DCI News: Cadets Bested by 4 Corps in San Antonio?

First off, I haven’t seen any of this year’s DCI shows. They canceled the yearly show in Evansville (after 30 years due to costs), and I haven’t had the resources to travel anywhere, so…I’ve no idea what we’re dealing with. I have seen clips of the Cadets show and read all about the controversy.

I will say that I totally disagree with where Hopkins is taking the Cadets. Heck, the constant name changes for the corps is enough to annoy me (Holy Name Cadets, Garfield Cadets, Cadets of Bergen County, Cadets). This whole idea of a drum corps show turning into almost a play-of-sorts is bad bad bad. When I saw their announcement of the show and saw it had a big storyline and lots of dialogue, I cringed and asked an invisible Hoppy- “what are you doing???!” So, the Cadets, who I used to love so much- let’s just say these past few years I haven’t been a fan. I just don’t like the vocals, the weird themes, the drum mouth sounds as opposed to- get this…drums! I’m all for varied styles and such, but this just bugs me.

With that out of the way, I saw the Cadets daily update and EMail, and wow. They were 3.65 points behind Blue Devils!

______________________
Last night’s show results: San Antonio, TX
World Class
Blue Devils 92.375
The Cavaliers 90.975
Carolina Crown 90.025
Phantom Regiment 89.775
The Cadets 88.725
Bluecoats 86.650
Santa Clara Vanguard 86.425
Blue Knights 82.700
Boston Crusaders 82.450
Blue Stars 80.675
Glassmen 79.950
Crossmen 77.275
______________________

And Carolina Crown has beat them a number of times this season. Crazy. Good to see the Bluecoats (one of my favorite corps and one I nearly marched with) doing so well. Sad to see the Crossmen down there at the bottom.

And, finally the Madison Scouts. Seriously? What happened to you guys? You’ll notice they’re not even on the list above. And that’s because they didn’t even secure a spot in the Southwesten Championship! Too sad. I love these guys. Has never been the best of the best (they’ve won titles, no doubt, but they’ve never been consistently one of the best corps), but they’ve always been a fan fave because of their unbridled power and flat out knock you out of your seat hornline. Hopefully they’ll make a quick return to the top 12. Truth be told, it doesn’t look like it will matter in a few years, as DCI is in such a decline they won’t even televise the world championships this year. They’ll still produce and charge $40 for the DVD of said event tho (I assume)…

UPDATE (July 20, 2008- 6:20pm): From what I read over at Drum Corps Planet, it seems there was a lot of rain in San Antonio and the Cadets had a points violation due to a fall I presume. Didn’t read the entire thread, but there was a points violation somewhere that seemed to be connected to the slippery turf.

From reading Hop’s livejournal blog (I found it, but I don’t recall the url at the moment), it looks like there were also housing problems the day before and some musical problems as well.