Yep, it's that time of year again. For those of you who have taken a nice long summer break from throwing darts, it's time to blow off the dust and start practicing again. The official start date for the new season is still to be determined but will more than likely either be Sept 21st or the 28th. All captains will be notified in the coming week.

So get your team together. It looks like this new season will be a "trial" for the new format. We'll have to see how everyone likes it.

For those of you who did not make this years Awards BBQ, you may be very surprised at some of the MAJOR changes that were voted on for our league. All of the changes that will be implemented for the upcoming season were voted on by a majority of those in attendance. I will be posting all of those changes in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

Having such huge changes occurring just brings to the forefront the importance of every single person making it a priority to be in attendance for these big meetings. If we had every person in the league there to vote, some of these changes may not have been voted on by a majority.

Don't forget, this Saturday July 17th we will be having our once a year BBQ and Awards picnic. This is your chance to get some of those dues back that you paid for in the form of trophies, food and good beer. We will also have our doubles blind draw tourney that is sure to have some good payouts depending on how much we have left over after trophies this year. The last two years, you got paid just for being at the picnic!
So come on down for some sun and food and darts this Saturday, 12 noon.

When : Saturday July 17th, 12 noon
Where: Erik's House, 130 E Yanonali St.
Why: Because you have trophies and food to collect!

Santa Barbara Independent photographer Paul Wellman took some great pictures of Dennis Priestley during the live dart exhibition held at Dargan's on June 26th. Paul was kind enough to send them to me to put up on the website. You may recognize the first picture. That is the one they used in this weeks Independent story on the event. Definitely the best pictures I have seen of Dennis. Paul may get a job as official photographer for him!!! Thanks again Paul.

This past Saturday Dargan's once again played host to the Dennis Priestley live dart exhibition. It was very unfortunate to see hardly any participation or support from our league considering most leagues would realize what a great privilege it is to have a true legend in the game come and pay them a visit. None the less, the News-Press article helped a lot in bringing people in who would have not been there otherwise. Dennis was as usual playing great darts tallying up a total of 12 180's on the day!!! But, there were some nice darts thrown by some of our league players against him. Liam, Mick, Phil, Isaac and Nathan all managed to take a leg off of Dennis. Isaac did it with the best style in that he took a 151 out!! Dennis did however never lose a best of 3 and usually did it with some sort of extra flair. Like when he had 52 left against Mick and threw 1,1, double Bull. Or when he had 5 left against Liam and he threw, 1,double1,double1. I think Dennis took a total of 9 games out with a double bull.
Dennis was very appreciative of all the people who came out to support the event and said he would do it again next year. Watch for live darts coverage later this week on either Fox Sports World or Fox Sports Net live from the Las Vegas Desert Classic. Hopefully we will see Dennis on stage in the finals this year!!

Tomorrow night (Tuesday 6/22) begins the Open Summer Doubles Blind Draw tourneys. This will be a weekly event open to any and all players. A great chance to get new people involved in the league for the upcoming season and a great chance to stay well tuned during the summer. A $5 entry fee from each person will be required and the total pot will be matched by Dargan's to make a very nice pay out.
So come on down to Dargan's for some great fun and a chance to play with a partner you may have never played with yet. 7:30 start time SHARP! If you're late, you're out

Curly's Allstars eliminated The Carpenters 5-3
Dubliners eliminated A League 5-3

The date has been set for the SBDA BBQ and Awards picnic. We will once again be having the event at Erik Schiefen's house with a full BBQ with a couple of kegs of fine beer included. This is a completely free event to all SBDA members and we will be giving away all of the trophies and also having our annual doubles dart tourney as well.

When : Saturday July 17th, 12 noon
Where: Erik's House, 130 E Yanonali St.
Why: Because you have trophies and food to collect!

Dennis Priestley Live Dart Exhibition
Immediately Following the Solstice Parade

Once again, Dennis Priestley will be visiting us in Santa Barbara for a live dart exhibition and your chance to play him one on one at Dargan's Irish Pub. This is a truly unique opportunity for you to have a chance to play one of the world's best players. Anyone can come down and play him and also get a picture and autograph from one of the true ambassadors to the game of darts. Or, if you just would like to come down and watch while routing on your friends and see some fantastic darts, it's completely free. So come down to the Solstice Parade and right after it, come into Dargan's for a pint and watch or play some great darts.

Dennis Priestley Dart Exhibition
Saturday June 26th, 3pm (immediately following Solstice Parade)
Dargan's Irish Pub
$10 to play him head to head, 501

Dubliners over Dargan's 5-3
Curly's over Wires 6-0
A League over Coprolites 6-3
Carpenters over Showtime 5-2

Next week Semi Finals (6-8-04)
Curly's vs Carpenters (Bar)
Dubliners vs A League (Pool)

The Cup Playoffs begin tomorrow evening. The top 4 teams with highest winning percentage have a bye for the first night. Remember to use the PLAYOFF Scoresheets!!! You can print them off of the Bull tab on the upper right of the webpage.

LAST NIGHT OF LEAGUE PLAY

Last night of league play for the season is tonight. The playoff schedule will be posted as soon as Dave gets the results from the last nights matches. The top 4 teams will have a BYE for the first night of playoffs and the other 8 teams will be playing.

For those interested in playing during the summer, suggestions are always welcome on what format you would like to see being played. We have done summer doubles, open blind draws, hill climbs etc... Chime in and let us know what you would like to see for the summer. Send your requests to iwannaplaysomemofodartsdissummer@sbdarts.org

Once again it's time for another ADO Regional Qualifier. This time you will be competing for your entry fee into the ADO Regional event being held in Orange County on May 22nd. So come on down to Dargan's to get in a solid day of practice and fun. Immediately after the event, darts will be broadcast on TV. We can all sit and have a pint and watch the classic Final of Phil Taylor vs Kevin Painter from earlier this year. Then we will see how all of our darts should have looked throughout the day!

What: ADO Regional Qualifier
When: Sunday, May 16th, 1 pm start
Where: Dargan's Irish Pub
Cost: $10 entry fee
Format: All 501, round robin event
Open to all paid SBDA Members

Two one hour highlight shows will be broadcast on Fox Sports Net - into some 81 million homes - on 9th and 16th May.

The first show will cover the tournament as a whole picking out the best of the competition at the Circus Tavern, followed up a week later by the classic Final between Phil 'The Power' Taylor and Kevin 'The Artist' Painter.

It is EXTREMELY important that everyone lets Fox Sports how much they appreciated seeing the darts on TV. All you have to do is take 2 minutes of your time and write them a quick e-mail and tell them how much you liked seeing the darts or tell them how excited you are they will be broadcasting it. If they get a good response, Fox Sports Net will be carrying the entire Las Vegas Desert Classic this year. This will also be the springboard for them to be carried on ESPN in the coming years.

Please click on the following link and send them a quick e-mail. Address the e -mail to Head of Sport. If everyone does it, we may have a chance to see darts on a regular basis:

For those just dying to have all of their darts trivia questions answered, I'm providing a link to fulfill your dream. Actually, I have had the link to this guys site under "links" at the top of our webpage but he has put some new stuff on his site since I first added the link. Here ya go!
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/patrick.chaplin/Trivia/dart_trivia1.htm

Next Tuesday (4/20) we will have a week of Byes for all of the teams that do not have to have a make up match. It looks like only one match will need to be played which leaves most players a free night. For those who would like to play, we will be having a Blind Draw at Dargan's that night. This is a chance to invite any new players that you may think would like to get involved in the league. It is open to any and all players. If we get 12 or more players, we will be having a doubles event. $5 buy in and Dargan's may sweeten the pot. Hope to see you all there for a fun night of practice. 7pm Start time.

Along with the great hotel rates being offered for the Desert Classic, they are also now offering more incentive. For every 3 people that we have from our league that enter to play in the event, one additional person will go for free! That means if we have 4 of us go, we can split the cost of 3 persons entries. Instead of being $150 a piece, it would be $112.50 each.

Let's see if we can get 8 of us to attend this awesome event! You won't regret it.

Some fantastic rates are being offered for the upcoming Las Vegas Desert Classic in July. Once again the best of the best in the world of darts will be here in the U.S. and you have a chance to play them all head to head for a chance to be on WORLDWIDE LIVE T.V. and a grand total of $180,000 in total prize money. This event is NOT to be missed.

To entice you to make the trip, the PDC has a special darters rate at the MGM Grand which is where the event will be held. $79 a night for the entire week including weekend nights! You won't be able to stay there for any cheaper unless you're a high roller. They are the same rooms they offered last year and they are very nice.

Call 877 880-0880 and mention the Desert Classic. Give them the promotion number DAR006.

Back in February, a gal named Jill who works at a division of Somera in New Jersey was visiting SB and came down to Dargan's with Scott Cranmer. She was shooting pictures that day of some of the guys playing darts. As I always do when bored of making phone calls all day, I was playing on the net today and searched "Santa Barbara Darts" in Google just to see if anything new popped up and I found this website.

The ADO Regional competition is being held this Saturday, March 13th, at Dargan's Irish Pub at 1PM. This brings together the top players in Southern California vying for a chance to travel all expenses paid to St Louis for a chance at winning and qualifying to go the the Winmau World Championships in England and play live on world wide T.V.. Come on down and cheer on your local players and watch some fantastic darts. Chalkers are always needed and support for your local league members even more! Hope to see a lot of you there.

The final ADO National Rankings have been posted for 2003 and some of us are on the list! Here is a listing of our league players by National Ranking for the year 2003:

Erik Schiefen - 90th in the U.S. - 166pts
Phil O'Neill - tied for 107th in the U.S. - 148 pts
Wayne Jessup - tied for 152nd in the U.S. - 120pts
David Brinkhurst - 375th in the U.S. - 46pts
Nathan Knight - 436th in the U.S. - 38pts
Rob Washburn - 481st in the U.S. - 32pts
Mike Gregory - tied for 638th in the U.S. - 24pts
Isaac Oltmans - tied for 638th in the U.S. - 24pts

Congrats to all! For more information on all of the points for all regions, go to the ADO link on the top of the page. The total alphabetical list with all rankings should be up in the next day or so.

Once again, the Santa Barbara News-Press will be publishing a portion of the Bullshooter each week in the Friday edition of the sports section. Unfortunately, it will always be a week behind unless Dave were to get all of the results by Wednesday morning and get the Bull done that morning. Probably won't happen. But hey, your name will be in the paper every week if you aspire to make the top 10 in the MVP's of each division. All team results and standings will be posted as well. Should be in today's paper but I am on the road and won't see the paper until I get home tomorrow.

First off I would like to thank everyone for their overwhelmingly positive response to the new silk screened shirts. I'm glad everyone likes them. I think they turned out really nice.

But now for those who would like a REALLY awesome shirt, we will be offering the same design FULLY embroidered on the high quality Hilton Shirts. These will be shirts that will last forever with no fading or color deterioration. A shirt that you could wear to any tournament and look like a pro (well, at least dress like one!). I need to get a firm commitment for at least 12 of these shirts to make it economically feasible. If I get an order for 12 shirts, the cost will be $65 per shirt. If I only get 6 people who want them, it will be $90 per shirt. At $65, I really think that is a GREAT deal. The design will require 18,000 stitches just for the back design alone. Digitizing and set up costs are very high so we need as many shirts as possible to spread the cost into.

I will have a flyer next week that I will hand out so that I can get FIRM commitments. So far we have at least 6 people who will want them but I want to get it up to 12.

After a long struggle on whether or not to proceed with making new league shirts, the end has finally arrived. At first it looked as though we wouldn't have enough people interested in getting them but once I showed off the new design, most forked out the dough to get a new shirt. And for those who did, you won't be disappointed. They look great!!! And for those who didn't tell me you wanted one after MANY e-mails asking if you did, well too bad for you. We thought we would have extra shirts but as it turns out, all have been pre-sold. There is still an option to get the embroidered shirts done and I will post that cost to the website later today. I do know it will be VERY expensive and we need a minimum of 12 shirts bought in order to go ahead with it.

I will have the shirts with me tonight at Dargan's. Make sure to stop by early if you want to get yours if you are playing at another venue. I don't want to have to carry them around after tonight. Thanks again for everyone's patience. Hope you all enjoy them.

Liam has decided to throw a new Dargan's MONDAY night tourney every week and throw in $100 cash into the pot on top of the usual $5 entry fee. This means if we get 20 people to play we will have a $200 pot to split. Top three players or doubles teams will be paid off. Third place could pay you 5 times what you put in!!!

Tourneys start this next Monday, March 2nd at 7pm. Open to any and all players. Another great night of practice and money to boot!

Awesome Computer Score System

While surfing the net for software to keep even more accurate stats for darts, I found this really cool program a guy in the Netherlands made. It unfortunately will not do a whole league but is incredible for using on your own at home. If you want to really keep track of your own progress I strongly encourage you to download the program. I have it on my laptop now and will bring it down to Dargan's on Sunday for the ADO. It is totally free of charge unless you want to be able to keep track of a bunch of players. I'm thinking of paying the $27 so I can do that for everyone on my team. The thing is, you have to enter every shot right after you throw it so you really do need a laptop to do league stuff. If we all wanted to have full stats for everyone, every team would need to have their own laptop and someone on the team entering every shot while others are chalking. Kinda unrealistic.
The guy went a step further and put in wav files of the PDC guys. When you hit a T40 you here the guy say "one hundred and forty". Pretty damn cool. And other funny stuff when you hit a zero or when you hit your first high out. The best part is going back and seeing exactly how many darts you shot, the sequence of throws etc... And you can print it all out.

For those who haven't seen it yet or haven't placed an order for the new shirts we are making, I have posted a picture of the new design in progress. I still have yet to tighten up the design and finish on the colors. We can only have 5 colors total but this new design will allow us to do a silk screen as well as embroidering because it is more "sparse" and won't require 50,000 stitches to embroider.
Now the cost has gone up a little per shirt because we are doing a whole new design. There are set up fees, new films need to be made, and we are doing 5 colors instead of 4. All things considered, they are still very reasonable.
The T's will be $17 and the polo's will be $25 and both will have pockets.
For those who have made payment already, I need to collect another $3 for each shirt from each of you.
Embroidered cost will be figured out in the next day or two. Those will be for the fancier Hilton shirts.
If you haven't placed an order yet, DO NOT DELAY. These will be going into production next week!! Don't be the one saying you wish you ordered when you see me handing them out. E-mail me and let me know if you would like one and what size you want.

Well, the final "local" tourney for a little while has now passed this past weekend at The Queen Mary in Long Beach. A fantastic festival of Scottish tradition brings every Scottish Clan and bagpiper this side of the Mississippi to celebrate the true Scottish traditions. Along with that comes the Queen Mary Classic darts tourney. A total of 7 Santa Barbara players made their way down to give it a go; Kevin Frantz, David Brinkhurst, Wayne Breault, Nathan Knight, Phil O'Neill, Rob Washburn and Isaac Oltmans.

The first event was a blind draw doubles 501 event. Phil O'Neill along with his partner Dave Waldschmidt somehow managed a top 8 finish although neither of them were playing in top form. Isaac Oltmans and his partner also managed to scrape out a top 8 finish with his partner but I forget his name.

In the singles 501, PhilO'Neill faired the best making a top 16 finish beating the "kid" Jonathan Kemper who won the blind draw in the first match and then taking out Todd Combs in the second match 2 straight. Unfortunately, down one game but sitting on 40 with his opponent on 303 in the second, Phil couldn't manage to put it away and went home with some money but a lost opportunity. Rob Washburn finished with a top 32.

(02/09/04)
SBDA marks their territory at the Vegas Open
Tales from the oche by Phil O'Neill

Although I'm sure we all would have liked to have placed better at this year's Las Vegas Open, the strong contingent from Santa Barbara (12 strong) had a few shining moments this past weekend.

Beginning with Friday nights Blind Draw Doubles there were some interesting pairings. Nathan "Goodnight" Knight drew Chris White from the San Francisco region. Chris had just won the National Cricket Championship earlier in the day beating Ray Carver in the finals so Nathan was looking to make it to the end of the night with Chris and take home some serious $$$. But that wasn't what Mick Farrell had in mind. Mick was paired with a guy I wasn't familiar with but the two shot very well. They met Chris and Nathan in the top 8 and took them to the limit knocking out a heavy favorite. Mick and his partner then lost the next match to Dan Olsen (Canada) and his partner but finished with a top 4. The rest of us faired ok. I (Phil O'Neill) was paired up with Michael Conley from Ventura. We ended up getting a top 32.

The next day saw many blurry and bloodshot eyeballs. The 10am Doubles Cricket was a pairing of Mick Farrell and Bobby English, Chris Schiefen and Mark Ellenberger, David Brinkhurst and Nathan Knight, Wayne Jessup and Leo Leniman (from San Diego), and Phil O'Neill and Doug McDonough (from San Diego). Mick and Bobby made it through 2 rounds, one of which was a win over the Japanese National Woman's champion (can't remember her name). They finished outside the money in top 64. Phil and Doug faired the best in the doubles making it to the top 16 in a knock down drag em' out cricket set vs. Steve Hogan and M.A. from Arizona. Going all three legs, the games went into the 500's on points but Phil and Doug just missed their chance at putting them away and moving to the top 8.

Singles Cricket didn't see anyone get too far except for Nathan Knight. Phil saw U.S. #1 John Kuczynski first round. Tough match that John won but I managed to stay with him. Nathan ended up getting into the top 16.

The final day was Doubles 501 and singles 501. Andy Clare and Chris Schiefen ended up drawing John Part and Dan Olsen in the first round (the overall top two players of the tourney). Phil O'Neill and Doug McDonough met Frank Hernandez and Scotty Burnett. Phil and Doug just couldn't put away the outs and ended up losing 2 straight although had at least 4 turns at the out.. We rushed over to see how Andy and Chris were doing. Andy and Chris lost the first leg and we arrived, they were at 131 with Part and Olsen sitting on 335. Chris set Andy up with a triple 17 on his final dart to leave Andy 50. John and Dan were still a few throws from throwing at an out and Andy stepped to the line with his first dart hit the double Bull! Taking a leg off the guys who had already won 1st place the day before in the doubles cricket was quite a feet. Then John Part seemed to wake up starting with back to back T40's and threw a 16 dart 501 on them to put them away. A leg was still a major feather in Andy and Chris' cap! Especially since John and Dan ended up winning 1st place once again in the doubles 501.

Champions of the tourney were:
Doubles Cricket - John Part / Dan Olsen (Canada)
Singles Cricket - Dan Olsen (Canada)
Doubles 501 - John Part / Dan Olsen (Canada)
Singles Cricket - John Part (Canada)
Womens 501 and Cricket - Stacy Bromberg (USA)

All of the new team photos have been posted. Click "Teams" on top of board to see them. Because I have now switched our website hosting, I will be able to keep ALL the pictures ever taken up on the site as well as all past news etc... You will notice that above you can now click "News" for the past seasons as well.

(1-30-04) New League Shirts

We have decided to go ahead and place the order for the new league shirts. Well, we are actually doing a reprint of the originals. So far, we have firm orders for 10 shirts. The remaining 14 shirts will be a mixture of T's and Polo's. The T's will be size XL and the Polo's will be large.
If you have lagged on getting in an order for a shirt and you would like a size other than those mentioned, you better order it NOW or you will only have those sizes mentioned available to you.

I have also come up with a new design for high quality embroidered shirts. It will be somewhat similar to our original but more sparse and classier. These will be on the Hilton shirts. I will have the design up on the website for people to view in the next week. Those shirts will probably be around $60 but well worth it. Please e-mail me at shirts@sbdarts.org and I will get you down for one.

The new Spring 2004 schedule has been posted to the website. Click the "Sched" tab at the top of the board to see it. A printed out schedule will be given to all teams next Tuesday in your packet. It will also be in printable format for you under the "Bull" tab at the top right of the board. Please MAKE SURE to bring your 1 check from each team for $125 made payable to SBDA on Tuesday night for Andy Clare to collect. Any team that has not paid in full will not see any points on the following weeks bullshooter.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Spring 2004 season. If you are a captain please print this to give to your teammates.

First, let me give you the first week of matches. The entire schedule can be either found on the website or they will be handed out on Tuesday.

Remember, all team dues are due the first night of play! Your points will not count if dues are not paid. No exceptions!

One extra item we included in this seasons schedule is a makeup week four weeks before the end of the regular season. If your team needs to reschedule a match during the season, you can use this week to play the match. No matches will be rescheduled after this date. No exceptions! For those who do not have a makeup match, a Blind Draw will be held that night. Remember, every Tuesday is dart night. Tell your spouses, kids, work, etc... that Tuesdays are booked. No exceptions! Ha Ha!!!

Ok, we've got some great events coming up. First, good luck to everyone going to Vegas February 6-8 and The Queen Mary February 14-15.

We will have an ADO Qualifier Sunday, February 22nd @ 1:00. This will qualify players to play in the ADO Regional March 13th at our very own Dargan's Pub. As some of you may remember, last year we had this Regional and eight people came and played despite Danny's funeral the same day. I pray that nothing like that happens this time or ever again. So show up and play or just come and watch some of the best players in SoCal compete.

Finally, I would like to thank some of the people in this league that make this job easy. Dave Valentine for all his hard work in doing the schedule and the weekly Bullshooter. Without these, we would not have a season to play. Phil O'Neill for all his work on the website. He is constantly updating the site and is arguably the best dart site in the world. Andy Clare for chasing the money and Wayne Jessup for being my soundboard. I couldn't do this without you guys.

Phil Taylor wins unprecedented 11th World Title

With intense competition all the way through, Phil Taylor went head to head with Kevin Painter in the Ladbrokes World Dart Championship this morning (eve in England). Falling behind 2-0 it looked as if Taylor may be in jeopardy of losing a second world title in a row but Taylor being the persistent never give up player that he is battled back to make it 6-5. Painter then threw an incredible 12th set to make the match go into sudden death.

Said to be one of the best dart matches of all time, Taylor pulled out his unprecedented 11th World Title. Then just 24 hours later, Phil Taylor announces his retirement from darts. For all of the details go to:
http://www.planetdarts.co.uk/article.asp?id=179860&Nv=1