Tournament Cancelled
2015 Border Battle Tournament
The directors of GSI and Heartland Soccer met this morning along with the manager of the Scheels Overland Park Soccer Complex. Weather reports were provided by meteorologists. I am sure you can image that as organizations both Heartland and GSI hoped to continue with our preparations. After much discussion and based on the information being provided to us we believe that the right thing to do is to cancel the event. We found that Friday matches would likely be unplayable with the high of the day reaching 19 degrees. That number would obviously decrease dramatically around dusk and therefore making playing outdoor soccer totally unrealistic.
After a cold start much of Saturday promises to be decent with some hit and miss weather challenges. The problem would come later on Saturday as 2-4 inches of more snow is predicted. The meteorologist said that Sunday would be a "mess".
So with all of this information we did not want to have teams come to the event only for it to be cancelled after you got here. Again, we believe the right thing to do for the integrity of the event, the safety and the enjoyment of the kids playing and the families watching as well saving your team fees associated with the entry fee, hotels and travel is to cancel.
Our tournament refund policy is very similar to other tournaments and calls for us to maintain $150 of the entry fee. We are going to waive this and provide you with a FULL refund.
GCI Team Travel will also be cancelling all hotels that have been booked for the event.
We will begin processing the refunds early next week. If you paid via credit card, we will refund the full amount online, and it will show as a refund from HTGSports within 5 or 6 days. Teams who paid via check will be refunded by GSI Sports. Checks will be sent to the team representative who completed the online registration process.
Going forward, we are currently discussing future considerations for this event. Hosting it in March is one option we are looking at. The Border Battle has been one of the better events in the Midwest and we hope that you will continue to support the tournament as we make the changes needed.
Thank you for your understanding.
Mike Cleary
Dave Morrow
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