A lot of people have been wondering what the CGS schedule would look like. Wonder no more.
One problem: the schedule is wrong. Using my mega-uber-super reasoning and counting skills, I instantly noticed that the San Francisco and Carolina franchises were only scheduled for eleven matches, and New York and Dallas were scheduled for thirteen.
(I don’t really have mega-uber-super counting skills, just a lot of time on my hands.)
Despite that, I’m sure it’s close. Which brings up the question: what’s the rush? There’s only twelve matches in the regular season. The Cubs play that many games in two weeks, and there’s another twenty weeks of pure misery after that. Basically, professional teams play as many games as physically possible. In football, that means once a week. In basketball, it’s a game every other day (approximately). Why not do the same thing for the CGS?
I can understand leagues like CAL and CEVO having a relaxed schedule. They’re not offering enough compensation for gaming to be a full time job, and having three or four matches a week would be ridiculous. People go to school, they have jobs, they go out at night; the vast majority of teams play in online leagues for fun. Even on the professional level, there isn’t enough compensation in CEVO to make CS a full time job.
The CGS doesn’t have that problem. The teams are totally committed, and if they’re not, they should be. I can’t think of anything the CGS gains by having such a short schedule except saving on production costs. But there’s nothing forcing them to televise all the matches, either. People outside the community won’t care, and people inside the community will still follow it online or watch on SourceTV.
I know they have other scheduling concerns, namely what comes after the U.S. playoffs (remember, this is just Region 1 of 6). There’ve got the postseason, finals, an international tournament, and I think a “Gamers of CGS” swimsuit calendar shoot (unconfirmed). It seems like they’re rushing through the regular season to get to the good stuff, like some kid feeding his dog broccoli so he can stuff his face with Ben & Jerry’s. Personally, I’d prefer the regular season to have a little more emphasis. It builds rivalries and it shows which teams are versatile. Making adjustments is a huge part of professional sports. Just ask any pitcher that came up to the majors for a month and then started getting hammered. You’re not going to win doing the same thing week after week, except when there's only three or four weeks in the season.
The only good thing about this is the Carolina Core. Dolven said they’d be fine with four to five weeks of absolute bootcamping. I hope they had more luck with their Delorean's plutonium supply than I did, because it's only been a couple weeks since the draft. By the time they're done bootcamping, the regular season will be over.
Bottom line: these are the best teams in the country. They’re going to provide the most exciting series of matches in the history of Counter-Strike. (I’m not counting LANs because there are usually a lot of duds thrown in with a dozen really good games.) Why aren’t we seeing them play each other more often? coL and 3D will play each other twice. I don't think I'll be the only one disappointed by that. It's arguably the best rivalry in Counter-Strike, and they're playing as many times as LucK played EXTREMITY in the Central CAL-Main playoffs last season. No disrespect to those teams, I'm a big fan. But they don't exactly carry the excitment of a coL/3D matchup.
Thankfully, as a Cubs fan, I'm used to disappointment. I'll just apply our Fan Motto: there's always next season.
(And hopefully next season is a little longer.)
