IATC Interview: Dannie

During one of my famous "there are too many people here and they are looking at me, probably" moments during IATC, Dannie, the contracted social media agent for the IATF, passed by and told me something kind and nice. Naturally, I turned that lovely human interaction into an opportunity to interview someone, because why would I ever just be a normal person about stuff?

During this IATC Interview, Dannie and I talked about the IATC, the challenges of managing a week-long series of tourneys, and Dannie's own hopes and aspirations for the biggest event in the sport.

I think every IATC gets a little bit more expansive. How has this one different than last year?

Dannie: I'm going to be so for real with you, I've been coming to the IATC/NATC since the beginning. I'm from one of the original six member clubs. I used to throw out a Peterborough before I moved, and this is by far the best I've ever seen [IATC] run.

This is our biggest year ever, and the Slayer series is the biggest tournament of its type, so that's super, super cool, especially as somebody who is gender nonconforming and a queer person born a woman, that kind of thing. I think our team is really well put together this year. We unfortunately don't have Lisa this year due to her family circumstances, but everybody's really stepped up. Everything is going smoothly. This is the best run event I've seen out of the IATF.

You might not have exact answers for this, but how many folks are involved in the operation of the IATF in regards to the IATC and how many throwers do we have by comparison?

Dannie: Oh, the thrower's numbers are a good question. I did write them down somewhere because we're sneaking those numbers into the live stream. They asked me for some fun facts, some history, that kind of thing.

The core team, of course, is Matt, Chris, and Katrina. Then for IATC specifically, they hire on Lisa, Will, Tiff and myself. As of this year, this is the biggest the team has ever been.

So that is what, seven people, and of course, again, we don't have Lisa, so that's back down to six.

In terms of throwers, of course we have 256 for the Wilson Cup, 89 for Slayer series. Big Axe sold out after being doubled this year. Knives was 32. We sold out almost everything and we actually had to reopen the global & skills qualifier last night because so many people were still interested.

So how does a team that is that small and has events happening all over Toronto, how do you manage to make everything pop off without big failures or big communication errors or things that basically just shut down tournaments?

Dannie: We get really lucky. We do have a very good team. The GMs at BATL are fantastic for working with us. Yes, they're contracted by us to run this, but we couldn't do this without them. And I think especially this year, because we have a somewhat bigger team, even though it's by one person, we were able to at least have somebody in contact at each venue every day, which has been a huge help. I can text Tiff and say, here, grab this person. She can call me and say, Hey, this emergency is happening. Go get Chris. Chris is on top of his game as our chief technical officer. He has a job that I do not envy.

And he is an incredibly, incredibly smart man. So all of the technical side of things is his doing anything, AxeScores, anything, whatever. He is the mastermind. We jokingly called him the architect last year, so I'm trying to bring that back.

Katrina is honestly -- she's my idol right now. I'm actually back in school for Recreation and Leisure Services, trying to get into event management and running this kind of thing for the rest of my life. I love this stuff. So I'm really looking up to her as a mentor and we're really collaborating well this year, I think.

What if you could have kind of your perfect IATC, what would that look like? What would be different compared to what's happening today to let's say if everything keeps growing the way it is or the way that we dream it to be? What do you think that looks like? What does the idealized state?

Dannie: I think we are getting very close to that. Again, this being the biggest that we've ever had is incredible.

If you had told me back in 2017 when I was standing shoulder to shoulder with everybody at Pickering and not able to breathe or move that this is what this was going to turn into, I would've laughed. I would've thought you were nuts.

But this is kind of the pipe dream. I know everybody wants one venue. I know everybody wants everything in one place, but for something this size, we have to keep it reasonably feasible too. If I could change anything, my only thing would be that everybody were happier. As much as all of the feedback we are getting in person is incredible, everybody is thrilled, everybody's happy to see each other. It's the loud minority online.

We don't expect anybody to step up and do things. But when they do, we take that on. Adding the live streams this year, that was a collaboration with quite a few people. And I know not everybody's happy with it, but you know what? It's a step in the right direction. It it's a learning experience for all of us.

NOTE: Dannie clarified after the interview they would love to see the IATC on the TV. ESPN style. They didn't say "ESPN style," I did, just now.

I think that's something important too, is that the IATF team, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the IATF team isn't necessarily, nobody necessarily went to school for how to run an axe federation.

Dannie: No.

It's all learning on the job more or less.

Dannie: Yeah. But our team is so talented.

Katrina I think is the one who has the most experience in terms of what she does for her job.

Chris, of course, is very talented at what he does. I believe his job prior to was in line with this. But yeah, for the most part, I'm going by my limited knowledge and learning as I go.

Will is incredible. He's so handy. He does everything we ask him to and more.

Tiff has had other roles in the past where she's had volunteer coordination experience and Lisa's incredible. She does everything. She liaises, she creates a lot of the graphics that we use. So any of the frames that we used this year for any of the photos, the Slayer series banners, the Slayer series t-shirt that's coming out. Yes, that'll be great, I'm very excited. It's a beautiful shirt. A lot of this stuff is like we are bringing our knowledge and making it work for this.

Is there anything that you want to add or anybody you want to shout out or any final thoughts that you want to include?

Dannie: Oh God, that's a lot of pressure. I don't know. I have a lot of people all through the community that I really adore, everybody that I've thrown with since the beginning of time.

Everybody else that I've known through the years since 2016, 2017, and all of the new people that I'm meeting between this year and last year, I've made friends all over the world.

I was explaining to people like, this is my Christmas, this is when my family comes to visit. This is when it's a little bit stressful, but we get to have a big party and this is my gift. This is everything for me. So that's all I really got.