We're going to start occasionally using clocks at our club meetings including rating games, and I was thinking more deeply about sudden death vs. japanese byo-yomi and canadian byo-yomi timing schemes.

My thought is that sudden death allows your opponent to spend your time (either intentionally or unintentionally) by playing more end moves than are really warranted. In which case, byo-yomi (either japanese or canadian) would alleviate any need to care about how many moves your opponent forces you to play in the end game, when your responses can easily be made in the span of the byo-yomi period.

And further, the main practical difference between japanese and canadian in this case is whether your clock can handle that mode of counting. In this case, my understanding is that canadian byo-yomi can essentially be implemented with an analog or "sudden death" clock. Whereas a special clock is needed for japanese byo-yomi. (and in our case, I think we will have one of each).

Are there any other practical implications of choosing among main go timing options?

You can easily research the practical implications of the different methods. My experience is that Canadian creates repeated cycles of frantic play (whoops, I've got to play 11 stones in 6 seconds), whereas Japanese requires experience of playing timesuji's to allow you to read out a situation adequately. Fischer solves both of those, I gather, but the absence of enough clocks makes it a non-starter for us (for the time being at least).

I'm just a little scarred by seeing clock abuse in local tournaments

It seems to me that "Japanese requires experience of playing timesuji's" occurs largely after your time is expired (i.e. within byoyomi). In which case, any timing scheme will impose it's own flavor.

Can you explain what "clock abuse" is?

If you have clocks that support it, I'd say use Japanese. Less super-frantic play at the end of each Canadian period (where you'll eventually run into SOMEONE trying to play 5 moves in 3 seconds...) and IMO an easier "feel" to B-Y play ("I've got 30 seconds/move but can go over a few times").

Hopefully you can encourage friendly play with this in a club setting so hard feelings will be minimized. I'm just a little scarred by seeing clock abuse in local tournaments (admittedly rare and a long time ago). Personally, I've offered (and bring) clocks to my club but I don't think anyone has wanted to use them for at least 3-4 years.

Bruce "Timer" Young

Would Fischer timing be an option? I've never really played with it in real time, but I've always thought it would work nicely.