justncase

9 judges were given the difficult task to rank and rate 4 Class A corps and 10 Open Class corps, not taking anything into consideration other than the performance of the moment and the criteria on their specific sheet. DCA (= the 10 voting members) revise the rules every two years and then all agree to abide by them. The judges are picked by the Chief Judge for Prelims & Finals. Then, we trust these experienced men & women will do their absolute best to get their caption right. Fans, on the other hand, watch "the shows", and are able to decide, for themselves, which corps they felt was the best, and which was 2nd, 3rd, etc. Some are more informed than others, but all have some bias. For anyone to think their OPINION is more valid than the 9 judge system, with all of the weighting and averaging that the member corps have agreed upon, would be ludicrous. It funny that some say things like "undoubtedly" or "everyone could see" or other absolute statements of fact, when it's really just their opinion. DCA did their best. The Buccaneers are the 2014 DCA World Champion. Case closed.

Actually, if you mean did they communicate to the crowd, then definitely yes. They got a great response in both Prelims and Finals, and so did lits of other corps. I would say that most DCA corps are doing well in this regard, and doing it in a variety of different ways. This definitely keeps the overall show more interesting.

Actually, the Bucs won Ensemble Visual just one week before Finals at the Reading show. Having watched this race at a few shows myself, it seemed to come down to whether or not the Bucs would be able to perform their more physically demanding show on par with the Cabs. Of course, the wild card was Minnesota, and they proved to be right in the thick of the race. This made for an exciting night where any of the three could have won it all. The Bucs were the one that laid it down the most and they walked away with the gold.

So, were you wrong, or was the entire visual panel wrong?

1.BUCS 2.Minn Brass 3.CABS 4.FUSION 5.CV 6.Bush 7.C2 8.GOLD 9.Sun 10.Hurcs

What makes the GE Visual & Vis Communication numbers between Cabs & Bucs so unusual is that the Vis Ensemble caption flipped from Scranton in the Bucs favor and the Guard spread was cut in half, yet GE Vis/Comm went to Cabs by a big spread. Granted, three different sheets, but it seems like one judge was on a mission of sorts.

Check the Scranton recap. Granted, one tenth outside of the Music Effect score for the Cabs wasn't much, but it was enough to call the show in this case. I saw the show as a tossup, but I wasn't judging. Personally, I have always been leery of the Communication caption. It seems redundant, and it gives too much weight to the most subjective caption on the sheet. Two judges get 50 un-averaged points out of 100, 10 of which are really just based on whether a show "drew them in and made them want to hear/see more". To me, this translates too closely to "Which show/corps do I personally prefer." At least at Finals, there are 4 judges on Effect/Communication. I have always wondered why they don't have a double panel in all captions for Finals. It would reduce the "Judge X screwed Corps Z" argument, and it would take some of the pressure off of some judges that like to always play it safe and do the 9.9, 9.8, 9.7....etc game down the recap. I would rather see each judge be willing to make the call as they see/hear it. One thing for sure, the panel at Finals is going to really have to think about their numbers that they submit. Scranton showed them that every Tenth of a point really counts. I hope, for the sake of the marching members and fans that they do the very best they can do to get it right, and not allow anything other that the Battle on the Field affect their judgement.

Since you made such a nicely-formatted list, I stole yours and put in my guesses, NE Brigand..... Big Sounds in Motion (Reading) O1. 94.95 -- Buccaneers O2. 94.50 -- Caballeros O3. 91.15 -- Fusion Core O4. 91.00 -- Cadets2 O5. 85.30 -- Carolina Gold A1. 84.95 -- White Sabers Fanfare 2014 (Bridgeport) O1. 85.50 -- Bushwackers O2. 83.80 -- Sunrisers O3. 83.70 -- Hurricanes O4. 76.40 -- Skyliners O5. 76.35 -- Windsor Regiment A1. 73.00 -- Excelsior

The close head to head scores between Cabs and Bucs are not hard to fathom. Most people at the show would have probably called it a toss-up. It does seem a little interesting that Minnesota's score came in so close just after the Scranton scores were announced, especially when they had a 91.25 just 23 hours before the Scranton show happened. But, on the other hand, based on watching a video from a couple weeks ago, I suspect that Minnesota probably should be the 3rd or 4th seed in Open Class. They will probably end up in one of these two slots for Pre-lims after the shows next week, so no harm, no foul, I guess. My gut tells me they are closer to the 3rd through 6th pack this year, and not the Cabs or Bucs, but I guess that will be sorted out on Saturday afternoon in Rochester.

Open Class (Most recent score) Cabs 90.65 (8/9) Fusion Core 88.30 (8/3) Cadets2 87.00 (8/9) Buccaneers 86.90 (7/26) Minnesota Brass 86.50 (8/2) Atlanta CV 81.50 (7/25) Bushwackers 81.25 (8/9) Sunrisers 80.30 (8/9) Hurricanes 79.55 (8/2) Windsor Regiment 74.30 (8/3) Skyliners 74.10 (8/9) Alliance 70.90 (7/25) Carolina Gold 70.55 (7/25) Kilties 66.35 (8/2) Class A (Most recent score) White Sabers 82.80 (8/3) Govenaires 75.25 (8/2) Sun Devils 72.20 (7/19) Excelsior 68.45 (8/9) Cincinnati Tradition 66.15 (8/2)

I agree with you that it will take AT LEAST the scores you listed. I think there will be a grouping for the Top 2, with another close grouping in 3rd thru 6th. 7th, 8th & 9th will be higher than normal, but there will be a gap between them and the Top 6. 10th will be a battle in and of itself, but the corps that makes the cut into Finals won't be very close to the Top 9. I could see the following playing out (give or take a tenth or two)..... 1st place - 98.6 (Cabs or Bucs) 2nd place - 98.4 (Cabs or Bucs) 3rd place - 97.6 (MB, Fusion, CV or C2) 4th place - 96.9 (MB, Fusion, CV or C2) 5th place - 96.2 (MB, Fusion, CV or C2) 6th place - 95.8 (MB, Fusion, CV or C2) 7th place - 91.9 (Bush, Sun or Hurcs) 8th place - 90.7 (Bush, Sun or Hurcs) 9th place - 90.0 (Bush, Sun or Hurcs) 10th place - 85.0 (WR, Sky, Alliance, Gold or Kilts - Who wants it the MOST?)

Buccaneers 93.9 Caballeros 93.8 Fusion Core 92.9 Cadets2 92.0 Bushwackers 85.2 White Sabers 84.9 Hurricanes 84.1 Skyliners 77.8 I think Joey Pero is going to really pump up Sky. This, along with some stiff competition between almost all of the corps from bottom to top will set the stage for a lot of higher scores than we are used to seeing at the Scranton show. I'm going with Bucs by a short-hair, but I think it will come down to whoever lays down the most confident performance of their program. I think the most interesting thing going on is a two-fold question....How high can Fusion go this year and How much of an impact will a full Cadets2 have on the race? I'm still not convinced that these two corps are ready to take down Cabs, Minnesota or Bucs, but something tells me these three corps are not quite as separated from the rest of the pack as they have been for the last few years. Not a knock of these great corps, I just think that a few others have stepped up their game. So, I say to all the corps in competition on Saturday, "Who wants it the most? Who is going to grab the audience by the (your choice of noun) and demand the victory?"

The "I will walk away when they allow______" crowd reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python that keeps fighting after losing each of his limbs, one at a time. It's funny and sad all at the same time.

Kinda OT, but I have always thought that DCI should start some kind of travel endowment fund to help make it more possible for groups to travel West (and for Western corps to travel East, for that matter). It would take a few years, ok, maybe a decade, but once enough $$ was in place, corps could be "financially encouraged" to travel more without risking the farm.