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So it's that time of year where the season is over, and the coulda-shoulda-wouldas start to come to mind for many.

If you feel the need to complain about anything from the season, this can be a venting ground for it.

Please keep it clean and intelligent if possible.

It's important for everyone to vent their frustrations, and I feel we should have a place for that here.

I'll go ahead and start with this.

Did the judges really feel it necessary to score The Cadets in the 92 pt range? I know many will say "well you can't compare scores from one year to another", well I say bull hooey on that.

It does stick in the minds of people.

When I toured with the Blue Stars in 2010, Houdini show, of course we (Blue Stars family and fans) were all elated at the 91.90 (92.05? on Friday) and of course we were all bummed we couldn't top SCV that year. The point is, 92pts is great, for an 8th place corps.

Did The Cadets really put out a performance on Saturday that was only marginally better than Blue Stars in 2010? Of course not. The Cadets were leaps and bounds better. Not knocking Blue Stars, or SCV, or even Phantom Regiment who scored in the 93 range (along with the Sanford award) with their Into the Light show. Great show, but their brass was really a good bit behind Cadets 2016 who I feel had a great brass section.

Now I'm no homer for The Cadets this season, or even last, although in general they are among my favorite corps in all, but as a fan, I do feel insulted that they would get 92.x for their efforts. I hope this org doesn't feel that way, but I do. I feel insulted at this score.

Scores do matter. They matter in the sense that an organization looks at their scores to try and determine where they stand within their competition. The Cadets were not a 5pt behind Bluecoats. That's like saying the Crossmen were as far behind Cadets and Cadets were behind Bluecoats.

I think that is a load of crap.

Id believe, IMO, that every corps at Finals had a BETTER show than they had last year. And even most corps NOT in Finals had a better show than last year.

They all really raised the bar.

Cadets with a 92.7625? No way.

I feel the same with the Blue Knights. Their show was 2.5 pts better than last season.

Here is how I would have scored.

1-3 I think was about right.

4th SCV got 95.3 I would have them at 95.75.

5th Cavs got 94.025 I would have had them about 94.7 and in 6th

6th Cadets 92.763 I would have had them about 95.25 and in 5th

7th Blue Knights 90.737 I would have them at 93.4

9th Blue Stars 89.05 I would have them at 91.25 and in 8th

8th Phantom 89.963 I would have them at 90.575 and in 9th

10th Crossmen 86.975 I'd give them an 88.5

11th Academtn 86.1 I'd put them 88.2

12th Boston 84.8 Id have them 86.1

But then again this is just me.

Scores do matter to me in a certain way, it DOES tell me "did this corps improve?" Yes they all did improve and I'd REALLY like to see that improvement manifested in a score that is SOMETHING MORE THAN ARBITRARY.

The more each season goes by the more I wonder if scores really ARE mostly arbitrary, when they SHOULDN'T be.

Scores have to mean SOMETHING.

And even more than that, what really ticks me off is how EVERY score went down from Semis to Finals except for the top 3.

Was this kind of a statement being made intentionally? What did DCI have to do with it? "Hey, judges, thanks for coming out tonight to judge Finals. We all hope that y'all will bring us a new champion tonight!" wink wink.

Now I'm not saying there is a conspiracy, and I do think Bluecoats deserved to win by a SMALL margin, which they did, not to take anything away from my favorite show Blue Devils have done in a long time, but seems to me that DCI has been pretty clear that they wish the activity to change as far as show design. What can the corps like Cadets do, when their show didn't work quite enough to medal last season, and come out with something completely different, BASED ON COMMENTS FROM JUDGES about how their show design wasn't working, and they come out with a program so completely different, and they get roasted for it.

I don't believe their 92.x was because of execution. They didn't perform on a low box 4 level across the board, but that's how it was scored. Same with Blue Knights.

I really feel sorry the most for these two corps, Cadets and Blue Knights for doing something both so completely different, and get insulted by judges/DCI for their efforts.

For corps who are 1) either trying to get back into medal contention, or 2) trying to get TO medal contention for the first time, these bipolar messages from one year to the next are NOT helping these staffs in trying to figure out what is going to work for the judges.

And I hope that DCI and their judges don't automatically equate "what works for the judges and DCI" = what works for the fans.

I WOULD like to see better show designs in the future, but what I say this year, as disappointed as I was with last season's show designs, was a GOOD step in the right direction, but seemed to have NOT been rewarded for it.

I'm sorry this has happened and just wanted to voice my concern about this issue that may start to be a disconnect between what DCI as the governing body wants, and what the fans want to see as a whole.

That being said, I enjoyed every show in at least some way, and thought they ALL did a fantastic job no matter what scores they ended up getting. Congrats to them ALL, especially Academy, Bluecoats, and BLUE KNIGHTS who had IMO the best entertaining product on the field for me.

Thank you to all, and my post was not a knock against any corps, it was a knock to the disconnect between where the fans would like to see shows scored and how they were actually scored.

I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Please feel free to get off your chest anything about this season that may have bothered you and keep it constructive if you can.

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I don't have much to complain about, but i whole heartedly disagree with your claim that you can compare scores in 2010 to 2016. Not only is every season different, but the judging sheets have undergone 3 changes since 2010 (2012, 2014, and 2016). Perhaps 2016 has been the most accurate year in a while when it came to scores because of the hidden captions. We are just used to having inflated scores, especially for certain corps.

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Well, at least your complaint is well thought out. By the time we get to Indy, you can pretty much bank on it that 12th will be about 85x and 1st will be 97x.

Also, for a corps to break through, they practically have to bust the door in to do it. Why should placement of the previous season have any barring on how is a corps is scored and placed in the new year. Yet, we see it year after year. DCI, on some level understands this. It must be one the reasons why recaps were taken down. Even DCI has a trust-but-verify relationship with the judging community.

But overall, I've got very little to complain about. It's an awesome activity.

Edited by drumcorpsfever
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Also, when it comes to scores, I think we fans care a whole lot more about them than the members do. It was really cool to see all the age-outs on the field on Friday while scores were being announced. It seemed the only people paying attention to the announcing of the scores were those in the stands. The members on the field seemed like they cared less. They were enjoying each other.

PS - sorry this isn't a complaint! I suppose someone can complain about that.

Edited by drumcorpsfever
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Im generally in agreement with you about The Cadets(and basically all scores from 4-12) being too low when compared to other years. That being said, although scores DO matter, it is pretty much pointless to imply that The Cadets show is "only marginally better than the Blue Stars in 2010" because you simply cannot compare two shows, judged by different judges 6 years apart from each other. What is interesting, in my opinion, is the increase in the gap between the Cavies and The Cadets over the course of championships.

The Cadets were .262 ahead of the Cavies in prelims and by finals they ended up 1.262 behind the Cavies(1.524 total movement by Cavies). I'm not saying that the Cavies didn't deserve 5th place, but I do not think that the margin should have spread that much in just 3 days.

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Pistachios are still hard to open.

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