New 2-Person Junior Team Match Coming in 2009 National Trophy Rifle Matches
Written by Gary Anderson, DCM
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The Freedom’s Fire bronze that the CMP is acquiring as a “National Trophy” to be presented annually to the National Trophy Junior Team Match winners. The sculpture is 35 inches high and stands on a black marble base. |
Junior service rifle shooters will have the opportunity to compete in a new two-person team match during the 2009 CMP National Trophy Rifle Matches at Camp Perry. The new match will replace the Whistler Boy Junior Service Rifle Team Match. The new event, to be fired on Wednesday, 5 August, will be named the National Trophy Junior Team Match. A striking new trophy called “Freedom’s Fire” will be awarded to the winning team.
Like the Whistler Boy Junior Team Match that it replaces, the National Trophy Junior Team Match is for two-person junior service rifle teams. Each team member will shoot the 50-shot National Match Course with coaching permitted. Slow-fire stages will use team-style pair firing.
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Starting with the 2009 National Matches, scores fired in the new National Trophy Junior Team Match will count in the Colonel Bill Deneke Trophy Aggregate that determines the National Junior Service Rifle Team. |
The National Trophy Junior Team Match will be open to teams sponsored by CMP-affiliated state associations and clubs. Team members must be juniors entered in the National Trophy Rifle Matches. Team coaches and target pullers may register as “non-firing team officials” in the CMP highpower matches. There is no entry fee to register non-firing officials.
The CMP will provide National Matches Junior Support funding for the new National Trophy Junior Team Match, as it previously did for the Whistler Boy Match. The Deneke Trophy Aggregate that honors the annual National Junior Service Rifle Team will now include scores fired in the new junior team event together with scores from the President’s and National Trophy Individual Matches. Junior service rifle shooters from states that do not have other juniors at Camp Perry will be able to shoot on at-large teams so they can still compete in the Deneke Trophy Aggregate.
The original Whistler Boy Team Match began in 1978 as a cooperative endeavor between the NRA and National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice. For the last 30 years, the NBPRP and CMP provided many thousands of dollars each year to support juniors who participated in the National Trophy Rifle Matches and Whistler Boy team matches. Recent NRA communications made it clear that the Whistler Boy match is exclusively an NRA match and that coordination with CMP rules was not possible. This meant it could no longer be part of the National Trophy Rifle Matches. The National Trophy Junior Team Match that will be part of the 2009 National Trophy Rifle Matches will ensure that junior highpower shooters continue to have the same competition opportunities they previously had.
Additional details regarding the new junior team match and the 2009 National Trophy Rifle Matches will appear in the 2009 CMP Competition Rules and the 2009 CMP National Matches Program that will be released in the next few months.
