Strangely enough, of all the days I was UPAs day two is the one that I remember the least about. I’m not sure if it is because my recollection of events across all days is starting to blend together. It probably also has a bit to do with the fact that I felt like day two was the day that I had the least impact on the outcome of the results.
Like each day at UPAs the weather channel was calling for a high probability of thunder showers. Like each day at the tournament the weather looked pretty good on the morning of day two. Our first game, in the blazing sun, was against Boneyard from North Carolina. They had a few ex-Ring of Fire players that everyone seemed to be worried about. I never felt like they were a threat to us and we cruised to a comfortable 15-9 win. I played a handful of points throughout the game, mostly early on, but don’t recall anything spectacular. That was probably because I was more concerned with making sure that my calf was no worse for wear following the cramp I had at the end of day one. Thankfully it wasn’t too sore; after a good warm up I barely felt it and by the end of the day I had forgotten it had even been an issue. This was one of the few games that we would get all weekend to open up some playing time to some of the other guys on our 31 man roster and I wasn’t about to complain about that. I do recall the game ending rather quickly and having to search for a patch of shade to claim as my own to seek some relief from the sun. Thankfully the temperature was just in the mid twenties (Celsius) because the November sun in Florida is really, really hot. It wouldn’t be too long before we would all be wishing for the warm sun.
Game two was to be our last pool play game and we had already locked up first place in pool A. Mileage beat Troubled Past in a tight game to start Friday and claimed second, Troubled was guaranteed third and Surly was safely ensconced in the last playoff bound spot. Boneyard and Ironwood were respectively locked in the fifth and sixth position. With the top four spots coming out of pool A already set before the last game it made things interesting as game plans came down to balancing resting the top players for the quarterfinals while not losing to a team ranked lower. We seemed to get the balance right. Our last game was against Surly, the Minneapolis based team. Dave Brown, DoG’s D captain, told me that depending on how things were going, he was going to try to “shut me down” early on. It was one of the few small moments that made my weekend, knowing that I was worth saving for the more important games. I don’t know if I’ve ever been benched to save me for a big game before. It was a pretty cool feeling and I’m pretty sure I let out a noticeable smile that Jeff picked up on. I played two of the first three points, we started to pull away and that was it; I was shut down for the game, being rested for the quarterfinal! We won the game 15-8 and I recall being a force on the sidelines. I do recall thinking to myself after the game that I felt Boneyard was a better team than Surly. I guess Surly was also resting their big players because they did a good job of proving that thought of mine wrong as the tournament progressed.
I could go into detail about how the other pool shook down but that would require another few blog entries alone. Suffice it to say that going into the last game only one team was out of the running; Miami, OLD SAG, A&B and Big Sky were all fighting for the last three spots in quarters with Old and in the Way having locked up first place. In the end A&B got screwed over by Old and in the Way’s decision to roll over against Miami. Miami got in and A&B went to drink “loser beer” from the truck. More on loser beer later.
Once the craziness of pool B settled itself we found out that we would be taking on OLD SAG and their 37 man roster in the quarters. That was one mess of a sideline 31 guys sporting DoG jerseys and 37 wearing OLD SAG colours. Of course masters players come with a certain amount of baggage; wives and kids. Once you added that all up there were well over a hundred people on the sidelines. The sidelines actually played quite a role in this game as it turned into a battle of whose sideline was louder more consistently. Early in the game OLD SAG was doing a better job but our sideline brought our team back to life after half and helped carry us to victory. This win truly did belong to the voices on the sideline more so then any other game I’ve ever been involved in.
You would think that a roster of 37 players versus 31 would be an advantage but in the end I think we used more guys than they did. The one advantage they did have was youth. On average I would say that they were quite a bit younger than we were. The tempo of the game was much quicker than any of the previous games of the tournament. It wasn’t going to be as easy as it had been for me to get “impressive” blocks in this game as it had been up to this point. I felt like our defense wasn’t getting as many chances to score as we had in other games and our efficiency was also a bit off. When we did get the disc OLD SAG brought a lot of pressure on us. I recall one point where I had the disc on the sideline and I didn’t have very many options except for Jeff Brown, who was completely across the field. I tried a big break force cross field flick knowing full well that I was going to get bumped. Sure enough as I released I was pushed backwards onto my butt and was able to call foul and reset the count (the throw that came out was also a piece of crap). If they just would have maintained the pressure but stopped committing the unintentional but dumb fouls they would have been able to really cause us some problems. Our O line was also having a bit of trouble with their pressure and we ended up down 8-6 at the break. We were playing mostly man on D and we weren’t doing much to stop them.
This was the first time all weekend that I was really worried that things weren’t going to go our way. The weather was playing it’s part as well by becoming much more ominous. You could tell that there were some major storms not too far off and at some point in the game the rains came. Thankfully with it came some wind; advantage old Boston guys. We switched to zone and clawed back into the game. Some of the guys will say that was the key to the turnaround but I still think the inspirational key were the two lesbians from the Philly women’s team who were making out on the sidelines in the rain. It looked like they were huddling together to stay warm and things got a bit too hot. Most probably our turnaround was due partly to our sidelines picking up the volume, our defense playing some stronger zone and the 45 minute lightning delay.
At about 12-11 there was some lightning in the area and we were all herded into our cars to wait it out. This must have been hell on families and friends back home who were trying to follow the games by refreshing the UPA score reporter website every five seconds.
The break was just long enough to let every muscle in my body tighten up. I don’t know if it was the cold rain but I hadn’t been feeling tight or sore until I had to start warming up after the rain delay. I was having so much trouble getting moving again that I was worried that I would be done for the day. After trying jogging and a dynamic warmup, I decided that the easiest way to deal would be to just jump into the game without warming up. Thankfully the first point was a D point so I got a chance to get out there right away. It was pretty tough getting the legs going to chase down the pull but once I beat inertia’s grip on me everything was fine.
I didn’t realize how close we were to the end of the game and was surprised when we scored to win the game 15-13. I was still feeling mentally out of the game near the end until Marshall came up to me, helped me focus a bit and told me to take charge out there. The next point, which turned out to be game point, was a pretty good one for me. I picked up my play on D and managed to get in the way of a receiver on a huck causing him to lose focus and drop the disc. Unfortunately we turned the disc over but I was able to block the ensuing huck that came up. Again we turned the disc over and OLD SAG hucked it once again into my hands. We finally managed to work the disc upfield and I forced my legs to get me open enough to be quite involved in the offensive flow of the point. We finally managed to punch the disc in for the win. I was getting ready to walk back to the line for another point but everyone around my started to shake hands. While I’m thinking this is a weird thing to do when the score is only 13-12 a few of my team mates were nice enough to indicate that we had already reached 15 and DoG was still alive in it’s quest for glory.
Thanks to the weather delay it was already pretty late when we were done and once again we made it back to the condos after the sunset; no swimming again. Instead I went with Mark, Eric and Val for a lovely dinner at Capt Brian’s. It was the best seafood that I have ever had and was not to be confused with the crap I ingested at Capt Curt’s. Back at the condo’s after an interesting conversation with Alex, Marshall, Jim, white-trash Tory and her two year old son Gino (don’t even ask about those two) it was time to go to bed and get ready for what was looking to be a big day three. More on that later.
DF
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
UPAs Day 1
I better put all of these thoughts down on paper before I forget. I am a Masters player after all so my memory must be fading.
Things started out well when Eric and I arrived in Tampa. The guy we were supposed to meet was there, the line-up at the rental counter was non-existent, there was no traffic on I-75, the Under Armour outlet was easy to find and best of all, the Sea Club II happened to be located right next to the PBC on Siesta Key. Not only were our condos clean, they were half the price of the PBC. The only scare we had on the day before UPAs were the sketchy looking raw oysters at Captain Curt’s (which I avoided) and the bottom of the six pack holder giving way in the grocery store leading to the untimely demise of six bottles of beer. I got a good night of sleep too which was a nice thing to get before the big show. Maybe I’m too used to having to sleep in rooms with 7 other guys, half of whom are on the floor but it was nice to get a bed to myself in a room with one other guy who wasn’t even there yet when I went to sleep.
Thursday arrived and I was feeling great; I was well rested, well fed and… I guess I can’t really ask for more. The weather was perfect; it wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t too sunny. The fields were about a 15-20 minute drive from Siesta Key and everyone was saying that traffic would be killer on Thursday and Friday morning but that didn’t materialize and we got to the fields on time. We broke out our brand new jerseys and shorts for the first time and finally looked like an organized bunch. I started to warm up (sort of) and I must tell you the fields are amazing. The grass is so soft and well maintained. I was just really excited for the tournament to start. I was a bit worried that I wasn’t feeling nervous. I expected to have some butterflies but I was feeling quite calm. It’s good for my focus but I was a bit worried that it would mean that I would have a really low energy level during the course of the day. In the end I had nothing to worry about (maybe because I was playing against old guys).
Our first game was against Ironwood, a team from Arizona. They were not very good and we rolled them quite handily 15-6. I’m not sure if I had a turnover in that game or if credit for it would go to John Bar. I threw him a breakforce backhand up the sideline and he milked it way too far; so far that he was a yard out of bounds when he caught it. One of the nice things about the fields in Sarasota is that they are all lined and they also have a line 3 yards outside the field to mark a buffer that should be left between sideline gear/fans and the field. Well John Bar thought the buffer line was the sideline so he took a few more steps than he could afford and the end result was a turnover. It was my fault for putting him in a spot where he had zero margin for error but I felt like he should have easily caught the disc in bounds. For that reason I will happily hand the turnover to him and I remained at three turnovers in the entire fall season. Fortunately for me that was the closest I came to a turnover all weekend so I managed to end the fall season with all of three turnovers in four tournaments, one of those being UPAs. Not bad if I do say so myself.
Our next game was a tight one against Mileage from Dallas, Texas. In the end we only won 15-13 but I never felt like the game was that close. I remember two things from this game. One was being covered by some 6’4”, 250lb guy who fouled the sh*t out of me when I had the disc. At one point I called five fouls on the guy before I managed to get a pass off. How ridiculous is that; I’m not one to call a lot of the bumps that happen but he fouled me five times on the same mark. I’m fairly certain they were quite intentional but whatever. The other thing that I remember is that I started to get on track defensively in this game. I didn’t play a single O point all tournament so I figured I had to earn my keep on defense. It was just after half and it was still a close game when I had a nice little run to put the game out of reach. We put a zone on them and I was one of the deeps along with Paul Greff. We managed to get Mileage pinned on the far sideline and from my deep position I could see the handler looking for the cross field hammer. I inched closer in and was just sitting on the throw. The second the handlers arm cocked back I broke on the impending throw. It was a bit of a gamble but I was pretty sure that the hammer was going to go up and thankfully it did, otherwise I would have looked like a bit of a fool. I did find it a bit amusing that I had to run by two of my team mates to get to where the throw was going but I guess they weren’t anticipating the same thing. I got to the handler just slightly before the throw did and didn’t just get the block but somehow I caught it too. We worked the disc up the field and got the score. On the next point I did the same thing on a hammer thrown to a popper in the middle of the field and we had ourselves a comfortable lead. On the following point I tried the same thing again but was a moment too late and ended up looking like a fool as Mileage worked it up with no opposition. Well two out of three ain’t bad. At least I managed to get the turns to build up our cushion that allowed us to cruise to the win.
Our third game of the day was against Troubled Past, the number one team in the tournament. These guys were so well prepared for the tournament that they had two physios/massage therapists on their sidelines just waiting to help their players work through any knocks. They were quite good-looking so I’m pretty sure that those old guys were actually spending more time than they really should have been getting their “aches” worked on. Aside from that these guys were a bunch of complete pricks. It was a chippy game, apparently there is a lot of history between DoG and these guys (old Double Happiness). Even though we had close games with them none of the DoG guys were scared of them. One of my team mates (to remain unnamed) even said to me, “These guys want to lose because it’s easier for them to complain about not winning than it is for them to actually win.” In the end that statement proved quite prophetic as we edged them out for a 17-16 win. Considering we took half 8-5 and let them back into the game in a big way it wasn’t the greatest performance but at least we won the game. We played just well enough to barely beat them. Our offense was pretty clean (except when we let them back in the game) but our defense had some trouble capitalizing on their mistakes. I played about half the game due to a calf cramp that I got when I had to push off my left leg in a very awkward way to catch a swing pass from Zas. I managed to catch the pass but I had to take myself off. Jeff Brown, our D captain, shut me down after that. It was a bit stressful watching the rest of the game but I was surprisingly not worried about the end result. We had the disc at 14-13 to win the game but ended up letting them tie it at 14s. I got a bit more worried at that point but we managed to trade the game out to 17-16.
And so ended my first day at UPAs. I was hoping to get the full experience of UPAs, which meant a dip in the Gulf of Mexico at the end of the day but the schedule is setup now such that by the time we got home it was already dark and time for some dinner. The most I got was some stolen hot tub time over at the PBC.
Day two details to come later.
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Things started out well when Eric and I arrived in Tampa. The guy we were supposed to meet was there, the line-up at the rental counter was non-existent, there was no traffic on I-75, the Under Armour outlet was easy to find and best of all, the Sea Club II happened to be located right next to the PBC on Siesta Key. Not only were our condos clean, they were half the price of the PBC. The only scare we had on the day before UPAs were the sketchy looking raw oysters at Captain Curt’s (which I avoided) and the bottom of the six pack holder giving way in the grocery store leading to the untimely demise of six bottles of beer. I got a good night of sleep too which was a nice thing to get before the big show. Maybe I’m too used to having to sleep in rooms with 7 other guys, half of whom are on the floor but it was nice to get a bed to myself in a room with one other guy who wasn’t even there yet when I went to sleep.
Thursday arrived and I was feeling great; I was well rested, well fed and… I guess I can’t really ask for more. The weather was perfect; it wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t too sunny. The fields were about a 15-20 minute drive from Siesta Key and everyone was saying that traffic would be killer on Thursday and Friday morning but that didn’t materialize and we got to the fields on time. We broke out our brand new jerseys and shorts for the first time and finally looked like an organized bunch. I started to warm up (sort of) and I must tell you the fields are amazing. The grass is so soft and well maintained. I was just really excited for the tournament to start. I was a bit worried that I wasn’t feeling nervous. I expected to have some butterflies but I was feeling quite calm. It’s good for my focus but I was a bit worried that it would mean that I would have a really low energy level during the course of the day. In the end I had nothing to worry about (maybe because I was playing against old guys).
Our first game was against Ironwood, a team from Arizona. They were not very good and we rolled them quite handily 15-6. I’m not sure if I had a turnover in that game or if credit for it would go to John Bar. I threw him a breakforce backhand up the sideline and he milked it way too far; so far that he was a yard out of bounds when he caught it. One of the nice things about the fields in Sarasota is that they are all lined and they also have a line 3 yards outside the field to mark a buffer that should be left between sideline gear/fans and the field. Well John Bar thought the buffer line was the sideline so he took a few more steps than he could afford and the end result was a turnover. It was my fault for putting him in a spot where he had zero margin for error but I felt like he should have easily caught the disc in bounds. For that reason I will happily hand the turnover to him and I remained at three turnovers in the entire fall season. Fortunately for me that was the closest I came to a turnover all weekend so I managed to end the fall season with all of three turnovers in four tournaments, one of those being UPAs. Not bad if I do say so myself.
Our next game was a tight one against Mileage from Dallas, Texas. In the end we only won 15-13 but I never felt like the game was that close. I remember two things from this game. One was being covered by some 6’4”, 250lb guy who fouled the sh*t out of me when I had the disc. At one point I called five fouls on the guy before I managed to get a pass off. How ridiculous is that; I’m not one to call a lot of the bumps that happen but he fouled me five times on the same mark. I’m fairly certain they were quite intentional but whatever. The other thing that I remember is that I started to get on track defensively in this game. I didn’t play a single O point all tournament so I figured I had to earn my keep on defense. It was just after half and it was still a close game when I had a nice little run to put the game out of reach. We put a zone on them and I was one of the deeps along with Paul Greff. We managed to get Mileage pinned on the far sideline and from my deep position I could see the handler looking for the cross field hammer. I inched closer in and was just sitting on the throw. The second the handlers arm cocked back I broke on the impending throw. It was a bit of a gamble but I was pretty sure that the hammer was going to go up and thankfully it did, otherwise I would have looked like a bit of a fool. I did find it a bit amusing that I had to run by two of my team mates to get to where the throw was going but I guess they weren’t anticipating the same thing. I got to the handler just slightly before the throw did and didn’t just get the block but somehow I caught it too. We worked the disc up the field and got the score. On the next point I did the same thing on a hammer thrown to a popper in the middle of the field and we had ourselves a comfortable lead. On the following point I tried the same thing again but was a moment too late and ended up looking like a fool as Mileage worked it up with no opposition. Well two out of three ain’t bad. At least I managed to get the turns to build up our cushion that allowed us to cruise to the win.
Our third game of the day was against Troubled Past, the number one team in the tournament. These guys were so well prepared for the tournament that they had two physios/massage therapists on their sidelines just waiting to help their players work through any knocks. They were quite good-looking so I’m pretty sure that those old guys were actually spending more time than they really should have been getting their “aches” worked on. Aside from that these guys were a bunch of complete pricks. It was a chippy game, apparently there is a lot of history between DoG and these guys (old Double Happiness). Even though we had close games with them none of the DoG guys were scared of them. One of my team mates (to remain unnamed) even said to me, “These guys want to lose because it’s easier for them to complain about not winning than it is for them to actually win.” In the end that statement proved quite prophetic as we edged them out for a 17-16 win. Considering we took half 8-5 and let them back into the game in a big way it wasn’t the greatest performance but at least we won the game. We played just well enough to barely beat them. Our offense was pretty clean (except when we let them back in the game) but our defense had some trouble capitalizing on their mistakes. I played about half the game due to a calf cramp that I got when I had to push off my left leg in a very awkward way to catch a swing pass from Zas. I managed to catch the pass but I had to take myself off. Jeff Brown, our D captain, shut me down after that. It was a bit stressful watching the rest of the game but I was surprisingly not worried about the end result. We had the disc at 14-13 to win the game but ended up letting them tie it at 14s. I got a bit more worried at that point but we managed to trade the game out to 17-16.
And so ended my first day at UPAs. I was hoping to get the full experience of UPAs, which meant a dip in the Gulf of Mexico at the end of the day but the schedule is setup now such that by the time we got home it was already dark and time for some dinner. The most I got was some stolen hot tub time over at the PBC.
Day two details to come later.
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Friday, November 02, 2007
Feeling Good
Long time, no something or another. It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog but I figure it’s time to get going again.
First I’ll give a brief explanation as to why I haven’t been updating as often as I may have wanted to be doing so. I haven’t been inspired to do so. Not the greatest of explanations but that will be all you’ll get out of me. It’s been a really long summer; ultimate took up way more time than I wanted it to (again), family health crises popped up (we’re all rooting for you Ben), work got out of control and… I think that is pretty much it.
It is now the first of November and I am sitting in front of a computer feeling ridiculously refreshed. Ultimate took up a lot of my fall but in a good way, Ben seems to be doing pretty well (http://benjaminskira.blogspot.com) and work has calmed down in a big way. On top of that I have only been in the office seven days over the past three weeks. Not a lot of work combined with lots of play makes for a happy Daniel.
Since we all agree that the summer was a write-off I’ll get into the nitty-gritty details of what has me feeling so good these days.
On Oct 11, after a busy day of work following up many prior busy days of work, I left the office and went to the airport to catch my flight to Vancouver. Purpose of the trip, coach the McGill women’s ultimate Frisbee team at the Canadian University Ultimate Championships. My expectations for the team were relatively low compared to our 2005 when we finished as the top ranked women’s program in the country and 2006 when we took home the silver medal. My goal was to make it into the semi-finals but I knew even that would be a challenge. There were a lot of young, inexperienced girls on the team this year and they were going to have their hands full with the more experienced teams from such obscure places as UBC, Saskatchewan, U of T and U of A. In the end they exceeded my own and I think even their own expectations by making it to the finals against an exceptionally talented but unfortunately arrogant UBC team. I don’t think the score of the final necessarily represented how well our girls played but the most important thing is that they had a whale of a good time and exceeded expectations. Score a big one in the feel good department.
On the Monday I had the good fortune of not having to fly back to Montreal to sit behind my lovely office desk but rather I got to board a flight bound for beautiful San Francisco. Next stop on my whirlwind tour of North America was the Meritage Resort and Spa in lovely Napa. This leg started out great as I was flipping through the EnRoute magazine and to my great surprise, when I got to the section where they highlight hotels from around the world and right there was the Meritage. It took a turn for the worse when we pulled into the hotel which looked like it was located in an industrial area of the valley. My first impressions of Napa weren’t great as you approach it from the south through a predominantly industrial area. My hopes were raised again when my boss explained that the “real” Napa Valley is north of the town of Napa and not anywhere near where we were. Things kept getting better when the big boss, Rick Wood showed up. Rick has a passion for the Napa Valley and its wines and I was hoping to get a chance to share that experience with him.
As luck would have it on Tuesday night we had a free night and the Canadian team went out for dinner at Celadon, a nice restaurant on the water in Napa. Rick took charge of the wine list and ordered a 2004 Cliff Lede Claret with dinner, a bottle of 2002 and 2003 Far Niente Dolce dessert wine. The Claret was phenomenal. I’ve never been a huge fan of red wines but that is probably because most of the red wines I’ve tasted are cheap and tasted more like grape juice. So it was love at first sip with Cliff Lede. I’ve also never been a fan of dessert wines and I’ve actually had some good ones before. While I’ve not been converted to dessert wines the Dolce was extremely drinkable. Of course at $90 a bottle one would think that it should be quite good. The cool thing about the Far Niente wines is that the labels are made from real gold leaf so you know they are putting some care into their product.
The trip got even better when Wednesday rolled around and as luck would have it the Canadian group didn’t have to attend any of the meetings until 4:30pm. I’ll give you one guess as to what happened next. Yup, we (Max and I) piled into Rick’s rental truck and were taken for a day to remember. We started at Coppola’s upscale winery, Rubicon, moved onto Beringer to see the lovely grounds, came back down to Cliff Lede and then finished off at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Rubicon definitely worth the $25 fee to see the winery and indulge in a 5 wine tasting. We actually tasted 7 wines thanks to our generous host. This was a top notch outfit and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Napa. Beringer is touristier but also worth the trip as it is one of the oldest and most spectacular wineries in the area. Cliff Lede was worth it for the wine but the people were a little less friendly. I found that surprising especially considering that they are owned by a Canadian. By the time we got the Stag’s Leap I was all tasted out and didn’t really care to try more but Max and Rick said it was really good as well. This winery is less about the facilities and more about the wine. In the end I finished the day with a bottle of 2005 Cliff Lede Claret and a bottle of 2004 Beringer Cab to take home. Darn Canada customs and their two bottle limit. In the end I think the limit is probably a good thing as I seem to have developed a taste for higher end wines in the $35-$90 a bottle range. The moral here is that I need a higher paying job to be able to sustain my new habit.
I was finally back in the office on October 19. One day of work and then the weekend; I could get used to this life. I had to be at work the following Monday and Tuesday but that was really just passing the time until Tuesday night. That was when Eric and I had to drive down to Burlington to catch our Wednesday morning flight to Sarasota. Daron was nice enough to put us up for the evening and then the real fun started on Wednesday. Our flight left on time as did our connection from Atlanta. We were in Tampa by noon and by 1:00pm we were on the road to Sarasota with John Bar as another passenger.
You might be wondering what I was doing heading to Sarasota for the weekend at the end of October. Eric, John Bar and I were on the way to the UPA Championships of course. I picked up with DoG this fall and have been playing masters ultimate with them since the beginning of September. We qualified for UPAs and now it was time to show up and play. This was huge for me because for the past 12 years I’ve been trying to qualify for this tournament and I finally did. I had hoped to get a shot to play in the open division but at this point I’m not going to be picky. UPAs is the absolutely biggest ultimate tournament in the World and I needed to go. By playing for DoG I figured I’d be able to ride the coat-tails of some of the legends of the game and qualify for “The Show”. Little did I know that I would be the game changer on their roster. I was just looking forward to getting a chance to play and learn from so many of the guys who kept destroying teams that I played on when I started out. By the end of this fall run I was the guy they were putting on the field to make the big plays for them. How cool is that!?!?!?! I’ll give you more details of the tournament later but the highlight of the tournament was after we won (YES, WE WON!!!!) the final, we were all huddled up and I’m surrounded by the likes of Parinella, Alex, Dick Brown, Seeger, Cameros, Zazlow, Coop, Paul Greff, etc. and Steve Mooney calls me out in front of all of these guys as the team MVP and gives me a high five. That right there is a moment I will never forget and is probably the highlight of my ultimate career.
Of course we won the masters division final, the partying starts which was fun and went on way too long, or not long enough depending on your point of view, we watched some high level ultimate on Sunday and then we had to come home. Eric and I got to the airport only to find out that our flight was overbooked by 25 people. What nearly turned into a nightmare scenario was saved by the US Airways woman at the gate who found us an alternate flight back to Burlington which actually arrived before we were scheduled to get there. On top of that we both got a flight voucher out of the deal.
Now you can see why I’m feeling pretty good right now. It’s been a long time coming but I finally feel like I’ve been able to recharge my batteries. In the next few days I’ll do a review of UPAs and post it for all to read. I’ll tell you all about the awesome stuff (the fields, the beach, the weather, the games, the gold medal) and the bad stuff (having the tournament end). Until then I’m going to go and drink a glass of nice wine, look at the silver medal the girls earned for me, wear the gold medal I won for myself and keep that silly smile on my face.
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First I’ll give a brief explanation as to why I haven’t been updating as often as I may have wanted to be doing so. I haven’t been inspired to do so. Not the greatest of explanations but that will be all you’ll get out of me. It’s been a really long summer; ultimate took up way more time than I wanted it to (again), family health crises popped up (we’re all rooting for you Ben), work got out of control and… I think that is pretty much it.
It is now the first of November and I am sitting in front of a computer feeling ridiculously refreshed. Ultimate took up a lot of my fall but in a good way, Ben seems to be doing pretty well (http://benjaminskira.blogspot.com) and work has calmed down in a big way. On top of that I have only been in the office seven days over the past three weeks. Not a lot of work combined with lots of play makes for a happy Daniel.
Since we all agree that the summer was a write-off I’ll get into the nitty-gritty details of what has me feeling so good these days.
On Oct 11, after a busy day of work following up many prior busy days of work, I left the office and went to the airport to catch my flight to Vancouver. Purpose of the trip, coach the McGill women’s ultimate Frisbee team at the Canadian University Ultimate Championships. My expectations for the team were relatively low compared to our 2005 when we finished as the top ranked women’s program in the country and 2006 when we took home the silver medal. My goal was to make it into the semi-finals but I knew even that would be a challenge. There were a lot of young, inexperienced girls on the team this year and they were going to have their hands full with the more experienced teams from such obscure places as UBC, Saskatchewan, U of T and U of A. In the end they exceeded my own and I think even their own expectations by making it to the finals against an exceptionally talented but unfortunately arrogant UBC team. I don’t think the score of the final necessarily represented how well our girls played but the most important thing is that they had a whale of a good time and exceeded expectations. Score a big one in the feel good department.
On the Monday I had the good fortune of not having to fly back to Montreal to sit behind my lovely office desk but rather I got to board a flight bound for beautiful San Francisco. Next stop on my whirlwind tour of North America was the Meritage Resort and Spa in lovely Napa. This leg started out great as I was flipping through the EnRoute magazine and to my great surprise, when I got to the section where they highlight hotels from around the world and right there was the Meritage. It took a turn for the worse when we pulled into the hotel which looked like it was located in an industrial area of the valley. My first impressions of Napa weren’t great as you approach it from the south through a predominantly industrial area. My hopes were raised again when my boss explained that the “real” Napa Valley is north of the town of Napa and not anywhere near where we were. Things kept getting better when the big boss, Rick Wood showed up. Rick has a passion for the Napa Valley and its wines and I was hoping to get a chance to share that experience with him.
As luck would have it on Tuesday night we had a free night and the Canadian team went out for dinner at Celadon, a nice restaurant on the water in Napa. Rick took charge of the wine list and ordered a 2004 Cliff Lede Claret with dinner, a bottle of 2002 and 2003 Far Niente Dolce dessert wine. The Claret was phenomenal. I’ve never been a huge fan of red wines but that is probably because most of the red wines I’ve tasted are cheap and tasted more like grape juice. So it was love at first sip with Cliff Lede. I’ve also never been a fan of dessert wines and I’ve actually had some good ones before. While I’ve not been converted to dessert wines the Dolce was extremely drinkable. Of course at $90 a bottle one would think that it should be quite good. The cool thing about the Far Niente wines is that the labels are made from real gold leaf so you know they are putting some care into their product.
The trip got even better when Wednesday rolled around and as luck would have it the Canadian group didn’t have to attend any of the meetings until 4:30pm. I’ll give you one guess as to what happened next. Yup, we (Max and I) piled into Rick’s rental truck and were taken for a day to remember. We started at Coppola’s upscale winery, Rubicon, moved onto Beringer to see the lovely grounds, came back down to Cliff Lede and then finished off at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. Rubicon definitely worth the $25 fee to see the winery and indulge in a 5 wine tasting. We actually tasted 7 wines thanks to our generous host. This was a top notch outfit and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Napa. Beringer is touristier but also worth the trip as it is one of the oldest and most spectacular wineries in the area. Cliff Lede was worth it for the wine but the people were a little less friendly. I found that surprising especially considering that they are owned by a Canadian. By the time we got the Stag’s Leap I was all tasted out and didn’t really care to try more but Max and Rick said it was really good as well. This winery is less about the facilities and more about the wine. In the end I finished the day with a bottle of 2005 Cliff Lede Claret and a bottle of 2004 Beringer Cab to take home. Darn Canada customs and their two bottle limit. In the end I think the limit is probably a good thing as I seem to have developed a taste for higher end wines in the $35-$90 a bottle range. The moral here is that I need a higher paying job to be able to sustain my new habit.
I was finally back in the office on October 19. One day of work and then the weekend; I could get used to this life. I had to be at work the following Monday and Tuesday but that was really just passing the time until Tuesday night. That was when Eric and I had to drive down to Burlington to catch our Wednesday morning flight to Sarasota. Daron was nice enough to put us up for the evening and then the real fun started on Wednesday. Our flight left on time as did our connection from Atlanta. We were in Tampa by noon and by 1:00pm we were on the road to Sarasota with John Bar as another passenger.
You might be wondering what I was doing heading to Sarasota for the weekend at the end of October. Eric, John Bar and I were on the way to the UPA Championships of course. I picked up with DoG this fall and have been playing masters ultimate with them since the beginning of September. We qualified for UPAs and now it was time to show up and play. This was huge for me because for the past 12 years I’ve been trying to qualify for this tournament and I finally did. I had hoped to get a shot to play in the open division but at this point I’m not going to be picky. UPAs is the absolutely biggest ultimate tournament in the World and I needed to go. By playing for DoG I figured I’d be able to ride the coat-tails of some of the legends of the game and qualify for “The Show”. Little did I know that I would be the game changer on their roster. I was just looking forward to getting a chance to play and learn from so many of the guys who kept destroying teams that I played on when I started out. By the end of this fall run I was the guy they were putting on the field to make the big plays for them. How cool is that!?!?!?! I’ll give you more details of the tournament later but the highlight of the tournament was after we won (YES, WE WON!!!!) the final, we were all huddled up and I’m surrounded by the likes of Parinella, Alex, Dick Brown, Seeger, Cameros, Zazlow, Coop, Paul Greff, etc. and Steve Mooney calls me out in front of all of these guys as the team MVP and gives me a high five. That right there is a moment I will never forget and is probably the highlight of my ultimate career.
Of course we won the masters division final, the partying starts which was fun and went on way too long, or not long enough depending on your point of view, we watched some high level ultimate on Sunday and then we had to come home. Eric and I got to the airport only to find out that our flight was overbooked by 25 people. What nearly turned into a nightmare scenario was saved by the US Airways woman at the gate who found us an alternate flight back to Burlington which actually arrived before we were scheduled to get there. On top of that we both got a flight voucher out of the deal.
Now you can see why I’m feeling pretty good right now. It’s been a long time coming but I finally feel like I’ve been able to recharge my batteries. In the next few days I’ll do a review of UPAs and post it for all to read. I’ll tell you all about the awesome stuff (the fields, the beach, the weather, the games, the gold medal) and the bad stuff (having the tournament end). Until then I’m going to go and drink a glass of nice wine, look at the silver medal the girls earned for me, wear the gold medal I won for myself and keep that silly smile on my face.
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