UPAs Day 3

Sorry Rahil, apparently I'm a slow writer...

What day am I up to now? Oh yeah, Day 3. Once again I woke up well before the alarm clock. I don’t think this was due to anxiety or nerves but there was definitely a sense of anticipation flowing through my veins. How does one prepare for a day like this? It’s not quite a championship day because we still had the semis to go through but you have to hope/plan/think the day is going to end in a big celebration. Then again who am I kidding; how often have I ever been in a position to realistically win a major championship in this sport before so how would I really know what it should feel like?

Well I went about my business like I normally would with maybe a bit more of a bounce in my step. Eat breakfast, shower, shave, pack my bags, load the car; I’m also pretty sure that somewhere in there I got dressed and did a few other things. Then I sat and waited. I was ready to leave for the fields at 7:30am but I didn’t have to be there for another two hours. So maybe I had a bit of nervous energy to burn off after all. I sat around and read a few chapters of the book I was into, watched the end of Invincible on my iPod to get me in the mood to have a little success story of my own and sat around some more as I waited for go-time to approach.

Finally I just gave up and decided to head to the fields. Eric and Shaggy would be playing with Goat in their Quarterfinal so I figured I’d go and watch a bit of that. Bobby and Matt were looking for an early ride to the fields so I obliged them and we were off to the Polo Club one more time. After fifteen traffic-less minutes, one random smile/wave from a cute girl on ICE and a short argument over whom the lucky recipient of her affection was, we were at the fields. In the end we decided the girl thought Bobby/Matt/I was someone else… how disappointing to our egos (but between you and me, she was definitely looking my way).

Our semi final was a rematch against Troubled Past. From here on in we could only have pool play rematches because the teams from pool A wiped out the teams from pool B in the quarters. At least we knew what we would be up against the rest of the way. This game was basically a carbon copy of our pool play game. We took half 8-5 and the next thing we knew it was 9-8 for them. We fought back and ended up winning 17-15 (yikes!). This game was not really that much fun to play in; Troubled Past are fine except for 2 or 3 players who are absolute pricks. The worst of them, and I have no qualms naming them, are Aaron Switze and one of the Monohan brothers (I think it’s Kevin). He deserved to be trampled by a polo pony but I didn’t see any around. If I’m going to be calling out people like that I should clarify that the other Monohan brother (the red-head) was an awesome competitor, was great to play against and was really spirited. I was covering Aaron during one point and he was in the endzone getting ready to make a cut. As he started his cut I positioned myself in a way that he ran into me, prematurely ending his cut. He started yelling, “you prick, that’s a bullsh*t move. I know because it’s what I do!” He threw out a few other expletives and curses on top of that. He just wasn’t a very nice guy to play against. Of course every call they made was justified and every call we made was the “same old cheap, bullsh*t”. Bad Monohan got our nicest, quietest guy, Rick, so riled up that after he scored a point he spiked the disc right next to Bad Monohan. Of course, much shouting ensued in the general direction of Rick. The best part was that all of our guys who came on the field to celebrate the score formed a human wall blocking Bad Monohan from getting to Rick. It was quite amusing seeing Bad Monahan trying to fight through 30 DoG players to get to Rick. I’ve never seen a sore loser like Bad Monohan.

We did make life more difficult for ourselves in the semis than they needed to be. Troubled had a few chances late in the game to actually take the lead but they just kept handing the disc back to us. It was only at about 11s that we got the lead back and we didn’t get a break to push ahead by two points until the last point. Thankfully we were able to work the disc upfield and I was able to score the winning point. What a relief that was! Next stop, after a 2 or 3 hour break, the finals.

I went and sat with Tito and Chowder for a few minutes near the back of our endzone. They had made the trip down from Ottawa to watch the tournament. Oh, and beer; to watch the tournament and drink copious amounts of beer. From what I saw they did both of those things very well. They were watching the Capitals play Zeitgeist in a consolation semifinal. I had some time to burn so I sat and chatted with those guys for a while. Chowder was already on beer number 5, Tito on 4 ½ and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t much after noon. Chowder was also kind enough to share with me the funniest joke I have ever heard about women’s ultimate. Something about having one hour left to live…

I also had a chance to watch some of my buddies on Goat exceed all expectations by playing in the open semifinal. They were really, really excited by that; and I think that might even be an understatement. Unfortunately for them this is where their run ended. They lost to Johnny Bravo 15-11, I think. I’m not too sure because I couldn’t stay around to watch the end of the game… something about having to warm up for the upcoming final. The beauty of Masters is that the final is played on Saturday afternoon, right in front of the beer tent while all other games are done. Not only is it a showcase game but it’s the only game that allows you to the chance to go into Saturday night’s parties with a gold medal around your neck.

When warm-up time rolled around I didn’t want to get going. I was happy to sit on the sideline and be lazy. My legs felt heavy, my arms felt unresponsive and I didn’t want to get off my butt. It was a feeling unlike any other I’ve ever experienced because I knew that I wasn’t that sore or that exhausted. I was pretty sure it was all in my head. Once I made the conscious decision that I was going to have myself a big game and play hard it was easier to get going but it was still a feeling that I had to fight all game. It was very strange to say the least but I’ll get back to this later, maybe in the next post.

There were so many people watching the game when it started. The beer tent was pretty full and there were people at pretty much every spot around the field. The crowd only got bigger once the Jam-Sockeye semi finished. I don’t think that I could accurately assess how many people would have been watching but I would have to say it is the largest crowd that I’ve had the chance to play a competitive match in front of. Or maybe it just seemed that way because the field was surrounded by a crowd as opposed to having everyone concentrated in a grand stand on one side of the field (CUPA, take a lesson from the UPA when choosing venues for finals). In any case it was a good venue for me to play what I thought was my best game of the tournament. All of the Goat guys had scored some pretty good seats in the beer tent with a prime view of the fields so I had my own cheering section. Early in the game I made a pretty big grab for a score right in front of those guys which was a lot of fun and every time I would walk out to the line they would cheer me on loudly.

I don’t think the game was ever in doubt; we started to pull away slowly but it wasn’t all that comfortable a lead. We were having a bit of trouble breaking their offense consistently so we couldn’t get more than a few points ahead of them. Surly was definitely looking to huck and had been successful hitting their key guy, Turtle, on a couple of occasions. Finally on one point I poached off of my guy a bit deep in anticipation of the huck. As soon as Turtle took off down field I left my guy on the far side of the field to give chase. Turtle had no idea I was coming in on his blind side and before he went up I jumped way above him and ripped the disc out of the sky. He was so surprised he didn’t come away with another easy score. I got the disc moving pretty quickly and ended up scoring the point at the other end, beating one defender and another O player to the disc as all three of us laid out for it. It was a pretty demoralizing point for Surly and it really got our guys fired up. After that it was a cake walk as we opened up a huge lead.

On the last point of the game Surly tried another huck to Turtle and once again I got over him and blocked the disc. I got every second pass as we worked the disc upfield until we got to the endzone where Matt passed to Larry for the game winning score. I was hoping to catch that pass but I guess I can’t ask for everything. And so it ended, game, set and match, 15-9, DoG won it all... again for most guys, first time around for me!

Post match fall-out to follow... and possibly some pictures.

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