MANILA, Philippines - Grassroots development at the very core and a talent search on a regional basis will be the main features when the second Coca-Cola Hoopla fires off Saturday with teams from 21 cities in the National Capital Region, including defending champion Muntinlupa, vying for the top prize of P250,000 in various venues.
Bracketed in NCR-East zone are Quezon City, Marikina, Pasig and Pateros. NCR-West has Taytay, Cainta, Binangonan and Antipolo.
NCR-North features Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela, and Caloocan, while grouped in NCR-South are Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, Parañaque, Pasay and Taguig.
NCR-Central completes the cast with Manila, Makati, Mandaluyong and San Juan.
There will be three levels of competition: Intra-City, Inter-City and Inter-Zonal. Except for the Inter-City, which will be a single round, the two other levels will be double-round affairs.
All cities will have three teams each except Quezon City, Manila and Makati which will have four apiece because of the size of their population and land area.
The champion from the Intra-City wars will advance to the Inter-City encounters with the option of fielding a selection of players who saw action in the Intra-City.
The emerging Inter-City champion will then represent its zone in the Inter-Zonal to decide the 2011 NCR champion.
Second place is worth P125,000 third place P75,000, and fourth P50,000.
Last year, Muntinlupa stunned favored Pasig in the finals, bringing to a close a highly-successful maiden offering designed to give players, especially non-varsity talents, coaches, fans and local government units a different avenue to interact in an atmosphere of fun and competition. It also gave birth to a fledgling rivalry that could blossom with this edition’s live-wire showdowns.
Games and activity booths will be set up in the different venues to spice up the action, and a photo contest will be held to heighten the excitement.
A Mythical First Five selection will be picked later, and from it the Most Valuable Player.