been talking about how good the water levels have been, making for better conditins in lesser lanes, but this does not seem to have made it in to times. Although you could argue this year's Island race showed 4 cews sub 2:00 - don't think this has happened before.

Give it a few more regattas before you start analysing too heavily.

I don't think the Island (or Ottawa) has been added yet, so it would be premature to reach any conclusions about changes in times.

That is correct.

The rankings are based on the Toronto Island course and until Toronto is added, the rankings will reflect the Pickering course which is clearly not comparable.

The rankings also don't make adjustments for year-by-year (except in the annual sheet, where I try, but I don't think I'm that sucessful). Therefore, get a tail wind in Toronto one year, or the course is shorter, or the water deeper, or the boats faster, or the paddles different, and everyone will have a faster ranking time.

Power Demon

FYI - Rankings have been updated.
Thanks PD

old skul'd is listed twice..

Thanks for the update. Warriors are shown as a Sudbury crew... I assume it is the Mayfair Warriors, and they are definitely GTA.

Thanks so much. I'll try to fix before I go on vacation.

PD

by vacation do you mean ccwc? heehee pee-dee

I was looking at the ranking for Scotia Rouge, and I note that they were given an average time of 2:08 for Toronto Island.

Their times in that regatta were as low as 2:03.51 for the final, to 2:07.36 for their slowest heat. The one outlier was a 2:15.39 in the Bankers Cup. Total up all four races and you get an average of 2:08, but exclude that Banker's Cup and the average is much lower, a very respectable 2:05.51 It is also much more in line with the Pickering result.

I don't think the Banker's Cup race should be included in their totals, since it is a specialty race that requires a different roster (employees) and so does not represent the speed of their regular crew.

I know PD doesn't like to exclude races within a regatta, but this kind of race with it's seperate roster rules blows the curve and should be excluded, IMO.

And no, I'm not on Scotia Rouge.

yes you are.

^^^ I concur. What kind of person will take the time out of their schedule to pore over other teams' results and argue on an open forum that some other team should be ranked higher.

Come on, Rouge paddler, your intentions are so transparent that I can see the wall behind you.

Really, you people make too many assumptions. No Rouge paddler would bring this up for the very reaction it has now created. So apologies to Scotia for draggging them into this.

I repeat that I'm not on Scotia Rouge, but I paddled against them in the Banker's Cup. They got absolutely SMOKED in that race, so much slower than their other results and I was curious to see how that played into the rankings.

I like the Rankings in general, but I've never been fond of how an outlier of a race, or a regatta, can tank a team's ranking.

Tough.

If Scotia Rouge went into the Bankers Cup with a different roster knowing full well that they were going to underperform, they simply could have entered under a different name. By entering with the same name, they implicitely acknowledged that the Bankers Cup would count towards the aggregate results.

A quick rebuttle and then I move on.

"If Scotia Rouge went into the Bankers Cup with a different roster knowing full well that they were going to underperform, they simply could have entered under a different name."

- They can't do that. They are a corporate sponsored team, they can't change their name for the sake of the Banker's cup, or to save their ranking. Besides, teams have not been able to escape poor results by playing the "name game" in the past, so why bother?

"By entering with the same name, they implicitely acknowledged that the Bankers Cup would count towards the aggregate results."
- I'm sure the rankings were the furthest thing from their minds for any of the races. Rankings are fun but are a byblow of results, not the reason for racing for any team (I would hope).


Lastly, I have no vested interest in Scotia's ranking. I simply saw an inconsistency and I thought I would point it out. PD isn't the only one out there who likes to look at the numbers and figure things out. In the hope of making the rankings more fair and accurate I thought I would bring up the point about the Banker's Cup and how the roster rules make this a bad race to use in the rankings. Apparently some of you feel more passionate about this than I do.

Out of sheer spite now, I'm tempted to bring up some other teams by name so you can accuse me of being on their crews and boosting them. Hmmm, who do I single out for ridicule next...

Later.

If Scotia Rouge had to use different paddlers for the "Bankers Cup", does that mean that the paddlers for their other races were not on their roster? If they are racing under the name...all the races that they are in should count!

The Scotia Rouge crew that normally races includes a mixture of bank employees and non-bank employees, and are sponsored by Scotiabank. Only for the specialty cup races at some festivals (like the banker's cup) is there a restriction that the crew be limited to employees. Thus, Scotia Rouge has to change their crew to comply with that restriction.

I agree that the banker's cup race has a very different Scotia Rouge crew in it, and should not be included in the determination of the rankings for the usual Scotia Rouge crew.

My question then is, what if the Bankers Cup team came within a second of the normal Rouge team? Or god forbid, even better?

I bet you then, that this would not have been brought up.

That's right, only bring up the issue when it's detrimental to your team.

Hey all,

This type of thing has come up from time to time, and we did put a rule in place for dealing with this issue. We want the rankings to be representative. If Mayfair went out in one regatte and pulled a 10 minute 500m for fun, then clearly dropping their ranking by 200 places wouldn't make a lot of sense, because the team probably isn't really any slower. The challenge then is - when do you include races, and when might you want to exclude them?

What we did was impose a 3 standard deviation rule - if your time was so far from your expected time that it was clearly unrepresentative, it would be excluded. Thereby, to deal with the Scotia Rouge issue, I will simply apply this test, and should they fail it, exclude the race (which I expect would be the case). I think the test has only been failed once or twice over the life of the rankings - so it takes a pretty different boat on the water not to pass.

I do appreciate this kind of feedback since given the quantity of data I have, I don't have time to look at it carefully. Thanks for catching that!

PD

PD

Are you using the standard deviation of the population of the standard deviation for the team in question? I submit that you would rarely catch a team that "shut it down" for a race if you used the general standard deviation since that would be much wider than the standard deviation of a particular crew. Especially for teams among the top 20-30.

I know of many instances of a team either conserving, using a different lineup or something else happening and their result still gets included because the drop off was not significant enough to be flagged by your 3 sd rule.

Could you give me an example of how much slower a top 20-30 crew would need to be for it to be flagged? Just curious how far off they would need to be for this to happen. Not that I would target this (who would seriously care?) but I'm a stats geek myself. If you're not comfortable picking a random crew, then use the Piranhas and/or UC.

"Are you using the standard deviation of the population of the standard deviation for the team in question?"

Should read

"Are you using the standard deviation of the population OR the standard deviation for the team in question?"

Why would you use the standard deviation of the population???? I just assumed it was the standard deviation for the crew in question. What you're trying to catch is when the performance of a specific crew is outside the range you would normally expect for them. If it is a crew that is usually very consistent, then they'll have a narrower range.

Suggestion. How about excluding all specialty races? Only include races in the normal draw.

Why not include Hamilton? Time is everything.

Well if their fastest time was around 2:03+ and the "specialty" race was a 2:15 that would be a huge difference and should be excluded from their rankings.

Why include Hamilton?

Who went?

Never been to hamilton before, how's the venue?

If Hamilton is deemed sufficently "competative" as per the criteria it will be entered.

I'll try to give you a rule of thumb Rob, the 3 standard deviations is based on the team.

PD

What I mean is, a time is a time it doesn't matter how competitive the teams are there. It would follow that its actually more difficult to post a good time against crappy teams. Mojo's were posting 2:07's at Hamilton.

PD,

Just noticed that Old Skul'd was duplicated. The other one being Old Skul?d

You could argue that Milton is competitive as well, with teams like New College, Piranhas, Jetstart, UC, and BMO First Dragons in attendance.

the problem with the less competitive festivals is not that it is easier or tougher to get a good time, it is that there are less teams there that can be used to compare the times from that festival to other festivals, the less team there are for this the less accurate the comparison is. This is also why teams can do three 2:03s in a festival and get 2:05 for the rankings because by comparing all the crossover teams it was calculated that on average every team at that festival was 2 seconds faster

Thanks Muff. That is correct. See the methodology for any confusion:
http://www.dragonboatcanada.org/rankings/Methodology.htm

Furthermore, given the large number of festivals out there it can become a lot of work to get additional times for just a handful of teams. Therefore it was decided to just focus on the "more competative" festivals. Should a festival like Hamilton attract a sufficient number of top 100 teams, then it too would be included.

Hmmm makes sense thanks for clarifying.

July 10 9:05

Or what these so called corporate teams could do is actually have paddlers from the company that sponsers them be part of the team or Scotia does what they did last few years take the Spitfires and give them the Rouge entry and that won't effect thier ranking. Yes Scotia Rouge is a 2:05 crew but i think everyone knows that and knows that at the Bankers Cup they are missing about 80% of thier best paddlers. Now to say that race should not be included kinda punishes everyone else to accomidate one team. Does that sound fair??? JUst know that every race outside that B.C. will be the real deal Scotia crew.

"Yes Scotia Rouge is a 2:05 crew but i think everyone knows that and knows that at the Bankers Cup they are missing about 80% of thier best paddlers. Now to say that race should not be included kinda punishes everyone else to accomidate one team."

I don't get it. How does excluding a specialty race with specific roster rules "punish" everyone else?

Just to keep you guys on track, the rule is for everyone, no exceptions.

If any team runs a race that is not remotely representative (3 standard deviations away from their average) then it gets tossed out.

This isn't really a big deal.

Anyways, I'm trying to add Sudbury but have run into problems of sample size. It may have to wait until after I get a few more festivals added so I have more teams to compare to.

After Montreal I should be able to add Ottawa and Lachine. The Nationals are also coming up.

Thanks for your patience!

PD

Dump Sudbury. Only one team of note there anyway.

It's great to be included in the rankings. I think we have a great festival and work hard to provide a quality experience for everyone. Thanks for coming out!

PD:

I apologize if this has been brought up earlier... I tried looking for it but couldn't find it so I though I'd ask.

I notice that the only festivals added to the 2008 rankings are Pickering and Toronto. I think PD already said he'd add Lachine and Ottawa after MIDBRF, but any thoughts of adding any other regattas that a few "competitive" teams attended? I know that there was talk about the sample not being large enough in some regattas to compare times adequately, but I would think that regattas like Milton, for example, produced a sample large enough to be added... am I incorrect in this assumption? After all, you have teams like Jetstart, Piranhas, UC, New College, Old Skuld (who is still listed twice in the 2008 rankings), BMO, MOFOs, Paddlers Anon, and Wahoos (all 9 currently ranked in the top 35 for this year).

If we expect enough competitive teams in Woodstock to be considered, I would think Milton would qualify as well.

I'll look for PD's response... thanks!!!

Can't help but think Jetstart and/or New College has lots to gain with Milton being added. They both beat a Piranhas team that looked really strong at the island and is right now in the middle of the top 10. Common sense tells me something was going on here and the real Piranhas weren't at Milton and adding Milton would screw up the "reality" of the rankings.

Jetstart vs Chiro's in Ottawa:

Place Lane Name Time
1 4 Events Alive 1:56.79
2 5 SCC Team Chiro 1:59.70
3 3 Gung Ho: Barrhaven Dental Associates 2:02.02
4 6 The Merge 2:04.18
5 1 Team Chaos 2:04.66
6 7 ADRENALINE Drager Medical 2:05.40
7 2 Wong's Dragon Boat Club 2:06.58
8 8 Jetstart 2:07.55

Jestart vs Chiro's in Sudbury:

Place Lane Name Time
1 4 Chiro Sudbury Canoe Club 00.01:57.62
2 5 Jetstart Toronto 00.01:59.37
3 3 Sidelaunchers Collingwood 00.02:02.83
4 6 Tailgators Mississauga 00.02:04.76
5 1 Phoenix Sudbury Canoe Club 00.02:07.04
6 2 Dragoneers Sudbury 00.02:07.93

So is Jetstart 2 seconds slower than Sudbury, or 8 seconds?

Has a team's time ever been thrown out for being more than 3 standard deviations FASTER than normal?

Sorry to pick on Jetstart, but this is a great example of the difficulty in using times to rank teams. I know, I know, it should all even out...right?

You cannot use the jetstart times as they had paddlers from other teams paddling for them

"Sorry to pick on Jetstart, but this is a great example of the difficulty in using times to rank teams."

Any rankings system would have this problem, Jetstart was much better team in Sudbury than it Ottawa. So what do you base their rank on? You kind of need a thrid tie-breaker festival to find out.

"PD:

I apologize if this has been brought up earlier... I tried looking for it but couldn't find it so I though I'd ask.

I notice that the only festivals added to the 2008 rankings are Pickering and Toronto. I think PD already said he'd add Lachine and Ottawa after MIDBRF, but any thoughts of adding any other regattas that a few "competitive" teams attended? I know that there was talk about the sample not being large enough in some regattas to compare times adequately, but I would think that regattas like Milton, for example, produced a sample large enough to be added... am I incorrect in this assumption? After all, you have teams like Jetstart, Piranhas, UC, New College, Old Skuld (who is still listed twice in the 2008 rankings), BMO, MOFOs, Paddlers Anon, and Wahoos (all 9 currently ranked in the top 35 for this year).

If we expect enough competitive teams in Woodstock to be considered, I would think Milton would qualify as well.

I'll look for PD's response... thanks!!! "

Sorry, still need to add this to the methodology.

The rule is that if a festival had a competativeness indicator of 1 last year it gets added automatically to this year (as long as it is statistically feasible). This was done to give some year-over-year consistancy as well as giving teams a heads up as to what will for sure be included. Thereby Sudbury and Woodstock get added. If for other festivals it is clear that they will have a competativenss indicator of 1 they also get added, thereby Nationals. As we get more teams in the rankings it will become more clear whether Milton should be added or not, if it doesn't get the 1 competativeness then it will not.

This rule is mainly to make the rankings sustainable - I only have so much time and I want to keep producing them for as many years as possible. The second function is to eliminate festivals where teams don't enter their top boats or merge with other teams to get sufficient numbers. The bottom line is that doubling the work for a handful of boats with questionable rosters just isn't worth the additional effort.

"Jetstart was much better team in Sudbury than it Ottawa"

So close but you mistyped that sentence a bit. It should have read "Jetstart had a much better lane in Sudbury than it Ottawa"

No disrespect to Jetstart who are a fine bunch of people, but their Ottawa team was their normal roster while in Sudbury something like 1/3rd of their roster was made up of Hydro's, Chaos and Big Fish paddlers....people from stronger teams. Combined with wash riding off Sudbury their sub-2:00 is an anomaly. At GWN you can expect them to have their regular team since the other teams will also be racing there. They should make it out of "C" at GWN this year, but I do not expect them be challenging Mayfair for first place.

comon, it's Jetstart... LOL

Don't you think your taking this a bit too seriously?
For a team that practices once a week, with great people and knows how to have fun, do we really need to bash them too?

Any update with Ottawa and Montreal added?

Finished most of the remaining work at lunch. Should have Lachine, Ottawa, and Montreal posted by late tonight.

PD

Hey PD;

I see you did the updates for MTL, OTT and Lachine.

I have to wonder though - the Montreal results really seemed to be skewed.

DCH 1:59.3
Jetstart 1:59.4

Both are good crews but, they are not faster then Team Chiro, Hyrdos, Verdun, G&G etc...

I know your methodology is pretty sound, but doesn't this make you go hmmmmmm




http://www.dragonboatcanada.org/rankings/2008_byFestival.htm

PD:

Just wondering... why is the overall time a reflection of a combination of times in all distances? Shouldn't we keep the 500m times separate from the rest? After all, I think it is a given that some teams are sprinters while some others are better in longer distances... but don't we usually measure a team's performance based on their ability in a 500m race?

While I see the utility of having the "combined" rankings up, wouldn't it also be interesting to see the rankings based only on times from 500m races? If this is way too much work then I understand... but if it is a quick fix then it would be really interesting to see the "500m Rankings". I have a feeling that it would look very different in some cases!

Thanks, look forward to your reply.

No way should the Montreal rankings turned in a result like this. The problem here is that Hanalei stunk up the joint and allowed lesser teams to get better true rankings. This exposes a big flaw in this process. I'd be willing to bet many teams that were bumped can handle Gung Ho, The Merge and DCH.

1:59 for DCH? Where did that time come from? I'm new to PD's methodology but they pulled around 2:07 for mixed in MTL I thought...

"No way should the Montreal rankings turned in a result like this. The problem here is that Hanalei stunk up the joint and allowed lesser teams to get better true rankings. This exposes a big flaw in this process. I'd be willing to bet many teams that were bumped can handle Gung Ho, The Merge and DCH."

It's just not Hanalei that was there, Jetstart, UC Toronto, etc. were there as well, so there is a lot of blame to go around if you don't believe some of the crews in Montreal are better than the rankings make them out to be.
The only way to tell is for those other "lower ranked teams" to show up next year and have a go at them.

"While I see the utility of having the "combined" rankings up, wouldn't it also be interesting to see the rankings based only on times from 500m races? If this is way too much work then I understand... but if it is a quick fix then it would be really interesting to see the "500m Rankings". I have a feeling that it would look very different in some cases!"

The good news is that a 500m rankings essentially exists, just go to the By Distance page and re-rank looking at the 500m results. The ranking does change a little, but usually not more than a place or two.

"No way should the Montreal rankings turned in a result like this. The problem here is that Hanalei stunk up the joint and allowed lesser teams to get better true rankings. This exposes a big flaw in this process. I'd be willing to bet many teams that were bumped can handle Gung Ho, The Merge and DCH."

I will look into the Montreal thing. However keep in mind that the rankings take into account about 30 teams when producing their results - not just Hanalei (who's 1/30th impact would likely be offset by the faster Jetstart). Keep in mind that Gung Ho was just a second or two off of Chiro in Ottawa (beating Chaos, ranked 20th, by a combined final of 4 seconds), and DCH Exp was about the same distance ahead of Gung Ho in Montreal as Chiro was in Ottawa - thus you'd expect DCH to rank around Chiro (sample size is low for this team so the accuracy of their exact time may be questionable). The merge also didn't race in Montreal - their faster time seems to come from the teams ability to do fast 200m races in Lachine (even though they still placed ahead of Choas in Ottawa). If ranked by 500m it looks like they would drop from about 13th to 19th.

Not picking on Choas, but I think they are recognized as a strong team this year and provide a good example benchmark for teams that the GTA would not have seen, Gung Ho, The Merge and DCH.