We woke this morning to bad news; our friends from Venezuela’s Warao cannot attend WUCC this year.

Venezuelan teams have an annual battle in obtaining visas to leave their country, and I expect that this is probably why they won’t be in Prague. This same reason kept them out of ECC ‘09.

We (Sockeye) were lucky enough to be able to play them twice in Medellin’s great TEP tournament, and we know them to be fierce competitors with outrageous athleticism. They have a few terrifying players, but what we were excited about was that their full team has a depth and conviction that would have made them our top pick to rise massively in the WUCC rankings. While we might breathe a little sigh of relief (Warao was scheduled to be in our initial pool, so we might have been their first victim) it would have been really fun to watch, play and party with them.

Here’s hoping that the tournament directors can find a fill in team on short notice to join in the fun. Our thoughts go out to Warao, who must be tremendously disappointed…someday soon we will play again!

blw (Sockeye)