Since this is a yearly event, you'd expect the regular season league play to occur earlier in the year, say January thru June, and then the various stages of playoffs occur from July thru September leading to Nationals. And in fact, this is the case in many, but not all, sections as you'll see below. Additionally, when the different age divisions play varies by section, some doing them in parallel and some sequentially.
To see how different it is across sections, I've created some charts to visually see when each section has its 18+, 40+, and 55+ regular season matches scheduled. This is looking at 2017 for just the three Adult age divisions and is just scheduled dates for regular season matches and calculating the number of team matches per month.
Note that looking at the section level you get different districts that may do things differently blended together. If there is interest (leave comments!), I may drill into a few sections and see how things vary at the district level.
Let me know what you think of the below and when your league matches are played.
Because I'm in the Pacific Northwest, we'll start there.
We see that 55+ is an early start league across the board, playing in the Fall. Then both 18+ and 40+ are played a lot in the first three months of the year, but 18+ peaks in April and May while 40+ has the bulk of its matches in Jan-Mar.
Southern is the largest section, we'll go there next.
This is one long "2017" season! They take early start leagues to an extreme, Georgia starting back in May, and other districts have early start leagues too in the Fall, but the bulk of the play is in the Winter/Spring for all age divisions. We also see that across the whole section, there are approaching ten thousand team matches played in March, far and away the most of any section/month.
Next, Northern California.
With just a bit of overlap, NorCal has 40+, then 18+, then 55+. All very orderly and consistent. Just a few early start leagues in Reno I believe not in the calendar year.
Staying in California, Southern Cal is next.
Going to another good sized section next, Mid-Atlantic.
This section fits all in the calendar year and is fairly consistent with some played early in the year, but the bulk of 18+ in the Spring and 40+ in the early Summer.
Another large geographic section is Midwest.
There are a fair number of early start leagues in the Fall, and both 18+ and 40+ are spread across the whole season. It is not clear from this if they are run in parallel in all districts/areas though.
A fair amount of tennis is played in Florida, here is when their matches are played.
They too are playing a lot of leagues at the same time, although the raw number of team matches is not exceptionally high in any month so each district/area could spread them out locally.
Missouri Valley is another section covering a bunch of states.
This section has quite a few early start leagues and is playing 18+ matches regularly throughout the season. 40+ and 55+ are more in the Spring.
Next up, Eastern.
Here the bulk of the matches, 18+, 40+, and 55+ are played in the Spring and early Summer, with a small amount of 18+ played earlier in the year and as early start leagues.
Next, Intermountain.
With snowy winters, not much advancing league play is done indoors it appears which compresses 18+ and 40+ each into just 8-10 week seasons with a little overlap.
Speaking of long winters, here is New England.
Clearly they play indoors with a fair amount of all three leagues played in the Winter and early Spring, but the most is still played in the late Spring and early Summer, a lot in parallel it appears.
Another cold section is Northern.
They play a lot indoors as part of early start leagues, but a fair amount in the late Spring and Summer too. That absence of matches in April is quite odd though.
Heading south, here is Texas.
Texas has a fair number of early start leagues for 18+ then 40+ is played more in the first three months followed by the rest or a second round of 18+.
Adjacent to Texas is Southwest.
Southwest doesn't play much in the Summer, just some 55+, and 40+ is centered on the Fall/Winter while 18+ is Fall/Spring.
Next up, Middle States.
There is a smattering of early start leagues in this section, but they load up on their advancing leagues in the Spring and early Summer.
Last, on to the "Island Sections", first Caribbean.
Caribbean is very logical, 40+ to start the year, then 18+ and 55+ in the Spring and early Summer.
And that leaves Hawaii.
Also logical, more or less like Caribbean.
There you have it, when each section plays their matches for the different age divisions!
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