Previously:

• Teams were seeded into Flights of 6-8 based off of regular season results
• QF -> SF -> Final Single elimination playoff format over the course of 2-3 Weeks

Now:

• Playoff Flights of 8-10, with each flight divided into two pools of 4-5 teams (using snake seeding)
• Pools play a 3-4 game round robin
• OPTION 1 (Preferred): Top two teams from each pool play a crossover semi final game
• Pool A - 1st Place vs Pool B - 2nd Place
• Pool B - 1st Place vs Pool A - 2nd Place
• Winners Play in Finals
• OPTION 2: Top team from each pool play in finals

Why:

• To provide teams better value by increasing the maximum number of games per season
• To make playoffs feel like a more significant part of the season rather than something that is crammed in at the end
• To lessen some of the randomness (eg. "One bad game") of single elimination playoffs

Previously: Club Championship was awarded to the Overall Winner of the regular season

Now: Club Championship is awarded to the winner of the A Flight Playoffs. Overall Winners of the Regular season are now the "Regular Season Champions".

Why: From the simplest perspective: It brings us in line with most other curling clubs, as well as most sports leagues (major and minor).

For our league in particular, there's two main reasons:

1. It makes the possibility of winning a Club Championship available to a wider group of teams. Despite efforts to even out points spread, typically the Club Championship was won by a team that played in A Flight for 3-4 seasons. Now, a team can have a good first season, reach the A Flight playoffs, and compete for the Club Championship.
2. There are no definitive results that show the team who wins the overall rankings is "best". Only 4 instances in league history has the Club Championship and A Flight Playoffs been won by the same team: McDowell (2000), M. Blonski (2005), K. Blonski (2016), and K. Blonski (2019).

As the league has grown, we've been able to increase the prize pool (including trophy cost) substantially from around $3000 to $4500 and place a little more emphasis on the playoff results. Eventually individual trophies were cut for both logicistical reasons and in favour of increasing payouts.

Entertainingly, the league moved away from alcohol-based prizes to cash-based as junior players and teams started participating (and winning) in the league.