After the semi final against Calgary we crowded into the shuttle line to wait for our glorious ride back to the Fairmont. An hour and a half later (one hour spent just waiting for the darn shuttle) we rolled into the parking at our hotel and had some time to decompress, do some laundry, have a pre-dinner meal and then go for dinner with the team. All the while knowing that on Sunday we would be faced with a golden opportunity, unlike any we have ever had before.
If there was a year for us to win Nationals it was this year. No Goat, No Furious and no other teams left in our way except a Phoenix team that we were confident that we could handle. Most of the players on our team participated in the previous year’s final loss against Nomads so at least had some experience playing in a final and, more importantly, dealing with the nerves that one can experience leading up to the final. On the way to the stadium most of the guys were acting very loose which was a stark contrast to our previous final experiences. That in itself was a good sign.
I think that the feeling going into the game was that we were going to win. I don’t think anyone doubted that. We were all happy and prepared for the weather conditions; grey and overcast with a slight drizzle, so we really felt like there was no reason for us to have any problems in the final.
We ran off to a bit of a lead but then we let Phoenix back into the game to the point that they were leading 14-13 with the disc to win the game. I didn’t even realize it until the game was over but we actually came within inches of losing the game as Billy Alexander just barely overthrew his receiver in the endzone to give possession back to us. We went on a 4-1 run at that point and managed to close out the game 17-15.
Of course we had the big celebration, rushing the field; there was the trophy and medal ceremony and we had a few celebratory drinks in the stands. We were obviously really excited to win but I have a nagging feeling that we almost blew it. The game should have been easier for us but we let Phoenix in the game for longer than they should have been. I must give credit to Phoenix for not rolling over and playing a great game but the fact remains that we should have won more comfortably than we did.
I think there were a couple of things that worked against us. Our first problem was that we were a bit too profligate with possession. Some players still displayed some nerves and turned the disc over too much. Our second problem is that our fitness level is nowhere near where it needs to be. Phoenix’s superior fitness level kept them in the game longer than they should have been in it. Our last problem was that we didn’t make the adjustments that we needed to make on defense to really close out the game quickly. We knew what we needed to do, we just didn’t implement it. I think this last issue was our biggest problem. With Shaggy, Eric and myself all playing on offense we didn’t have as much of a voice on the D line as we should have had. We were standing on the sideline watching our defense making strategic mistakes when we should have taken a bigger role in helping our defense figure out what they should have been doing on the field in the first place. We should have been making sure that the D line had their plans in order but we didn’t. I think that comes back to the fitness issue. It was very tiring just to play our O points; we didn’t have it in us to run downfield and, within the 90 second time limits, coordinate the defense at the same time.
I recall being on the sideline for our first 6 or 7 D points thinking to myself that we should be forcing backhand and not flick but for whatever reason I didn’t get my butt on the field to make sure the D was doing that. I guess part of that would be due to the fact that we were ahead by a few points. That is exactly when I should have made sure that our defense would have employed that force since I really do think that it would have taken Phoenix right out of the game (their offense works better against our flick force than against our backhand force). Instead we were just good enough to take the lead but not to run away with the game. Eventually, once Phoenix had come back, we switched to backhand and that let us get back in the game and win it… but like I said, we never should have been in that position.
Regardless, we won. We finally won a National Championship!!!!! I don’t think that I ever thought that I would be less of a player if I never won one of these but I definitely felt like a monkey off my back. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. I have won a National Championship and no one can take that away from me.
Now it’s time for another off season and once again the, “is it time to retire”, discussion. Thankfully I don’t need to think about that for a while. I’m just going to enjoy my winter by not playing any disc… have fun at league guys, I won’t see you there except on the odd nights I drop by to say hello.
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Monday, November 09, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
How Did We Win it All?
The quick answer to that question is that Goat and Furious George weren’t there. That answer also takes away from our accomplishment which isn’t the point of this post. I want to describe our moment of glory in all it’s…. glory.
Going into the tournament we knew that we wouldn’t be ranked as high as we wanted to be meaning we would have a slightly tougher road. That was until we realized that being under ranked was actually a good place to be. We would play a strong team on the first day but the rest of the way we would actually have easier games than most other teams. Here’s to the path of least resistance.
Our first game on Thursday was against Toronto’s third team, Roy. We played relatively clean ultimate and took it to them hard 15-2 (sorry Rahil). Our next game was against an unknown team from Saskatoon called Tommy Douglas Dream Machine. They looked like your typical inexperienced team with a mix of athletic players and they had just given Winnipeg’s General Strike a tougher game than they probably expected. They put up a bit more of a fight but we dispatched them 15-6.
By this point in the day the mercury was ready to explode out the top of the thermometer and shade was a hard commodity to come by. Not being used to this weather due to the abnormally mild and wet summer we have had in Montreal meant that even though we did well to conserve our energy in our two wins, it would be a challenge to muster the strength to play the last game of the day.
The game against General Strike started well enough for us but quickly degenerated as yours truly made a few errors that put us in a two point hole at the mid point of the first half. Our D line did a great job of climbing out of that hole and it was 8-7 at half. We kept battling through the second half but were never able to put our errors aside and just pull away. We were up 12-11 in a game to 13 and just couldn’t close the deal. We missed a chance to end the game on a D point by missing a huck by mere inches and at 12-12 thought that our O line would be able to seal the deal. We had some good disc movement but an unfortunate slip by Nico meant that he wasn’t able to get to Shag’s pass on an in cut despite getting his fingertips on the disc while lying on the ground. Strike almost gave it back to us but they managed to have the game of inches go in their favour as it took a huge layout grab for them to seal the win.
So we had a 2-1 record after day one and took a 1-1 record with us into the power pool. The best part was that no one on Mephisto was worried about the loss. To a man you could see that everyone knew that we just under performed and that 9 times out of 10 we win that game; it just happened that this time was the exception.
Day two would be important to setup the matchups for the elimination rounds. Thanks to Thursday’s loss, our first game of the day would be our big challenge. We wanted to come out strong and set the tone for the rest of the day but instead we came out like a bunch of sissies and spotted Calgary’s Invictus a 5-1 lead. Apparently someone woke up our team as at that point we reeled of 7 straight points and took half 8-5. An 11-2 run by us meant that Invictus’ good start was all for naught and we took the game 12-7. I’m still not sure what lit the fire under our behinds but it worked.
We then had two easier games against our development team, Demon, and a team from BC called Sofa Kings. Demon brought a lot of fight to our game. They just weren’t good enough to match us and we won handily but both teams exerted more energy than either should have. We went through the motions against Sofa Kings while resting some almost injured players and still won 15-6.
At that point we heard that Invictus had defeated General Strike giving some players hope that we would actually get first place thanks to point differential but alas it was not to be as we had previously heard that Tommy Douglas upset Invictus so no matter the outcome of our game against Sofa Kings, we would be second in the pool.
Trying to figure out who our quarterfinal was going to be against was an exercise in futility as there were so many upsets and ties in the other pool that we had no idea who was going to end up in what position. In the end we were just glad that we didn’t have Blackfish or Phoenix.
Saturday morning started with a bang… of thunder. We got to fields in time to find out that we were going to be playing against Mangina and in time to get some good seats in the beer tent where we could wait out the rain and lightning delay. At times the rain seemed to be so hard that we thought we would be better served building an ark. Eventually we got the call that games would be starting in 45 minutes. The Mephisto leadership toyed with the idea of only sending 12 players out for the game just to make sure that we didn’t have too many players standing in the rain getting cold. It’s a strategy that has worked for us before in rainy weather. Thankfully the rain let up and we were able to play a full roster. We cruised to a 10-7 win in a game that was a bit closer than it needed to be but at least we got the job done.
After that it was back to the relative dryness and warmth of the beer tent. The rain had turned into a drizzle by the time we had to get ready for our semi-final against Calgary. While we were warming up I kept thinking to myself that I wasn’t ready for the semis. I never like having that feeling because I never know if it means that I’m really nervous or if I have the right amount of nervous energy for the game. On the other hand it is a better feeling than when I feel too comfortable before a game; that usually means my body is too relaxed and I have trouble getting going.
The game started out as a muddy battle between what seemed like two evenly matched teams. We got an early break but it was back and forth until our O line scored to make it 5-3. I’m not sure what happened after that Invictus crumbled under our pressure and we managed to keep pouring it on like I’ve never seen us do it before. We won the game 15-3; Calgary just couldn’t do anything but it wasn’t that they were being inept, our guys just kept making big plays. Every point saw us make big play after big play and it wasn’t just a few guys, it was everyone. I had the good fortune of making probably the biggest play of the game when I scored a layout Callahan goal to make it 8-3 and take the game to half. After every point our boys were rushing the field and the Calgary guys were just slumped over in the mud wondering what they could do to complete a pass, forget about score a goal. It was probably the most comprehensive victory that Mephisto has ever had. We didn’t just beat Calgary, it was a slaughter.
Well that set us up for a finals showdown against Phoenix on Sunday.
This has taken up a lot of keystrokes so contrary to the title of the post, I’m going to take a break here and my next post will finish off on the theme of “how did we win it all”. Next post will cover how we prepared for the final and how the final went down. I might even give you a glimpse into our post-final celebrations which may have gotten a bit… sloppy.
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Going into the tournament we knew that we wouldn’t be ranked as high as we wanted to be meaning we would have a slightly tougher road. That was until we realized that being under ranked was actually a good place to be. We would play a strong team on the first day but the rest of the way we would actually have easier games than most other teams. Here’s to the path of least resistance.
Our first game on Thursday was against Toronto’s third team, Roy. We played relatively clean ultimate and took it to them hard 15-2 (sorry Rahil). Our next game was against an unknown team from Saskatoon called Tommy Douglas Dream Machine. They looked like your typical inexperienced team with a mix of athletic players and they had just given Winnipeg’s General Strike a tougher game than they probably expected. They put up a bit more of a fight but we dispatched them 15-6.
By this point in the day the mercury was ready to explode out the top of the thermometer and shade was a hard commodity to come by. Not being used to this weather due to the abnormally mild and wet summer we have had in Montreal meant that even though we did well to conserve our energy in our two wins, it would be a challenge to muster the strength to play the last game of the day.
The game against General Strike started well enough for us but quickly degenerated as yours truly made a few errors that put us in a two point hole at the mid point of the first half. Our D line did a great job of climbing out of that hole and it was 8-7 at half. We kept battling through the second half but were never able to put our errors aside and just pull away. We were up 12-11 in a game to 13 and just couldn’t close the deal. We missed a chance to end the game on a D point by missing a huck by mere inches and at 12-12 thought that our O line would be able to seal the deal. We had some good disc movement but an unfortunate slip by Nico meant that he wasn’t able to get to Shag’s pass on an in cut despite getting his fingertips on the disc while lying on the ground. Strike almost gave it back to us but they managed to have the game of inches go in their favour as it took a huge layout grab for them to seal the win.
So we had a 2-1 record after day one and took a 1-1 record with us into the power pool. The best part was that no one on Mephisto was worried about the loss. To a man you could see that everyone knew that we just under performed and that 9 times out of 10 we win that game; it just happened that this time was the exception.
Day two would be important to setup the matchups for the elimination rounds. Thanks to Thursday’s loss, our first game of the day would be our big challenge. We wanted to come out strong and set the tone for the rest of the day but instead we came out like a bunch of sissies and spotted Calgary’s Invictus a 5-1 lead. Apparently someone woke up our team as at that point we reeled of 7 straight points and took half 8-5. An 11-2 run by us meant that Invictus’ good start was all for naught and we took the game 12-7. I’m still not sure what lit the fire under our behinds but it worked.
We then had two easier games against our development team, Demon, and a team from BC called Sofa Kings. Demon brought a lot of fight to our game. They just weren’t good enough to match us and we won handily but both teams exerted more energy than either should have. We went through the motions against Sofa Kings while resting some almost injured players and still won 15-6.
At that point we heard that Invictus had defeated General Strike giving some players hope that we would actually get first place thanks to point differential but alas it was not to be as we had previously heard that Tommy Douglas upset Invictus so no matter the outcome of our game against Sofa Kings, we would be second in the pool.
Trying to figure out who our quarterfinal was going to be against was an exercise in futility as there were so many upsets and ties in the other pool that we had no idea who was going to end up in what position. In the end we were just glad that we didn’t have Blackfish or Phoenix.
Saturday morning started with a bang… of thunder. We got to fields in time to find out that we were going to be playing against Mangina and in time to get some good seats in the beer tent where we could wait out the rain and lightning delay. At times the rain seemed to be so hard that we thought we would be better served building an ark. Eventually we got the call that games would be starting in 45 minutes. The Mephisto leadership toyed with the idea of only sending 12 players out for the game just to make sure that we didn’t have too many players standing in the rain getting cold. It’s a strategy that has worked for us before in rainy weather. Thankfully the rain let up and we were able to play a full roster. We cruised to a 10-7 win in a game that was a bit closer than it needed to be but at least we got the job done.
After that it was back to the relative dryness and warmth of the beer tent. The rain had turned into a drizzle by the time we had to get ready for our semi-final against Calgary. While we were warming up I kept thinking to myself that I wasn’t ready for the semis. I never like having that feeling because I never know if it means that I’m really nervous or if I have the right amount of nervous energy for the game. On the other hand it is a better feeling than when I feel too comfortable before a game; that usually means my body is too relaxed and I have trouble getting going.
The game started out as a muddy battle between what seemed like two evenly matched teams. We got an early break but it was back and forth until our O line scored to make it 5-3. I’m not sure what happened after that Invictus crumbled under our pressure and we managed to keep pouring it on like I’ve never seen us do it before. We won the game 15-3; Calgary just couldn’t do anything but it wasn’t that they were being inept, our guys just kept making big plays. Every point saw us make big play after big play and it wasn’t just a few guys, it was everyone. I had the good fortune of making probably the biggest play of the game when I scored a layout Callahan goal to make it 8-3 and take the game to half. After every point our boys were rushing the field and the Calgary guys were just slumped over in the mud wondering what they could do to complete a pass, forget about score a goal. It was probably the most comprehensive victory that Mephisto has ever had. We didn’t just beat Calgary, it was a slaughter.
Well that set us up for a finals showdown against Phoenix on Sunday.
This has taken up a lot of keystrokes so contrary to the title of the post, I’m going to take a break here and my next post will finish off on the theme of “how did we win it all”. Next post will cover how we prepared for the final and how the final went down. I might even give you a glimpse into our post-final celebrations which may have gotten a bit… sloppy.
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Thursday, August 20, 2009
Canadian Champions!!!!!
We finally pulled it off. Mephisto won the Canadian Ultimate Championships and no one can take that away from us. One could argue that it doesn't count for much since Furious George and Goat weren't there. To them I say so what; they weren't there to put their hats in the ring for the right to be called the Canadian champions and we were there.
After 14 attempts to get to the top we finally did it. We were confident that we would win but nothing was guaranteed since we aren't that far ahead of some of the other teams at the tournament. The final was a bit closer than we had wanted it to be but we won by 2 points which means it can't be called a fluke. Here is, as best as I can remember them, a summary of Mephisto's previous results at Nationals. 1996 was the first time Mephisto (and I) competed at Nationals so there are a lot of results to try to remember.
1996 - in Toronto. Furious George beats Pam for the tournament and Mephisto finishes in 8th spot after beating North Bay in a 8/9 crossover game.
1997 - in Victoria. This was my first ever trip to the West Coast of Canada. Furious George beats Altar Boys in the finals. Mephisto finishes 6th (I think), one or two spots ahead of arch rivals Wax (who called themselves Gold/Chunx for this year).
1998 - Montreal. Wax comes back and beats Nomads. Mephisto finishes in 7th place.
1999 - Ottawa. Furious goes on to win the final over Wax after destroying Mephisto in our first ever appearance in semis. Finish T3rd.
2000 - Vancouver. Furious beats Calgary 19-1 amid cheers of "We want Montreal!". This after we blew a 12-8 lead in our semi to Calgary amid a bunch of "questionable" calls. Everyone talks about how Calgary cheated their way to the final but in the end we could have just scored a few more points and that would have been that. This was also the first year that Mephisto beat the top Toronto team when we eliminated YES in quarters. Finish T3rd.
2001 - Edmonton. Nomads beat Calgary. Mephisto once again beats YES in the quarters. We then go on to lose to Nomads in the semis and finish T3rd.
2002 - Ottawa. We make it to the finals for the first time and lose to the new Toronto/Ottawa super-team Goat. This is the first year that semis are played on Saturday and only the finals happen on Sunday. Previously both semis and finals happen on Sunday. Finish 2nd.
2003 - Montreal. Furious beats Goat. After 4 straight years of at least semis, Mephisto plays like poo and gets eliminated in quarters. We end up winning the choke-off championship against Phoenix to claim 5th place in dramatic fashion; down by 2 points, we roll off 3 straight to win the game.
2004 - Vancouver. Nomads beats Calgary. We finish T3rd after losing to Calgary in the semis. Calgary may have won the game but we scored back to back callahans on passes from Kirk Savage to Jeff Cruickshank (talk about super-pickups). After the first callahan we scored one again right off the next pull, on the first pass.
2005 - Winnipeg. Nomads beats Goat. Mephisto finishes 4th. The first time we actually played for 3/4.
2006 - Halifax. Goat beats Mephisto in the finals. Our young, inexperienced players did not deal well with the skill and experience of Goat. Some of our guys were so nervous that they did not sleep the night before the final.
2007 - Toronto. Furious beats Goat. Mephisto had an okay tournament but lost to Calgary in the 3/4 game. Now that I think of it, we have never won a 3/4 game at Nationals.
2008 - Calgary. Nomads beats Mephisto in a windy final. Unfortunately we just did not have the skill to compete with Nomads in the extreme wind conditions.
2009 - Winnipeg. Mephisto beats Phoenix 17-15 in the final. The first time we play in back to back finals we make good by winning.
In 14 years here are the numbers
quartefinal appearances: 14
semi-final appearances: 10
final appearance: 4
Championships: 1
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After 14 attempts to get to the top we finally did it. We were confident that we would win but nothing was guaranteed since we aren't that far ahead of some of the other teams at the tournament. The final was a bit closer than we had wanted it to be but we won by 2 points which means it can't be called a fluke. Here is, as best as I can remember them, a summary of Mephisto's previous results at Nationals. 1996 was the first time Mephisto (and I) competed at Nationals so there are a lot of results to try to remember.
1996 - in Toronto. Furious George beats Pam for the tournament and Mephisto finishes in 8th spot after beating North Bay in a 8/9 crossover game.
1997 - in Victoria. This was my first ever trip to the West Coast of Canada. Furious George beats Altar Boys in the finals. Mephisto finishes 6th (I think), one or two spots ahead of arch rivals Wax (who called themselves Gold/Chunx for this year).
1998 - Montreal. Wax comes back and beats Nomads. Mephisto finishes in 7th place.
1999 - Ottawa. Furious goes on to win the final over Wax after destroying Mephisto in our first ever appearance in semis. Finish T3rd.
2000 - Vancouver. Furious beats Calgary 19-1 amid cheers of "We want Montreal!". This after we blew a 12-8 lead in our semi to Calgary amid a bunch of "questionable" calls. Everyone talks about how Calgary cheated their way to the final but in the end we could have just scored a few more points and that would have been that. This was also the first year that Mephisto beat the top Toronto team when we eliminated YES in quarters. Finish T3rd.
2001 - Edmonton. Nomads beat Calgary. Mephisto once again beats YES in the quarters. We then go on to lose to Nomads in the semis and finish T3rd.
2002 - Ottawa. We make it to the finals for the first time and lose to the new Toronto/Ottawa super-team Goat. This is the first year that semis are played on Saturday and only the finals happen on Sunday. Previously both semis and finals happen on Sunday. Finish 2nd.
2003 - Montreal. Furious beats Goat. After 4 straight years of at least semis, Mephisto plays like poo and gets eliminated in quarters. We end up winning the choke-off championship against Phoenix to claim 5th place in dramatic fashion; down by 2 points, we roll off 3 straight to win the game.
2004 - Vancouver. Nomads beats Calgary. We finish T3rd after losing to Calgary in the semis. Calgary may have won the game but we scored back to back callahans on passes from Kirk Savage to Jeff Cruickshank (talk about super-pickups). After the first callahan we scored one again right off the next pull, on the first pass.
2005 - Winnipeg. Nomads beats Goat. Mephisto finishes 4th. The first time we actually played for 3/4.
2006 - Halifax. Goat beats Mephisto in the finals. Our young, inexperienced players did not deal well with the skill and experience of Goat. Some of our guys were so nervous that they did not sleep the night before the final.
2007 - Toronto. Furious beats Goat. Mephisto had an okay tournament but lost to Calgary in the 3/4 game. Now that I think of it, we have never won a 3/4 game at Nationals.
2008 - Calgary. Nomads beats Mephisto in a windy final. Unfortunately we just did not have the skill to compete with Nomads in the extreme wind conditions.
2009 - Winnipeg. Mephisto beats Phoenix 17-15 in the final. The first time we play in back to back finals we make good by winning.
In 14 years here are the numbers
quartefinal appearances: 14
semi-final appearances: 10
final appearance: 4
Championships: 1
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Still Chugging Along
Boston wasn't conclusive, neither was Jazzfest in Montreal so I won't be retiring just yet. The two things that those tournaments showed me is that I need to get in better shape and I need to get my game focus back to were it needs to be.
I'm in decent enough shape to compete but I'm not in good enough shape to be the player I would like to be. Playing defense tires me out too quickly and my first step needs to be better. I'm able to play well on offense but after a long day my legs get tired and on day two, forget it. I'm wiped.
As for my focus, it just isn't there when I get fatigued. The obvious things aren't an issue; remembering plays, the mark, where to position myself, etc.. My challenge is having the focus to deal with situations out of the ordinary. Like on Sunday in the finals of Jazzfest, there was one point where I got the first pass and the cuts came too slowly. The next thing I remember is hearing "stall 9" and then trying to rush a throw off. Needless to say throwing it into the mark's hand wasn't the right thing to do but I just wasn't paying as much attention to the situation as I should have been. I should have looked upfield and as soon as I saw nothing happen, look for a reset. I'm hoping that will come as I play more tournaments.
I think I threw my first Callahan this past Sunday. I definitely threw a Callahan on Sunday, I just can't recall if I've ever thrown one before that. It was a funny situation, at least to me it was. It was really windy and the pull carried to the back of our endzone. I thought about catching it as it whizzed by me but it was still too high to pancake it. I ended up running back to pick it up but then when I turned to throw, my handler wasn't where I expected him to be so I kinda a double pumped while I tried to find him on the field. Once I saw him I threw the pass but the wind had let up by that point. I unfortunately threw a pass as if there was no wind and immediately as I threw the wind picked up. It made my pass look like a useless league pass, lifted it over Nico's head but then immediately dropped it behind him in the arms of a defender. I must have been thinking about it too much before throwing it. Oh well. At least we won the game 15-4 and I can laugh it off.
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I'm in decent enough shape to compete but I'm not in good enough shape to be the player I would like to be. Playing defense tires me out too quickly and my first step needs to be better. I'm able to play well on offense but after a long day my legs get tired and on day two, forget it. I'm wiped.
As for my focus, it just isn't there when I get fatigued. The obvious things aren't an issue; remembering plays, the mark, where to position myself, etc.. My challenge is having the focus to deal with situations out of the ordinary. Like on Sunday in the finals of Jazzfest, there was one point where I got the first pass and the cuts came too slowly. The next thing I remember is hearing "stall 9" and then trying to rush a throw off. Needless to say throwing it into the mark's hand wasn't the right thing to do but I just wasn't paying as much attention to the situation as I should have been. I should have looked upfield and as soon as I saw nothing happen, look for a reset. I'm hoping that will come as I play more tournaments.
I think I threw my first Callahan this past Sunday. I definitely threw a Callahan on Sunday, I just can't recall if I've ever thrown one before that. It was a funny situation, at least to me it was. It was really windy and the pull carried to the back of our endzone. I thought about catching it as it whizzed by me but it was still too high to pancake it. I ended up running back to pick it up but then when I turned to throw, my handler wasn't where I expected him to be so I kinda a double pumped while I tried to find him on the field. Once I saw him I threw the pass but the wind had let up by that point. I unfortunately threw a pass as if there was no wind and immediately as I threw the wind picked up. It made my pass look like a useless league pass, lifted it over Nico's head but then immediately dropped it behind him in the arms of a defender. I must have been thinking about it too much before throwing it. Oh well. At least we won the game 15-4 and I can laugh it off.
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Semi-??????
What do you call it when you aren't really retired but you aren't really in the game. I think that semi-retirement would be the term that most people use but I don't think that applies to me and my Ultimate status. I'm more in a state of having better things to while still wanting to play ultimate. Better things you say... what could possibly be better? See for yourself at madeline2009.blogspot.com.
I voluntarily skipped my first tournament with Mephisto in a long, long time; probably my first one ever. Mephisto went to the Cazenovia Ultimate Tournament the first weekend of June and I stayed home. They did quite well, finishing tied for 3rd, after losing the semi-final to Goat 15-13. After taking a month off I finally started attending Mephisto practices again but I'm way behind everyone else. I haven't gone to the gym or done anything to improve my fitness in that month and I feel no guilt about that choice. Now I'm faced with another choice; do I just cruise through the summer half assed or do I try to get in shape to be able to play like I know I can. I know that I can still play at the highest level of the sport but only if I put in the effort to be in shape. If I'm not going to put in the effort I don't really want to play. I love ultimate but not enough to waste my time playing it just for fun. It's the competitive aspect of the game that really draws me. I'd rather find another sport than toil through league in Montreal.
That's where I stand right now; wanting to play at the top level but not ready and not sure I want to put in the effort to get back there. Boston is in two weeks. I have the green light to get away for the weekend so now the choice is mine. What I think will end up happening is that I will play at Boston and if I'm not too far off the pace of the game I might keep going for the year but if I go only to realize that I've been left behind... well then it will probably be time to hang them up.
I could always just play Masters with other out of shape people like myself... nah. I've always wanted to try white-water kayaking...
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I voluntarily skipped my first tournament with Mephisto in a long, long time; probably my first one ever. Mephisto went to the Cazenovia Ultimate Tournament the first weekend of June and I stayed home. They did quite well, finishing tied for 3rd, after losing the semi-final to Goat 15-13. After taking a month off I finally started attending Mephisto practices again but I'm way behind everyone else. I haven't gone to the gym or done anything to improve my fitness in that month and I feel no guilt about that choice. Now I'm faced with another choice; do I just cruise through the summer half assed or do I try to get in shape to be able to play like I know I can. I know that I can still play at the highest level of the sport but only if I put in the effort to be in shape. If I'm not going to put in the effort I don't really want to play. I love ultimate but not enough to waste my time playing it just for fun. It's the competitive aspect of the game that really draws me. I'd rather find another sport than toil through league in Montreal.
That's where I stand right now; wanting to play at the top level but not ready and not sure I want to put in the effort to get back there. Boston is in two weeks. I have the green light to get away for the weekend so now the choice is mine. What I think will end up happening is that I will play at Boston and if I'm not too far off the pace of the game I might keep going for the year but if I go only to realize that I've been left behind... well then it will probably be time to hang them up.
I could always just play Masters with other out of shape people like myself... nah. I've always wanted to try white-water kayaking...
DF
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Monday, April 06, 2009
UPAs Day 3 and Other Things
So I've thought about what writing my UPA Day 3 recap for a while but I didn't really want to bother. It probably had something to do with the fact that day 3 was not one for the history books. We got crushed by Chain Lightning in the quarters, beat Ring of Fire in a consolation play-in game and lost to Revolver in a game that neither team really took seriously for 5-6. In the end we finished the tournament in sixth position which all things considered is awesome but it still felt like a big letdown.
On the plus side I think that we were better than all of the teams that finished behind us. You could argue that Sockeye was better than us but I'm going to go with they were not. Their arrogance drops them behind us despite the fact they beat us (barely and only with cheating). That still doesn't make me feel better. I know we lost to Jam and Ironside, both of whom would eventually contest the finals but I don't think that we were really close to those teams. The score against Ironside was close but I don't think that we could have done better and they definitely could have.
There are a few reasons why I felt like our finish was a letdown and I'll mention the two biggest ones (in my humble opinion).
1) As a team we were in really bad shape. I felt pretty fit and had the stamina to play a lot but I think I was lacking a bit of leg strength to be able to play as well as I would have wanted to. But there were some guys who had nothing to offer. At this level that just isn't good enough. The tournament format is gruelling and if you don't have a fit roster, you won't go far. In every single game that we played we started off strong and finished slow, a very good indicator that we weren't fit enough. This is an easy issue to deal with... get in shape before you show up at UPAs.
2) We had average line-calling/roster management. Guys who were tired or having bad games were getting called on the line ahead of other guys who were fresh or were having good games. I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about guys who should have been on the field but spent a lot of time on the sidelines talking to me. UPAs isn't a place to play favourites, to try to keep the PT complainers happy or to play as many points as possible. If you want to play every single point stay home and play Goosebowl. At UPAs, the needs and goals of the team come first and I don't think we did that. There were guys who didn't deserve to be on the field playing on "Universe-point" lines and there were guys who should have been on the field picking their noses on the sidelines. I'm not sure what the problem was but I wasn't about to question it while it was happening; if there is one thing that I have learned it's that you don't help anything when you complain. Do I think that I could have managed the roster a bit better? Yes I do. I've been calling lines for Mephisto for a long time now and I've think I've been pretty ruthless in how I've gone about doing it... being ruthless is the only way to do it fairly and as long as you are fair and can explain that then no one can be upset.
So UPAs were awesome. I'm really glad that I got to go and play in the open division, it is so much better than masters. That's all I really care to say about UPAs.
After a really, really, really busy summer of ultimate it was time to shut it down for a while. I've been going to gym to keep in shape but haven't really been thinking much about disc. I've been pretty busy with life but it's been a happy shift. I didn't go to a single winter tournament and I couldn't be happier about that. Tryouts for Mephisto start in one month and the biggest question on my mind is do I go for another year or is it time to retire while I'm still at the top. Okay, maybe not literally at the top but being on the 2nd best Canadian Men's team, the 2nd best Master's team in the World and the 6th best North American Men's team qualifies as at the top of my game in my books. Maybe that will be my next post in a few months... to retire or not to retire, that is the question!
DF
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On the plus side I think that we were better than all of the teams that finished behind us. You could argue that Sockeye was better than us but I'm going to go with they were not. Their arrogance drops them behind us despite the fact they beat us (barely and only with cheating). That still doesn't make me feel better. I know we lost to Jam and Ironside, both of whom would eventually contest the finals but I don't think that we were really close to those teams. The score against Ironside was close but I don't think that we could have done better and they definitely could have.
There are a few reasons why I felt like our finish was a letdown and I'll mention the two biggest ones (in my humble opinion).
1) As a team we were in really bad shape. I felt pretty fit and had the stamina to play a lot but I think I was lacking a bit of leg strength to be able to play as well as I would have wanted to. But there were some guys who had nothing to offer. At this level that just isn't good enough. The tournament format is gruelling and if you don't have a fit roster, you won't go far. In every single game that we played we started off strong and finished slow, a very good indicator that we weren't fit enough. This is an easy issue to deal with... get in shape before you show up at UPAs.
2) We had average line-calling/roster management. Guys who were tired or having bad games were getting called on the line ahead of other guys who were fresh or were having good games. I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about guys who should have been on the field but spent a lot of time on the sidelines talking to me. UPAs isn't a place to play favourites, to try to keep the PT complainers happy or to play as many points as possible. If you want to play every single point stay home and play Goosebowl. At UPAs, the needs and goals of the team come first and I don't think we did that. There were guys who didn't deserve to be on the field playing on "Universe-point" lines and there were guys who should have been on the field picking their noses on the sidelines. I'm not sure what the problem was but I wasn't about to question it while it was happening; if there is one thing that I have learned it's that you don't help anything when you complain. Do I think that I could have managed the roster a bit better? Yes I do. I've been calling lines for Mephisto for a long time now and I've think I've been pretty ruthless in how I've gone about doing it... being ruthless is the only way to do it fairly and as long as you are fair and can explain that then no one can be upset.
So UPAs were awesome. I'm really glad that I got to go and play in the open division, it is so much better than masters. That's all I really care to say about UPAs.
After a really, really, really busy summer of ultimate it was time to shut it down for a while. I've been going to gym to keep in shape but haven't really been thinking much about disc. I've been pretty busy with life but it's been a happy shift. I didn't go to a single winter tournament and I couldn't be happier about that. Tryouts for Mephisto start in one month and the biggest question on my mind is do I go for another year or is it time to retire while I'm still at the top. Okay, maybe not literally at the top but being on the 2nd best Canadian Men's team, the 2nd best Master's team in the World and the 6th best North American Men's team qualifies as at the top of my game in my books. Maybe that will be my next post in a few months... to retire or not to retire, that is the question!
DF
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Friday, December 05, 2008
UPAs... Day 2
After a phenomenal meal at Captain Brian’s in Sarasota (On the Tamiami Trail, right near the airport; best seafood in Sarasota) on Thursday evening, we had a pretty low key night and hit the hay early in preparation for a big Friday. We were looking at a game against Ironside followed by Jam. We needed to win one of those games if we wanted to have a chance to make it into quarters without having to play a pre-quarter final match.
Our first game was against Ironside. We started really well and actually had the lead at one point. Did I mention that they are a really good team? I picked them to win it all before the tournament started and I came very close with my prediction. Anyway, as the game wore on our O-line got tired and our D line just didn’t force enough turnovers and when we did we weren’t able to score often enough. Ironside ended up winning the game 15-11 but I feel the game was closer than the score indicated. I played only a handful of points which is a shame because I thought I was ready for a big game. I almost blocked the first pass of my first point (I only got one finger on the disc; enough to change its path but not enough to block it) and I got a D on a huck on my second point. Despite my play time I promised myself that I was going to be a really good team player and be as supportive as possible whatever my role so I did as much as I could to help from the sidelines.
That left our game against Jam as the last chance to avoid pre-quarters as we both had losses against Sockeye and Ironside on the books. We thought we had a pretty good chance against Jam but I don’t think that we should feel so bad about getting beat by them after you consider how the tournament ended. They ended up beating us quite handily by a score of 15-8 or 9. Our O-line just wasn’t clicking and our D-line was again unable to stop our opponents (that theme will come up again and again). From a personal play standpoint it meant that I got to play more since our captains shut down the starting O-line. I got to play just about every O point after that decision. I thought that I did a good job out there. I continued my tournament streak of no turnovers and was having no trouble getting open against some of their big players; I was being covered by one of their D-line studs, Jeff Eastham-Anderson. Of course you can argue that the motivation for them to play really hard was gone as well but I think elite players only have one speed at a tournament like UPAs and that is all out.
Much to our chagrin we had to play a pre-quarter after all. We had the more difficult pre-quarter against a Sub-Zero team that many people, including them, thought was under seeded and got a bad draw by being in a “pool of death” with Johnny Bravo and Chain Lightning. We got to play this game on the showcase field right in front of the beer garden. Next to us was the other pre-quarter which featured a surprise match-up of Doublewide (no surprise there) against Johnny Bravo (big surprise) who managed to lose their way into the pre-quarters!
We came out really strong and jumped out to a big lead against Sub. They had a very strong defensive squad but we did a great job of keeping their O line on the field. I think we started the game with a 5-1 run and took half at something like 8-3. Well it was a good thing that we had that big lead because sure enough their D line managed to get onto the field and made some headway against our tiring O line and before long we were only holding onto a 12-10 lead and they had all the momentum. Our O line manager to get off the field in time and our D line stepped up and we managed to pull away the slightest bit and won 15-12.
I was glad that we beat those guys because they had some of the biggest cheaters I’ve ever seen playing for them. There is this one guy nick-named Muffin who should really have a more appropriate nick-name; something more along the lines of Wanker, Douchebag or Blatant Cheater. Some of the stuff he was calling was so bad that it actually became funny (only because we still managed to win). I don’t think anyone really liked them because they had the lowest spirit score of any team in the division. It’s really too bad because they had some really athletic guys and they could probably be really good but no one is going to respect them as a team.
After that game it was time to head over to Captain Brian’s for another delicious seafood dinner but first we took the time to take a dip in the Gulf. It seemed like it was really chilly standing knee deep in the water but once you got in it was fine. I’m glad I took the time for a dip that evening because it was the only time that I managed to drag my butt down to the beach.
Since we were still in the tournament it was another early night to bed with the chance to dream about our quarterfinal matchup for Saturday; we had Chain Lightning in the quarters and if we won that we would get to play the winner of Ironside and Ring of Fire.
I’ll get to the Saturday recap later.
DF
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Our first game was against Ironside. We started really well and actually had the lead at one point. Did I mention that they are a really good team? I picked them to win it all before the tournament started and I came very close with my prediction. Anyway, as the game wore on our O-line got tired and our D line just didn’t force enough turnovers and when we did we weren’t able to score often enough. Ironside ended up winning the game 15-11 but I feel the game was closer than the score indicated. I played only a handful of points which is a shame because I thought I was ready for a big game. I almost blocked the first pass of my first point (I only got one finger on the disc; enough to change its path but not enough to block it) and I got a D on a huck on my second point. Despite my play time I promised myself that I was going to be a really good team player and be as supportive as possible whatever my role so I did as much as I could to help from the sidelines.
That left our game against Jam as the last chance to avoid pre-quarters as we both had losses against Sockeye and Ironside on the books. We thought we had a pretty good chance against Jam but I don’t think that we should feel so bad about getting beat by them after you consider how the tournament ended. They ended up beating us quite handily by a score of 15-8 or 9. Our O-line just wasn’t clicking and our D-line was again unable to stop our opponents (that theme will come up again and again). From a personal play standpoint it meant that I got to play more since our captains shut down the starting O-line. I got to play just about every O point after that decision. I thought that I did a good job out there. I continued my tournament streak of no turnovers and was having no trouble getting open against some of their big players; I was being covered by one of their D-line studs, Jeff Eastham-Anderson. Of course you can argue that the motivation for them to play really hard was gone as well but I think elite players only have one speed at a tournament like UPAs and that is all out.
Much to our chagrin we had to play a pre-quarter after all. We had the more difficult pre-quarter against a Sub-Zero team that many people, including them, thought was under seeded and got a bad draw by being in a “pool of death” with Johnny Bravo and Chain Lightning. We got to play this game on the showcase field right in front of the beer garden. Next to us was the other pre-quarter which featured a surprise match-up of Doublewide (no surprise there) against Johnny Bravo (big surprise) who managed to lose their way into the pre-quarters!
We came out really strong and jumped out to a big lead against Sub. They had a very strong defensive squad but we did a great job of keeping their O line on the field. I think we started the game with a 5-1 run and took half at something like 8-3. Well it was a good thing that we had that big lead because sure enough their D line managed to get onto the field and made some headway against our tiring O line and before long we were only holding onto a 12-10 lead and they had all the momentum. Our O line manager to get off the field in time and our D line stepped up and we managed to pull away the slightest bit and won 15-12.
I was glad that we beat those guys because they had some of the biggest cheaters I’ve ever seen playing for them. There is this one guy nick-named Muffin who should really have a more appropriate nick-name; something more along the lines of Wanker, Douchebag or Blatant Cheater. Some of the stuff he was calling was so bad that it actually became funny (only because we still managed to win). I don’t think anyone really liked them because they had the lowest spirit score of any team in the division. It’s really too bad because they had some really athletic guys and they could probably be really good but no one is going to respect them as a team.
After that game it was time to head over to Captain Brian’s for another delicious seafood dinner but first we took the time to take a dip in the Gulf. It seemed like it was really chilly standing knee deep in the water but once you got in it was fine. I’m glad I took the time for a dip that evening because it was the only time that I managed to drag my butt down to the beach.
Since we were still in the tournament it was another early night to bed with the chance to dream about our quarterfinal matchup for Saturday; we had Chain Lightning in the quarters and if we won that we would get to play the winner of Ironside and Ring of Fire.
I’ll get to the Saturday recap later.
DF
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Friday, November 14, 2008
Post UPA Report... or at least the story of day 1
My second trip to the UPA Championships has come and gone. How I miss the warm Florida air already. Since it’s only 4 degrees outside I think I’ll try to warm myself up some by writing about my few days in Florida.
I flew out of Montreal fairly late on the Wednesday night. The biggest surprise of the trip happened as I was checking in; US Airways now charges $15US to check your first bag and $25US to check a second. Of course I was nice enough to take Courtney’s bag (since she could only leave on Thursday morning) which meant that I was hit with a $40 surcharge. I should have left my bag with Courtney since it would have been free for her to take it along. Thanks for the warning US Airways; you can take my $40US and go F**k yourselves, let’s see if I ever make you my carrier of choice again!
I had one stop-over in Philadelphia before my 9:30pm arrival in Tampa. I was expecting to see ulti players from across the northeast getting ready to board the plane but it looked like I was the only one. Of course that made me start to wonder if I was flying down on the right night. Thankfully it wasn’t too long after my arrival in Tampa that I saw some loonies tossing a disc around the airport terminal confirming that I wasn’t in for a second, bigger surprise. I was nice enough to volunteer to pick up the late crowd so I had to stick around until Eric, Thomson and Sara arrived at 11:30pm. It wasn’t too bad, Tampa has a relatively nice airport.
Once Eric and the Toronto kids arrived we hit the road relatively quickly (thank you, Avis Preferred status). The late departure guaranteed that we didn’t have to deal with any traffic but it is still an hour drive around TB down to Sarasota. The one thing that we did notice is that the bay is a lot bigger then it looks on the map. It takes so long to drive across Old Tampa Bay (how can a bay be old?), through St. Petersburg and across the Sunshine Skyway. Once you cross the bridge it’s not too long before you get to Sarasota. At least the speed limit is 70mph. We rolled into the parking lot of our hotel just before 1:00am which, despite how late it sounds, wasn’t too bad since Shaggy only got there to check in 5 minutes before we did. I don’t know how he pulled that off since he landed in Tampa at 8:00pm.
We went to sleep fairly quickly but true to form, I did that thing that I sometimes do where I’m so excited that I don’t really sleep much. I also was awake quite early trying to figure out what time it was but had nothing to refer to, so I lay there wondering what time it was until the alarm went off. Brilliant move if I do say so myself.
There was still a pretty good chill in the air when we left the hotel Thursday morning. It hadn’t changed much by the time that we arrived at the fields although we did warm ourselves up pretty quickly running to the field when we saw that we were the last ones to arrive. It was 40 minutes before our first game and everyone else (most of whom have trouble spelling the word punctual) was already there going through their dynamic stretches. That was fine with me, I never do well when I have too much time to prepare and think about what I’m doing; just throw me straight into the fray.
Our schedule for the day pitted us against El Diablo (Charleston and area), Doublewide (Austin, TX) and then Sockeye (Seattle) to finish off the day. The first game against El Diablo was pretty uneventful. We started a bit slow but really put the screws to them and finished them off something like 15-8. We didn’t play great but they just made far too many mistakes to be successful at this level. It was the perfect team to play to start the tournament because it gave us the opportunity to start against a weak team and get our legs underneath us.
It’s the kind of game that Sockeye needed to start their tournament, instead they had to face Doublewide who shocked everyone and beat the defending champs 15-12. That really set the stage for an interesting rest of the day since all of a sudden all of the seedings were out the window and it was time for everyone to play for their tournament lives. We knew that we had to crush Doublewide to guarantee our path to the power-pool, Sockeye knew they had to beat us to have a chance at the power-pool and Doublewide had to beat us to guarantee them a spot in the power-pool. El Diablo knew they were going to be canon fodder for the rest of the pool and were just hoping for the best.
We were expecting a tough game against Doublewide and we must have been pretty amped for it because when the game started we came out on fire. Before DW knew what was going on we were up on them 5-1. We “brought our A game” against them and they were probably still savouring the high of upsetting Sockeye; that all meant that they never really had a chance. They started to claw back a bit at the end as we got a bit lazy but we still won 15-9. We thought that was a brilliant result and would set us up perfectly for making the power pool since it meant that we only had to score 6 on Sockeye to move on… but we were wrong (more on that later).
Thinking we were all a bunch of smart guys, we did tons of math before our game against Sockeye to figure out what we had to do to finish the day in first place. We realized that to move on to the power-pool we needed to score at least 6 points and to finish first we needed to score at least 11 (or better yet just win the game). Sockeye played like they had everything to lose and in a sense they did. It was a very tightly contested game and we were in it the whole way. I really did think that we were going to win but in the end it wasn’t to be and we ended up losing 15-13. Sockeye definitely used some cheap calls to win the game; I didn’t expect them to be a bunch of cheaters but surprisingly they are. We didn’t know this but apparently they have that reputation among some of the better teams.
A successful day all in all or so we thought. On point differential we finished in first place of our pool… but wait a second. We ended up pulling Sockeye with us and our head to head result. So we end up in first place but go into Friday with a 0-1 record. We didn’t really think about it but it turns out the best thing that we could have done is not blow out Doublewide. If we had only beat them by 2 points we would have still won the pool but Doublewide (and our win) would have come with us to the power-pool. I suppose there is not point in thinking about what ifs too much because if we had played that game we might have ended up going down instead of Double wide. So in the end, while the situation was not ideal, it was not the worst case scenario. At least we were still in the tournament, unlike a bunch of teams who could start drinking their “loser beer” right away.
This is getting pretty long so I think I need to break this into a few posts. I’ll write more about the rest of the tournament later (darn work cutting into my writing time).
DF
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I flew out of Montreal fairly late on the Wednesday night. The biggest surprise of the trip happened as I was checking in; US Airways now charges $15US to check your first bag and $25US to check a second. Of course I was nice enough to take Courtney’s bag (since she could only leave on Thursday morning) which meant that I was hit with a $40 surcharge. I should have left my bag with Courtney since it would have been free for her to take it along. Thanks for the warning US Airways; you can take my $40US and go F**k yourselves, let’s see if I ever make you my carrier of choice again!
I had one stop-over in Philadelphia before my 9:30pm arrival in Tampa. I was expecting to see ulti players from across the northeast getting ready to board the plane but it looked like I was the only one. Of course that made me start to wonder if I was flying down on the right night. Thankfully it wasn’t too long after my arrival in Tampa that I saw some loonies tossing a disc around the airport terminal confirming that I wasn’t in for a second, bigger surprise. I was nice enough to volunteer to pick up the late crowd so I had to stick around until Eric, Thomson and Sara arrived at 11:30pm. It wasn’t too bad, Tampa has a relatively nice airport.
Once Eric and the Toronto kids arrived we hit the road relatively quickly (thank you, Avis Preferred status). The late departure guaranteed that we didn’t have to deal with any traffic but it is still an hour drive around TB down to Sarasota. The one thing that we did notice is that the bay is a lot bigger then it looks on the map. It takes so long to drive across Old Tampa Bay (how can a bay be old?), through St. Petersburg and across the Sunshine Skyway. Once you cross the bridge it’s not too long before you get to Sarasota. At least the speed limit is 70mph. We rolled into the parking lot of our hotel just before 1:00am which, despite how late it sounds, wasn’t too bad since Shaggy only got there to check in 5 minutes before we did. I don’t know how he pulled that off since he landed in Tampa at 8:00pm.
We went to sleep fairly quickly but true to form, I did that thing that I sometimes do where I’m so excited that I don’t really sleep much. I also was awake quite early trying to figure out what time it was but had nothing to refer to, so I lay there wondering what time it was until the alarm went off. Brilliant move if I do say so myself.
There was still a pretty good chill in the air when we left the hotel Thursday morning. It hadn’t changed much by the time that we arrived at the fields although we did warm ourselves up pretty quickly running to the field when we saw that we were the last ones to arrive. It was 40 minutes before our first game and everyone else (most of whom have trouble spelling the word punctual) was already there going through their dynamic stretches. That was fine with me, I never do well when I have too much time to prepare and think about what I’m doing; just throw me straight into the fray.
Our schedule for the day pitted us against El Diablo (Charleston and area), Doublewide (Austin, TX) and then Sockeye (Seattle) to finish off the day. The first game against El Diablo was pretty uneventful. We started a bit slow but really put the screws to them and finished them off something like 15-8. We didn’t play great but they just made far too many mistakes to be successful at this level. It was the perfect team to play to start the tournament because it gave us the opportunity to start against a weak team and get our legs underneath us.
It’s the kind of game that Sockeye needed to start their tournament, instead they had to face Doublewide who shocked everyone and beat the defending champs 15-12. That really set the stage for an interesting rest of the day since all of a sudden all of the seedings were out the window and it was time for everyone to play for their tournament lives. We knew that we had to crush Doublewide to guarantee our path to the power-pool, Sockeye knew they had to beat us to have a chance at the power-pool and Doublewide had to beat us to guarantee them a spot in the power-pool. El Diablo knew they were going to be canon fodder for the rest of the pool and were just hoping for the best.
We were expecting a tough game against Doublewide and we must have been pretty amped for it because when the game started we came out on fire. Before DW knew what was going on we were up on them 5-1. We “brought our A game” against them and they were probably still savouring the high of upsetting Sockeye; that all meant that they never really had a chance. They started to claw back a bit at the end as we got a bit lazy but we still won 15-9. We thought that was a brilliant result and would set us up perfectly for making the power pool since it meant that we only had to score 6 on Sockeye to move on… but we were wrong (more on that later).
Thinking we were all a bunch of smart guys, we did tons of math before our game against Sockeye to figure out what we had to do to finish the day in first place. We realized that to move on to the power-pool we needed to score at least 6 points and to finish first we needed to score at least 11 (or better yet just win the game). Sockeye played like they had everything to lose and in a sense they did. It was a very tightly contested game and we were in it the whole way. I really did think that we were going to win but in the end it wasn’t to be and we ended up losing 15-13. Sockeye definitely used some cheap calls to win the game; I didn’t expect them to be a bunch of cheaters but surprisingly they are. We didn’t know this but apparently they have that reputation among some of the better teams.
A successful day all in all or so we thought. On point differential we finished in first place of our pool… but wait a second. We ended up pulling Sockeye with us and our head to head result. So we end up in first place but go into Friday with a 0-1 record. We didn’t really think about it but it turns out the best thing that we could have done is not blow out Doublewide. If we had only beat them by 2 points we would have still won the pool but Doublewide (and our win) would have come with us to the power-pool. I suppose there is not point in thinking about what ifs too much because if we had played that game we might have ended up going down instead of Double wide. So in the end, while the situation was not ideal, it was not the worst case scenario. At least we were still in the tournament, unlike a bunch of teams who could start drinking their “loser beer” right away.
This is getting pretty long so I think I need to break this into a few posts. I’ll write more about the rest of the tournament later (darn work cutting into my writing time).
DF
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Monday, October 27, 2008
See You in Sarasota!
I’m back from Regionals in Devens and I am happy to report that I need to book a trip to Florida! Goat qualified for UPAs quite easily and that makes me very happy. It was part of my goal for the fall and now I get to focus on my other fall goal, trying to post a good result at UPAs.
Regionals was good for the Goat. We cruised through our pool on Saturday. Montreal and Militia offered no resistance. Red Tide put up a bit of a fight but they were just not able to stick with us and we beat them quite handily. That setup a semi-final against Bodhi, an upstart team full of young, athletic players. It was a tight game for the first bit and I seem to recall that they even took a very early lead but we had a lot of time to go out and claw back at them. It took a lot of hard work but we ended up winning by at least 5 points.
There was a palpable sense of relief as, with this win, we had guaranteed ourselves a spot at the UPA Championships. I think a lot of the guys were unsure of where we stacked up in our region as there were a lot of unanswered questions both about Goat’s level of play and the level of the opposition. This win showed that the Goat was still a force to be reckoned with. Our 4-0 result on Saturday set us up for a match up against Boston’s Ironside in the Regional championship game midday on Sunday.
We ended up getting killed by Ironside in the final 15-8. There were a few factors that led to that result:
1) They are an awesome team. They have talent and athleticism to spare from top to bottom and they use it very well. In their five games on the weekend they gave up 3, 3, 5, 5, and 8 points respectively. Their bench is loaded with guys who could be starters on most other teams. We just couldn’t stop them at all. Their O line turned it over 3 times all game and the first turnover was after they scored their 11th or 12th point. They just did not give us many chances to beat them and the few chances we had they got the disc right back from us. I would expect them to challenge for the title in Florida.
2) Okay, so after the first reason the other reasons won’t really count for much but they didn’t help us. We were happy with qualifying. I think we were too happy with having qualified that there was no sense of urgency to try to accomplish anything against Boston. That led too…
3) A horrible pre-game routine. As a team we didn’t take the game seriously and most guys only showed up at 12:30pm for our 1:00pm start. We didn’t warm up properly and we weren’t ready to even give Boston a game. We had all morning to get ready for the game and we really didn’t.
Had we been at our best I’m not sure how well we would have been able to play against Ironside. I would say that we might have been able to score 12 on them but I don’t think we would have been able to beat them. Like I said before they are very impressive. I think they will surprise a lot of people in Florida.
Having lost that game it setup a game to hold onto second against the winner of Pony-Bodhi. Since Ironside beat us so quickly/badly we had ample time to watch the end of that game. Pony was up a few at half but Bodhi battled back and brought it to double game point. No one wanted to win or maybe they both wanted to win so badly that there were multiple turnovers, big layout d’s and other big plays. In the end Bodhi scored the last point and clinched at least third place while Pony had to go and play the 4-5 game.
We came into the 2-3 game with something to prove coming off of our poor performance and Bodhi was real flat coming off of the euphoria of having qualified. We rolled Bodhi quite easily (15-7) and clinched our #2 seed coming out of the Region. It’s a good thing we won that game because it gave us the #8 seed at UPAs while Bodhi is ranked #14.
So our next stop is Florida. The tournament starts on Oct 30 and ends Nov 2. For updates you can go to www.upa.org and they will have links to the Club Championship results page.
DF
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Regionals was good for the Goat. We cruised through our pool on Saturday. Montreal and Militia offered no resistance. Red Tide put up a bit of a fight but they were just not able to stick with us and we beat them quite handily. That setup a semi-final against Bodhi, an upstart team full of young, athletic players. It was a tight game for the first bit and I seem to recall that they even took a very early lead but we had a lot of time to go out and claw back at them. It took a lot of hard work but we ended up winning by at least 5 points.
There was a palpable sense of relief as, with this win, we had guaranteed ourselves a spot at the UPA Championships. I think a lot of the guys were unsure of where we stacked up in our region as there were a lot of unanswered questions both about Goat’s level of play and the level of the opposition. This win showed that the Goat was still a force to be reckoned with. Our 4-0 result on Saturday set us up for a match up against Boston’s Ironside in the Regional championship game midday on Sunday.
We ended up getting killed by Ironside in the final 15-8. There were a few factors that led to that result:
1) They are an awesome team. They have talent and athleticism to spare from top to bottom and they use it very well. In their five games on the weekend they gave up 3, 3, 5, 5, and 8 points respectively. Their bench is loaded with guys who could be starters on most other teams. We just couldn’t stop them at all. Their O line turned it over 3 times all game and the first turnover was after they scored their 11th or 12th point. They just did not give us many chances to beat them and the few chances we had they got the disc right back from us. I would expect them to challenge for the title in Florida.
2) Okay, so after the first reason the other reasons won’t really count for much but they didn’t help us. We were happy with qualifying. I think we were too happy with having qualified that there was no sense of urgency to try to accomplish anything against Boston. That led too…
3) A horrible pre-game routine. As a team we didn’t take the game seriously and most guys only showed up at 12:30pm for our 1:00pm start. We didn’t warm up properly and we weren’t ready to even give Boston a game. We had all morning to get ready for the game and we really didn’t.
Had we been at our best I’m not sure how well we would have been able to play against Ironside. I would say that we might have been able to score 12 on them but I don’t think we would have been able to beat them. Like I said before they are very impressive. I think they will surprise a lot of people in Florida.
Having lost that game it setup a game to hold onto second against the winner of Pony-Bodhi. Since Ironside beat us so quickly/badly we had ample time to watch the end of that game. Pony was up a few at half but Bodhi battled back and brought it to double game point. No one wanted to win or maybe they both wanted to win so badly that there were multiple turnovers, big layout d’s and other big plays. In the end Bodhi scored the last point and clinched at least third place while Pony had to go and play the 4-5 game.
We came into the 2-3 game with something to prove coming off of our poor performance and Bodhi was real flat coming off of the euphoria of having qualified. We rolled Bodhi quite easily (15-7) and clinched our #2 seed coming out of the Region. It’s a good thing we won that game because it gave us the #8 seed at UPAs while Bodhi is ranked #14.
So our next stop is Florida. The tournament starts on Oct 30 and ends Nov 2. For updates you can go to www.upa.org and they will have links to the Club Championship results page.
DF
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Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Fall Series 2008
Strangely enough I can't seem to be able to just quit. After playing at Worlds and Canadian Nationals this summer one might think that it would be time to hang up the cleats for a while... but alas, that won't be the case.
I'm going to be playing this fall with the Toronto based team Goat. I am the latest Montrealer to be added to their roster. Last year they picked up Mark Zimmerl and Eric St-Amant but not me. I was cool with it since it meant I could go play with DoG for fall series. Go back a few posts and you can read all about how that turned out (hint: gold). After Worlds this past summer I definitely wanted to make sure I could get myself on a UPA bound open team. Partly to prove that I can still play at that level and partly because I've been playing on too many masters teams lately and I don't want to become "that really good masters player" just yet. I got the invite to join Goat the week after Canadian Nats/Chesapeake. Yay!
Unfortunately I got the invite too late to be able to work something out to go to Labour Day with the guys but I did get out to Sectionals and last weekends practice in Toronto. I'm really glad to be on board with the guys and it's an awesome team. There is so much talent and athletecism on that team. When you add in the handful of veteran players they brought in for the fall and I'm optimistic that this team can go places (Florida at least).
We rolled through Sectionals and we should make it through our Region; especially considering that we have 4 spots. I am ready to fill whatever role they ask me to in order to help Goat get as far as possible.
Regionals is in a week and a half and I'm excited. I'm staring my second weekend in Florida in the face after spending 12 years trying fruitlessly to get there. It's sorta like the forbidden fruit; you don't know what you are missing until you get there. Now that I got there I'd do just about anything to get back. Hopefully it works out and hopefully we can post a good result at the same time.
More later as the fall season unfolds.
DF
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I'm going to be playing this fall with the Toronto based team Goat. I am the latest Montrealer to be added to their roster. Last year they picked up Mark Zimmerl and Eric St-Amant but not me. I was cool with it since it meant I could go play with DoG for fall series. Go back a few posts and you can read all about how that turned out (hint: gold). After Worlds this past summer I definitely wanted to make sure I could get myself on a UPA bound open team. Partly to prove that I can still play at that level and partly because I've been playing on too many masters teams lately and I don't want to become "that really good masters player" just yet. I got the invite to join Goat the week after Canadian Nats/Chesapeake. Yay!
Unfortunately I got the invite too late to be able to work something out to go to Labour Day with the guys but I did get out to Sectionals and last weekends practice in Toronto. I'm really glad to be on board with the guys and it's an awesome team. There is so much talent and athletecism on that team. When you add in the handful of veteran players they brought in for the fall and I'm optimistic that this team can go places (Florida at least).
We rolled through Sectionals and we should make it through our Region; especially considering that we have 4 spots. I am ready to fill whatever role they ask me to in order to help Goat get as far as possible.
Regionals is in a week and a half and I'm excited. I'm staring my second weekend in Florida in the face after spending 12 years trying fruitlessly to get there. It's sorta like the forbidden fruit; you don't know what you are missing until you get there. Now that I got there I'd do just about anything to get back. Hopefully it works out and hopefully we can post a good result at the same time.
More later as the fall season unfolds.
DF
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Sunday, August 17, 2008
I Wonder What Canadian Gold Looks Like?
I managed to find some internet time in the six hours I have to kill on my layover in Edmonton (don't ask, it's what happens when you book on points) so I'll give you a quick update on the events from earlier today. Unfortunately we lost the finals of the Canadian Ultimate Championships to Nomads from Victoria. I think the final score was 17-11. I think the game was closer then the score may indicate.
We were hoping to be able to run and gun with the Furious George players masquerading as Nomads (Duncan, Enns, Roberts, Oscar, Menzies, etc., etc.) but our worst case scenario came true; the wind picked up in a big way. There was a very strong wind that picked up just before our game started that blew consistently for the rest of the day. It neutralized our athleticism and allowed the experience and superior throwing ability of the veterans on Nomads to carry them to the win. We were with them for a goos chunk of the game but they got some upwinders that we couldn't match and they just ran away with it. We were still in the game when they were leading 11-9 but I think that our inexperience and some key injuries caught up with us and that was when broke it open. Final score 17-11.
We weren't helped by the fact that we didn't deal with their physical play very well. They were constantly pushing us around and we didn't call it, whereas they used some questionable foul calls to maintain possession and get the disc upwind. The "observers" didn't help our cause either as they were completely useless. None of them saw Roberts intentionally charge through me, with his arms up in my chest, in retaliation for something that he thought I did (but didn't actually do). Even though the entire crowd gasped in exasperation the observers didn't see anything and I was right in front of one of them. Since I'm digressing here there is nothing wrong with observers but there is nothing worse then bad observers.
All in all it was a well deserved silver medal for us. At the end of the day the only team that was really missing was Goat (Furious had enough of a presence on Nomads that if you were to take those players away Victoria would be a shell of a team). We had a convincing win over Phoenix and a well fought win over Invictus so no one can say that we fluked our way into a silver medal. I think this was the most difficult of my National silver medals to win (I'm still waiting to win a gold one day) and I will throw it in my drawer with all my other silver medals with pride.
Now I need to get some sleep. I think I'm supposed to be at the office in a few hours.
DF
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We were hoping to be able to run and gun with the Furious George players masquerading as Nomads (Duncan, Enns, Roberts, Oscar, Menzies, etc., etc.) but our worst case scenario came true; the wind picked up in a big way. There was a very strong wind that picked up just before our game started that blew consistently for the rest of the day. It neutralized our athleticism and allowed the experience and superior throwing ability of the veterans on Nomads to carry them to the win. We were with them for a goos chunk of the game but they got some upwinders that we couldn't match and they just ran away with it. We were still in the game when they were leading 11-9 but I think that our inexperience and some key injuries caught up with us and that was when broke it open. Final score 17-11.
We weren't helped by the fact that we didn't deal with their physical play very well. They were constantly pushing us around and we didn't call it, whereas they used some questionable foul calls to maintain possession and get the disc upwind. The "observers" didn't help our cause either as they were completely useless. None of them saw Roberts intentionally charge through me, with his arms up in my chest, in retaliation for something that he thought I did (but didn't actually do). Even though the entire crowd gasped in exasperation the observers didn't see anything and I was right in front of one of them. Since I'm digressing here there is nothing wrong with observers but there is nothing worse then bad observers.
All in all it was a well deserved silver medal for us. At the end of the day the only team that was really missing was Goat (Furious had enough of a presence on Nomads that if you were to take those players away Victoria would be a shell of a team). We had a convincing win over Phoenix and a well fought win over Invictus so no one can say that we fluked our way into a silver medal. I think this was the most difficult of my National silver medals to win (I'm still waiting to win a gold one day) and I will throw it in my drawer with all my other silver medals with pride.
Now I need to get some sleep. I think I'm supposed to be at the office in a few hours.
DF
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Saturday, August 16, 2008
On to the Next Challenge
I haven't even recovered from Worlds in Vancouver and I now find myself in Calgary getting ready to play in the final of Canadian Nationals against Nomads.
I flew back to Montreal for a few days of work and then came back out west to Calgary for Nationals. I missed Thursdays games but Mephisto did what they had to do; going 2-1. Apparently it was a sloppy day but the goal is always just to get through day 1.
I was here for day two and while we got the job done again, a lot of results were going strange ways so we were doing a lot of scoreboard watching. During our last game we realized the best we could do was finish 3rd in our pool; the worst was 4th. Nomads lost a game they should have won so we had to figure out if we were better off finishing 3rd or 4th; we just didn't want to play Nomads in the Quarterfinals. We had all the math figured out so we kept Grand Trunk close to us but just behind in case we had to lose the game. Nomads did the improbable and won by enough points to finish first so we decided to win our last game and take 3rd so we would play Phoenix in the quarters.
Today we played Phoenix and got out to a good start. They had no answer to our offense and we beat them easily 15-10. Their D didn't score any points which just put a lot of pressure on their O. We did a good job of taking Swardo out of the game and forcing Derek to try to do it all and he had an off game. Well played, Mephisto.
Our Semi was against Invictus from Calgary. We came out on fire and scored the first 5 points. We had a 6-1 lead when they put a zone on us and we had a bit of trouble with it, strangely enough. Next thing we know it's 7-7 and we are fighting for half. We managed to take half but right after half Calgary came out hard and took the lead 9-8. We came back and ended up winning 12-10 in a hard fought game. It was a real nail biter but we pulled it off. Truly another epic Calgary-Montreal matchup.
Tomorrow... the finals against Nomads. Woohoo!!
DF
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I flew back to Montreal for a few days of work and then came back out west to Calgary for Nationals. I missed Thursdays games but Mephisto did what they had to do; going 2-1. Apparently it was a sloppy day but the goal is always just to get through day 1.
I was here for day two and while we got the job done again, a lot of results were going strange ways so we were doing a lot of scoreboard watching. During our last game we realized the best we could do was finish 3rd in our pool; the worst was 4th. Nomads lost a game they should have won so we had to figure out if we were better off finishing 3rd or 4th; we just didn't want to play Nomads in the Quarterfinals. We had all the math figured out so we kept Grand Trunk close to us but just behind in case we had to lose the game. Nomads did the improbable and won by enough points to finish first so we decided to win our last game and take 3rd so we would play Phoenix in the quarters.
Today we played Phoenix and got out to a good start. They had no answer to our offense and we beat them easily 15-10. Their D didn't score any points which just put a lot of pressure on their O. We did a good job of taking Swardo out of the game and forcing Derek to try to do it all and he had an off game. Well played, Mephisto.
Our Semi was against Invictus from Calgary. We came out on fire and scored the first 5 points. We had a 6-1 lead when they put a zone on us and we had a bit of trouble with it, strangely enough. Next thing we know it's 7-7 and we are fighting for half. We managed to take half but right after half Calgary came out hard and took the lead 9-8. We came back and ended up winning 12-10 in a hard fought game. It was a real nail biter but we pulled it off. Truly another epic Calgary-Montreal matchup.
Tomorrow... the finals against Nomads. Woohoo!!
DF
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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Pictures of Taserboy
I thought I wouldn't do this but I'm not sure why. Suck it up Joey, your pictures are about to hit the internet.
I apologize for the quality of some of these. It was dark, I had using my 300mm zoom lens and I was taking some of these pictures without looking through the viewfinder because I was being threatened with bodily harm by his drunk friend Ryan if I didn't stop taking pictures. Fun times. And so without further ado lets all share a laugh at Joey's expense.
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I apologize for the quality of some of these. It was dark, I had using my 300mm zoom lens and I was taking some of these pictures without looking through the viewfinder because I was being threatened with bodily harm by his drunk friend Ryan if I didn't stop taking pictures. Fun times. And so without further ado lets all share a laugh at Joey's expense.
Good Times....
DF
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Sunday, August 10, 2008
DoGs and Tasers
Unfortunately things did not go as planned and my team was left walking up to the second highest podium spot yesterday to get our silver medals. We put up a good fight but our offense just wasn't as good as we needed it to be in order to win. All credit to the US representatives (DoG) who capitalized on our mistakes and won the gold medal.
We were just a bit tentative to start the game and I think the first point was the key point of the game. We started on offense and worked the disc up the field only to throw it away in the endzone. The thrower and receiver were both unmarked and we threw it away anyway. That just made us even more tentative and that was all she wrote. I think that had we scored that first point it would have gone a long way to relaxing our team and we would have won the game. We put up a good fight to get back into the game but it was just too little too late. We even had the disc three times to tie the game at the end but we kept giving it back and you can't keep giving those guys the disc; they're just too good.
I'm sad about not winning but if we had to lose, at least we lost to those guys. Even though I could have been playing for them I don't have any regrets about my choice of team/country. They were very humble in victory (it's always easy to be humble in victory) which eases the pain a tiny little bit but not much.
The US team are a great bunch of guys as were my Team Canada team mates which made for a fun post game mope-fest/celebration....
...which leads into the fun that happened at the Beer Garden after the game was done. It was pretty much just the players from our two teams sitting around having a few drinks to wind down when an American "Guts" players came by in a severe state of intoxication. I have never seen anyone as drunk as this guy. I don't know how he was even able to stand. Long story short, he got very belligerent towards one of my team mates, JR. I tried to talk him down but he was just too far gone. A few other players from both teams were standing around and the next thing I know he is trying to lunge at JR and I end up tackling him and pinning him to the ground with Greg Husak holding his left arm and DC holding his right arm. After lying on him for a couple of minutes some of his team mates came by to try to take him home. I asked them if they were sure that they wanted to deal with him because UBC security and the RCMP were on the way. They tell us it's okay and we all let go of this guy. He started to fight his friends and they end up tackling him about a minute later. Finally campus security shows up and they pin the guy again. Almost right after the RCMP show up and take over. Drunkasaurous Rex keeps fighting the cops and he just won't give in so they Taser him. THEY FREAKIN' TASERED HIM!!!! Right there, in front of us!!! The guy is so drunk it has no effect on him. They finally manage to cuff him and carry him off. I'm going to save this guy the humiliation and not post the pictures I took of all of this on Facebook... or maybe I will. I haven't decided yet.
That was my exciting Friday.
More about the rest of the tournament later.
DF
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We were just a bit tentative to start the game and I think the first point was the key point of the game. We started on offense and worked the disc up the field only to throw it away in the endzone. The thrower and receiver were both unmarked and we threw it away anyway. That just made us even more tentative and that was all she wrote. I think that had we scored that first point it would have gone a long way to relaxing our team and we would have won the game. We put up a good fight to get back into the game but it was just too little too late. We even had the disc three times to tie the game at the end but we kept giving it back and you can't keep giving those guys the disc; they're just too good.
I'm sad about not winning but if we had to lose, at least we lost to those guys. Even though I could have been playing for them I don't have any regrets about my choice of team/country. They were very humble in victory (it's always easy to be humble in victory) which eases the pain a tiny little bit but not much.
The US team are a great bunch of guys as were my Team Canada team mates which made for a fun post game mope-fest/celebration....
...which leads into the fun that happened at the Beer Garden after the game was done. It was pretty much just the players from our two teams sitting around having a few drinks to wind down when an American "Guts" players came by in a severe state of intoxication. I have never seen anyone as drunk as this guy. I don't know how he was even able to stand. Long story short, he got very belligerent towards one of my team mates, JR. I tried to talk him down but he was just too far gone. A few other players from both teams were standing around and the next thing I know he is trying to lunge at JR and I end up tackling him and pinning him to the ground with Greg Husak holding his left arm and DC holding his right arm. After lying on him for a couple of minutes some of his team mates came by to try to take him home. I asked them if they were sure that they wanted to deal with him because UBC security and the RCMP were on the way. They tell us it's okay and we all let go of this guy. He started to fight his friends and they end up tackling him about a minute later. Finally campus security shows up and they pin the guy again. Almost right after the RCMP show up and take over. Drunkasaurous Rex keeps fighting the cops and he just won't give in so they Taser him. THEY FREAKIN' TASERED HIM!!!! Right there, in front of us!!! The guy is so drunk it has no effect on him. They finally manage to cuff him and carry him off. I'm going to save this guy the humiliation and not post the pictures I took of all of this on Facebook... or maybe I will. I haven't decided yet.
That was my exciting Friday.
More about the rest of the tournament later.
DF
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Friday, August 08, 2008
5:00pm Appointment...
...in the finals.
We rolled the Aussies. We came out and played really great and before they knew what happened we rolled them out of the game. They didn't get any momentum against us and we beat them 17-5 before they knew what was going on. We broke their spirit very early by taking a 5-0 lead and then it was over.
Big game coming up in a few hours. Time for a nap. Go Canada, go!
Speaking of Canada do we have any medals in Beijing yet?
DF
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We rolled the Aussies. We came out and played really great and before they knew what happened we rolled them out of the game. They didn't get any momentum against us and we beat them 17-5 before they knew what was going on. We broke their spirit very early by taking a 5-0 lead and then it was over.
Big game coming up in a few hours. Time for a nap. Go Canada, go!
Speaking of Canada do we have any medals in Beijing yet?
DF
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