People have legitimate complaints, but I thought I'd throw out a compliment ...

My son's 7/8 team played three games in the 7/8 age group, against all 7/8 teams. One LI team and two NJ teams. All three games were good, the officiating was good, and most of the fields were in good shape. Been to Pridefest three times with two different clubs, and it was well run from my perspective each time.

There really is only so much a tourney can do if teams are signing up with kids that are too old. Until lax starts requiring birth certificates this will continue to happen. All tournaments suffer from this, especially when the standard is different from one to the other (age based vs. grade based). In turn, the clubs (and we) suffer, as some teams are formed to cover U13 or U15 age groups and others by specific graduation year.

There were more teams in prior years, and I think Pridefest (like a lot of tournaments) will need to add a championship round or attendance will probably continue to fall off. The landscape of summer lax has changed and clubs want to advertise results. Some of the charity tournaments like the JDRF and Gallagher may be able to keep the festival format for a little longer, but I think even they will have to change eventually.