EPT
I've been playing in WCG and Toronto LANs for about 5 years now, from TFL events to the qualifiers in Calgary and Vancouver, to the finals last year in Montreal. I know I won't win so this has nothing to do with that. Starcraft's fun; Really fun. In my life I've only really met three people who I've played Starcraft with at their house or mine, and that's probably been 10 games between the three of them. So I won't go much out of my way for WCG, but if I'm heading somewhere anyways, I always play WCG (except for Vancouver but that's a weird story).
So I was pretty happy there was an Edmonton and Calgary qualifier. Last year I met Star.Selwyn and GoSu)Season [forget his new tag] and we had some fine games, so I was planning on playing both Caglary and Edmonton. Might as well, Edmonton is only 2.5 hours away and I have some friends up there I haven't seen in awhile. And the finals this year is in Toronto, where my family is from. AND it's at the MCC, which is walking distance from Ryerson, where my sister goes to school. So it all was falling into place. I'm due for a vacation as I haven't seen my family since Christmas, I could stay with my sister, play the three days of WCG, then head in and see my family and high school friends.
Great...? So I was looking at the WCG schedule since May. http://worldcybergames.ca/default.asp?mn=1.2.31.49 Edmonton and Calgary were TBD. June, TBD. July, TBD. Okay, the finals are late August so we're starting to cut it close here. Now I goto check today. Oh yay all the dates are filled in. Hmmmmmm, where's Calgary? I start looking for AB (Alberta) in case I can't read Calgary for some reason. BC? SK? What in the fuck.
In the past WCG has held online qualifiers after the offline qualifiers - in case you were expected to qualify offline and you sucked, you still have a second chance. Good thing this year they held them in June. So I'm absolutely boned. My closest option is London Ontario. In case you're not familiar with Canadian geography, that's about 2000 miles away.
It just doesn't surprise me whatsoever. The grand final has always looked (I've never been) like it's run very nicely in huge venues. But the qualifiers in Canada have always been shit. I can't believe companies sponsor this. I hope it's being run on a volunteer basis, because it's unfortunate if people are being paid to organize this.
I was thinking of driving done to Seattle for similar reasons. See some nice games, meet some people and have some beers.
Not anymore, if I goto WCG it'll be to take a dump on their property and then drive home.
incredible, your story made me sad 
