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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Friday, December 05, 2008
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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The Olympics Begin
...and I just don't care right now. I have other things on my mind. I'm getting ready for our big day today. I'll be packing my bags in a few minutes to go to the fields but right now I'm just trying to find my focus. I am optimistic but also realistic. I will be happy with whatever the outcome is today but will be a bit disappointed at the same time if we don't get the gold.
Last night was trading night and I think I made some pretty good steals. Of course the Colombian guy who gave up his national team jersey for my four year old Goat jersey is probably thinking I'm a gringo sucka.
The big news yesterday (apart from us) was that the Aussie men lost to the GB team. I think the Aussies expected to at least make it to the semis. While I'm sure they wanted to spend the night drinking, their national pride will probably carry them to 5th place today. None the less, they were crushed at being eliminated. I would be too if I invested as much time and money as they did into the team.
It looks like another sunny, hot and humid day. Perfect weather to score a medal.
DF
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Last night was trading night and I think I made some pretty good steals. Of course the Colombian guy who gave up his national team jersey for my four year old Goat jersey is probably thinking I'm a gringo sucka.
The big news yesterday (apart from us) was that the Aussie men lost to the GB team. I think the Aussies expected to at least make it to the semis. While I'm sure they wanted to spend the night drinking, their national pride will probably carry them to 5th place today. None the less, they were crushed at being eliminated. I would be too if I invested as much time and money as they did into the team.
It looks like another sunny, hot and humid day. Perfect weather to score a medal.
DF
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Thursday, August 07, 2008
On to the Semis
We had a big day today. First we beat the Aussies in what I hope was convincing fashion 17-8 or 9. They were very skilled but we just brought too much pressure. Then we rested all of our main guys against GB and played only 12 players and we beat them 17-15. It was a bit closer than it should have been but strangely enough after the 25th point our 12 guys playing started to tire.
I'm ready for our 10:30 am matchup against the Aussies. I think our whole team is ready to win this thing. I really do like our chances but you never know; the Aussies could have some tricks up their sleeves and the US are just really good.
On a personal level I feel like I'm playing pretty well. I was one of the leaders in playing time (until the GB game) and I still feel pretty fresh. I have two turnovers in the tournament so far. I was hoping to have a clean slate at the end of it but I guess that would be asking for a lot. If I can keep it at two and have an impact tomorrow I'll be happy.
It's time to head off to trading night and see if I can secure another jersey. So far I have a New Zealand and Italian jersey lined up. I'll see what else I can score tonight. Don't worry; I won't spend too long working on that. I would like to be in bed nice and early to be well rested for tomorrow.
DF
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I'm ready for our 10:30 am matchup against the Aussies. I think our whole team is ready to win this thing. I really do like our chances but you never know; the Aussies could have some tricks up their sleeves and the US are just really good.
On a personal level I feel like I'm playing pretty well. I was one of the leaders in playing time (until the GB game) and I still feel pretty fresh. I have two turnovers in the tournament so far. I was hoping to have a clean slate at the end of it but I guess that would be asking for a lot. If I can keep it at two and have an impact tomorrow I'll be happy.
It's time to head off to trading night and see if I can secure another jersey. So far I have a New Zealand and Italian jersey lined up. I'll see what else I can score tonight. Don't worry; I won't spend too long working on that. I would like to be in bed nice and early to be well rested for tomorrow.
DF
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Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Chugging Along
Beat Germany... check.
Beat the French... check.
Beat the Venezuelans... check.
Beat the Japanese... check.
The top three results were pretty much guaranteed. The German game was a bit closer then it needed to be but I think some players drank a bit too much the night before in anticipation of an easy game. In fact all three games were closer than they needed to be but we rested a lot of starters. It's nice to know that we can get to where we need to be with help from everyone on the roster. And where is it that we need to be you may ask? Well at this point we are pretty much in the semis and that is where we need to be.
Our game against the Japanese was interesting. None of us knew what to expect. The scores in this tournament so far haven't really given us an indication of who is strong or not. We also knew that the Japanese team's last hope of getting into the semis was to beat us. We were fired up and came out like I've never seen us play. The Japanese are the fastest team at the tournament and we matched them like no one else did all week. They came out really hard and fast and we just took it to them. We took half 9-2 and then rested up some players and closed out the game 17-10.
It was definitely the most tiring game of the week so far. I'm pretty beat right now but I'll be ready to go against the Aussies tomorrow. Those guys just wouldn't stop running and running hard. I really need to go to sleep and rest up for tomorrow's early day.
On another note I actually got to do the post game speech to the French team because I speak the best French on the team. It was kinda fun. I'm not sure the French understood my Quebecois but they all laughed when I thought I was being funny so they must have understood a bit.
DF
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Beat the French... check.
Beat the Venezuelans... check.
Beat the Japanese... check.
The top three results were pretty much guaranteed. The German game was a bit closer then it needed to be but I think some players drank a bit too much the night before in anticipation of an easy game. In fact all three games were closer than they needed to be but we rested a lot of starters. It's nice to know that we can get to where we need to be with help from everyone on the roster. And where is it that we need to be you may ask? Well at this point we are pretty much in the semis and that is where we need to be.
Our game against the Japanese was interesting. None of us knew what to expect. The scores in this tournament so far haven't really given us an indication of who is strong or not. We also knew that the Japanese team's last hope of getting into the semis was to beat us. We were fired up and came out like I've never seen us play. The Japanese are the fastest team at the tournament and we matched them like no one else did all week. They came out really hard and fast and we just took it to them. We took half 9-2 and then rested up some players and closed out the game 17-10.
It was definitely the most tiring game of the week so far. I'm pretty beat right now but I'll be ready to go against the Aussies tomorrow. Those guys just wouldn't stop running and running hard. I really need to go to sleep and rest up for tomorrow's early day.
On another note I actually got to do the post game speech to the French team because I speak the best French on the team. It was kinda fun. I'm not sure the French understood my Quebecois but they all laughed when I thought I was being funny so they must have understood a bit.
DF
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Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Two Steps Forward, One step Back
We lost our "battle" against the US, 16-14. We were up at half time 9-5 but we blew the lead and ended up losing. It was a very tight game and I think we should still feel very good about our chances. If we play against everyone else the same way we did against the US it will definitely be a Canada US final. We just need to keep the intensity up, especially against the Aussies who are turning out to be the wildcard in this tournament.
It was fun to play against the Americans but a bit weird at the same time. They were giving me a hard time for choosing to play with Canada but they certainly weren't bitter about my choice (choosing Canada was the right thing to do). The game was very tightly contested but I think it was especially clean. There were the usual fouls and even some discussions but there wasn't a single argument. Everything was resolved quickly and amicably. The fact that it was such a hard fought and clean game really stands out for me. I really like those guys and I hope we get one more chance at them.
I have to make one comment about the announcer though; if you are going to insult masters players on the loudspeaker maybe you should do it when we aren't around as opposed to during our showcase game. If you pull the same crap during the final, Jon Bar (from team USA) and I have agreed that we are going to pour a beer each over your head. You are now warned.
In other results New Zealand upset the Japanese. That puts the Brits and the Japanese on the outside looking in. Their only hope is if the Brits beat the Kiwis and then it will be all down to point dif.
Today is our rest day against the Germans and the French. Unfortunately the Germans are "Scheise" this year; they were destroyed by the Italians. I don't think the French are much better; I'm hoping that their surrendering arms aren't too tired from all the games they've played.
We are still waiting for our red jerseys to arrive. I have already promised the red jerseys I "have" to some people in trades so I will be extremely annoyed if Gaia doesn't come through with those. Thankfully my trade for the Italian jersey is for one of my whites. Gaia better come through or else I want my money back. Even so, Gaia... you suck!
Since I seem to be ranting I'm going to go off on Team Canada as a whole. Every single other team supports each other. When we were watching the Japanese-GB masters game, the open teams from both countries were watching and supporting them. Every single team in the tournament is very supportive of their other national teams; they go and watch games, they hang out together... except for Team Canada. Maybe it's because all the other teams are Vancouver based and we aren't; maybe it's because the tournament is in Vancouver but it really sucks that we don't have a true Team Canada feel. It's a real shame. I'm still going to go out and support the other teams when I can.
DF
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It was fun to play against the Americans but a bit weird at the same time. They were giving me a hard time for choosing to play with Canada but they certainly weren't bitter about my choice (choosing Canada was the right thing to do). The game was very tightly contested but I think it was especially clean. There were the usual fouls and even some discussions but there wasn't a single argument. Everything was resolved quickly and amicably. The fact that it was such a hard fought and clean game really stands out for me. I really like those guys and I hope we get one more chance at them.
I have to make one comment about the announcer though; if you are going to insult masters players on the loudspeaker maybe you should do it when we aren't around as opposed to during our showcase game. If you pull the same crap during the final, Jon Bar (from team USA) and I have agreed that we are going to pour a beer each over your head. You are now warned.
In other results New Zealand upset the Japanese. That puts the Brits and the Japanese on the outside looking in. Their only hope is if the Brits beat the Kiwis and then it will be all down to point dif.
Today is our rest day against the Germans and the French. Unfortunately the Germans are "Scheise" this year; they were destroyed by the Italians. I don't think the French are much better; I'm hoping that their surrendering arms aren't too tired from all the games they've played.
We are still waiting for our red jerseys to arrive. I have already promised the red jerseys I "have" to some people in trades so I will be extremely annoyed if Gaia doesn't come through with those. Thankfully my trade for the Italian jersey is for one of my whites. Gaia better come through or else I want my money back. Even so, Gaia... you suck!
Since I seem to be ranting I'm going to go off on Team Canada as a whole. Every single other team supports each other. When we were watching the Japanese-GB masters game, the open teams from both countries were watching and supporting them. Every single team in the tournament is very supportive of their other national teams; they go and watch games, they hang out together... except for Team Canada. Maybe it's because all the other teams are Vancouver based and we aren't; maybe it's because the tournament is in Vancouver but it really sucks that we don't have a true Team Canada feel. It's a real shame. I'm still going to go out and support the other teams when I can.
DF
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Sunday, August 03, 2008
Breaking News...
This just in... Shaggy survives Day 1!
You heard it here first; he did not get hurt and he actually looked quite solid out there. He's officially back from the disabled list.
That's some pretty big news I would say but the real breaking news revolves around the Colombian teams. This just in... they are good. The open team, which is made up almost entirely of the kids who finished third in the junior division two years ago almost upset GB. They ended up losing 11-7 but it was a tight game. I would say it was already the game of the tournament. Those Colombian kids are really good and they have no organization. With the slightest bit of structure they would have killed GB. They are so quick and athletic it isn't funny. This just in... for the first time ever in a division at a Worlds, a team beat both Canada and the US. Who was it? The Colombian girls. It cant't be the cocaine because I can't imagine they would have gotten through customs but the Colombians are making a statement at these Worlds.
As for our day we beat New Zealand in what seemed like a tight affair at first by a score of 17-9 and then we crushed the inexperienced Italians 17-3. Interestingly the American team beat NZ and the Italians by the exact same scores. I'm not sure what that means. It was an easy start to the tournament and tomorrow we have our first big test against the US in a showcase game. In other action in our division the Aussies surprisingly beat the Japanese. Tomorrow morning we will go out and scout the Brits, Japanese and Aussies so that we can be as ready as possible when we face those three teams in a row to end pool play.
In other action today the Japanese women dominated the Canadian women in the showcase game. The Japanese play a very clean game and the Canadian women could not keep up with the quick, nimble little Japanese women. I wouldn't be surprised if the women's final will be US vs Japan. The Aussie men looked very strong in dismantling Ireland. They are tall, fast and they move the disc very quickly and aggressively. The Irish made a few too many mistakes and before they knew what was going on the Aussies were soiking the disc in the endzone.
I can't wait to see the Aussies-US-Japanese open teams take on each other and I am interested in watching these Colombian junior women to see what all their hype is about.
Till tomorrow after our showcase game.
DF Read more!
You heard it here first; he did not get hurt and he actually looked quite solid out there. He's officially back from the disabled list.
That's some pretty big news I would say but the real breaking news revolves around the Colombian teams. This just in... they are good. The open team, which is made up almost entirely of the kids who finished third in the junior division two years ago almost upset GB. They ended up losing 11-7 but it was a tight game. I would say it was already the game of the tournament. Those Colombian kids are really good and they have no organization. With the slightest bit of structure they would have killed GB. They are so quick and athletic it isn't funny. This just in... for the first time ever in a division at a Worlds, a team beat both Canada and the US. Who was it? The Colombian girls. It cant't be the cocaine because I can't imagine they would have gotten through customs but the Colombians are making a statement at these Worlds.
As for our day we beat New Zealand in what seemed like a tight affair at first by a score of 17-9 and then we crushed the inexperienced Italians 17-3. Interestingly the American team beat NZ and the Italians by the exact same scores. I'm not sure what that means. It was an easy start to the tournament and tomorrow we have our first big test against the US in a showcase game. In other action in our division the Aussies surprisingly beat the Japanese. Tomorrow morning we will go out and scout the Brits, Japanese and Aussies so that we can be as ready as possible when we face those three teams in a row to end pool play.
In other action today the Japanese women dominated the Canadian women in the showcase game. The Japanese play a very clean game and the Canadian women could not keep up with the quick, nimble little Japanese women. I wouldn't be surprised if the women's final will be US vs Japan. The Aussie men looked very strong in dismantling Ireland. They are tall, fast and they move the disc very quickly and aggressively. The Irish made a few too many mistakes and before they knew what was going on the Aussies were soiking the disc in the endzone.
I can't wait to see the Aussies-US-Japanese open teams take on each other and I am interested in watching these Colombian junior women to see what all their hype is about.
Till tomorrow after our showcase game.
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And so it begins
One year they are going to get it right. One year... just not this year. We got half of our team uniform yesterday. Why only half? Because the other half is still somewhere in India. Gaia is doing our uniforms. We have our white jerseys and our shorts but the reds aren't quite done yet. We better not lose the flip for colours. Gaia did sort of make it up to us by giving us free burgundy shirts with our logo and numbers on it in case we have to go dark. At least the burgundy is closer to red then the blue that the Furious guys have as a backup colour. All should be okay on Wednesday when our reds are supposed to arrive.
Yesterday were the opening ceremonies and I can't get over how many players are here. The stands at Thunderbird Stadium were filled with players. I don't know how big the stadium is but it was a lot of people. I haven't really bumped into to many people that I know from other countries yet but I haven't really spent any time looking to say hello yet. The actual opening ceremonies were a bit weird but whatever, I'm sure the budget wasn't enormous. I have a pretty good picture of Shaggy and the rest of the stadium doing Indian (from India, not American-Indian) dancing. When I have some more time I'll upload the pictures from my camera and post them on here.
I left halfway through the showcase game (mixed: Canada vs. GB). It was some of the sloppiest ultimate I've seen in a long time but I'm sure both teams were very nervous. I hear that Canada won but they made it closer than it should have been.
So we start the tournament this morning against New Zealand and then Italy. Come to think of it I guess I could have played for Italy as well since somewhere I think I still hold Italian citizenship. Hopefully it will be an easy start to the tournament; a loss against one of these teams will be unexpected and possibly devastating to our chances of doing well. Strangely enough it isn't raining here so it might be a decent day of frizzer.
Time to go crush some kiwis. I hope to be able to update you on our day but for live scores you can go to www.wugc2008.com. Somewhere on that site they have scores.
DF Read more!
Yesterday were the opening ceremonies and I can't get over how many players are here. The stands at Thunderbird Stadium were filled with players. I don't know how big the stadium is but it was a lot of people. I haven't really bumped into to many people that I know from other countries yet but I haven't really spent any time looking to say hello yet. The actual opening ceremonies were a bit weird but whatever, I'm sure the budget wasn't enormous. I have a pretty good picture of Shaggy and the rest of the stadium doing Indian (from India, not American-Indian) dancing. When I have some more time I'll upload the pictures from my camera and post them on here.
I left halfway through the showcase game (mixed: Canada vs. GB). It was some of the sloppiest ultimate I've seen in a long time but I'm sure both teams were very nervous. I hear that Canada won but they made it closer than it should have been.
So we start the tournament this morning against New Zealand and then Italy. Come to think of it I guess I could have played for Italy as well since somewhere I think I still hold Italian citizenship. Hopefully it will be an easy start to the tournament; a loss against one of these teams will be unexpected and possibly devastating to our chances of doing well. Strangely enough it isn't raining here so it might be a decent day of frizzer.
Time to go crush some kiwis. I hope to be able to update you on our day but for live scores you can go to www.wugc2008.com. Somewhere on that site they have scores.
DF Read more!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Vancouver Bound!
So after a ridiculously hectic summer it's time to get this blog up and running again. Mostly in hopes that I will actually be able to find some access to a computer in Vancouver so I can update everyone on the goings on at WUGC 2008. Yup, I'm going to another frizzer tournament way too far away from home. At least this one is in my own country. I'm going to be representing Canada in the Masters division at Worlds. Yup, you read right, Masters division. It's a joke that at 34 years old I'm old enough to be a "master" but I don't make the rules... I just take advantage of them.
The tournament starts on Aug 2 with opening ceremonies and one showcase game (Canada vs. GB in the Mixed division) but for my team things get underway on Aug 3 with games against New Zealand and Italy. We have a showcase game on Aug 4 against my "other" team, the US. I was eligible to play with them but for some reason chose to play with Canada. I'm still not sure that I made the right choice but that is another topic entirely and regardless of the outcome I will feel more pride with the Maple Leaf on my jersey then I ever could wearing the Stars and Bars. Our biggest test will be our last three games against Japan, Australia and GB. Those games will determine who plays for medals and who gets to cry in their beers. I'm hoping to play for a medal because tears really don't add anything to the taste of beer. The last day of the tournament is Aug 8 and hopefully my team will have some colour of medal around our necks; preferably gold.
I'll try to update this as often as possible and once I'm back I'll go more in depth on this blog. You can get more details on the tournament at the official WUGC website; http://www.wugc2008.com/
Go Canada, go!
DF Read more!
The tournament starts on Aug 2 with opening ceremonies and one showcase game (Canada vs. GB in the Mixed division) but for my team things get underway on Aug 3 with games against New Zealand and Italy. We have a showcase game on Aug 4 against my "other" team, the US. I was eligible to play with them but for some reason chose to play with Canada. I'm still not sure that I made the right choice but that is another topic entirely and regardless of the outcome I will feel more pride with the Maple Leaf on my jersey then I ever could wearing the Stars and Bars. Our biggest test will be our last three games against Japan, Australia and GB. Those games will determine who plays for medals and who gets to cry in their beers. I'm hoping to play for a medal because tears really don't add anything to the taste of beer. The last day of the tournament is Aug 8 and hopefully my team will have some colour of medal around our necks; preferably gold.
I'll try to update this as often as possible and once I'm back I'll go more in depth on this blog. You can get more details on the tournament at the official WUGC website; http://www.wugc2008.com/
Go Canada, go!
DF Read more!
Monday, March 03, 2008
Winning is fun
This little winning streak I'm on has got me thinking about why I play. I used to play ultimate because it was fun. It is still fun but I don't know if that is why I play; I still play because I do more winning than losing and winning is fun. I'm not sure what happened between when I started and now but my goals have changed a bit over time. If I wasn't in a city with a decent team I don't know if I would still be playing because I would have gotten tired of losing a long time ago. Or maybe to be more honest with myself I should say that I am tired of losing but I'm fortunate that I don't do too much of it right now. I'll try to share what little insight I have on winning in this post.
The most obvious thing about winning is that it is difficult. The nature of sports is such that everyone is striving to beat the other teams. Only one team can be successful and be called the champion. Given our genetics (most humans are created relatively equal) it takes a lot to be able to be that team that rises above all others. Let's just take a look at the open division at UPA Fall Series; some 300 teams show up for sectionals only to get whittled down to about 96 teams for regionals after which the ultimate herd gets culled even further to the last 16. The champion that rises out of that pile is the best team of the 300 that started the whole process, not just the best of a 16 team tournament. That leaves about 299 losers in the whole process. So yeah, winning isn't easy.
That is the simple, statistical way of looking at the difficulty of winning but there is something slightly more intangible that I am referring to when I say that winning isn't easy. It is the mental aspect of winning. I don't pretend to know what it takes for everyone, I just know how it affects me through my experiences with in these situations.
It became really evident this past fall playing with DoG. Before our first game againt Troubled Past one of my captains told me that we would win the game because they "didn't want to win". He said it was easier for them to lose the game and come up with excuses than it was for them to put in the extra bit of effort on the field (we ended up beating them twice). I didn't quite understand what he meant until I thought about it in a few of the tight games that we had. My legs felt heavy, my body felt tired and my mind started to try to convince me that it really wouldn't be that bad to lose a game 15-13. The crazy thing is it's all up in your mind. It's as if you brain is ready to let you put in the effort to be good but doesn't want you to over-exert yourself in an attempt to be the best. Who knows, maybe it's part of a survival instinct hard-wired into our brains but the teams that have the most success are the teams that can break through that mental barrier. Thankfully I was surrounded by team mates who pulled me through that barrier because it can be pretty hard to get through it on your own. There were a few times where I think my body and mind were ready to give up but I had team mates on the sideline encouraging/forcing me to pick it up and keep going. That support was absolutely crucial in helping me fight through.
A couple of things to help you fight through that feeling are to:
1) Have high expectations. The moment you meet a goal you set for yourself you have a tendancy to think that your job is done. If your goal is to make the quarterfinals of a tournament and you do you will let up a bit without realizing it. You will be more likely to accept a setback in your next game because overall your goals have been acheived. Either set really lofty goals to start with or the moment you meet your goals, immediately set new goals.
2) Support your team mates through the feeling. Most of us hate letting our team mates down more than we hate letting ourselves down. If your team mates really work to encourage you to give more on the field, you'll find that tiny well of energy that will help you fight through the feeling of wanting to let up.
3) Don't think about the score. Let the captains worry about that. As an individual on a team your job is to go out and play. How many times has it happened that your team is down a few points, you fight back to tie the game and then go on to lose the game anyway. That's because once you fight back to tie the game your brain says, "whew, it's tied, we are back in this," and you let up just a bit. It's that letup that allows the other team to pull away again. You need to train your brain to say, "this is not enough," in those situations and go out for more. An even better habit to be in is that you don't even care about the score, you play all out every point and you just win the game outright without having to come back and deal with the internal mind-games.
I'm starting to get used to winning but it is still a struggle for me to deal with the mental aspect of it. At least now I'm more familiar with how it affects me and what I can do to fight through that block. From experience it is worth fighting through the feeling; you either fight through and win the game or you fight through and lose with pride. There is nothing worse than succumbing to the feeling and looking back with regret; it might be an easier thing to do at the moment but it's a much harder thing to deal with in the long run.
By the way, my team won 4 Corners. Make it 5 in a row (even though 4C is more a disc game than ultimate).
DF Read more!
The most obvious thing about winning is that it is difficult. The nature of sports is such that everyone is striving to beat the other teams. Only one team can be successful and be called the champion. Given our genetics (most humans are created relatively equal) it takes a lot to be able to be that team that rises above all others. Let's just take a look at the open division at UPA Fall Series; some 300 teams show up for sectionals only to get whittled down to about 96 teams for regionals after which the ultimate herd gets culled even further to the last 16. The champion that rises out of that pile is the best team of the 300 that started the whole process, not just the best of a 16 team tournament. That leaves about 299 losers in the whole process. So yeah, winning isn't easy.
That is the simple, statistical way of looking at the difficulty of winning but there is something slightly more intangible that I am referring to when I say that winning isn't easy. It is the mental aspect of winning. I don't pretend to know what it takes for everyone, I just know how it affects me through my experiences with in these situations.
It became really evident this past fall playing with DoG. Before our first game againt Troubled Past one of my captains told me that we would win the game because they "didn't want to win". He said it was easier for them to lose the game and come up with excuses than it was for them to put in the extra bit of effort on the field (we ended up beating them twice). I didn't quite understand what he meant until I thought about it in a few of the tight games that we had. My legs felt heavy, my body felt tired and my mind started to try to convince me that it really wouldn't be that bad to lose a game 15-13. The crazy thing is it's all up in your mind. It's as if you brain is ready to let you put in the effort to be good but doesn't want you to over-exert yourself in an attempt to be the best. Who knows, maybe it's part of a survival instinct hard-wired into our brains but the teams that have the most success are the teams that can break through that mental barrier. Thankfully I was surrounded by team mates who pulled me through that barrier because it can be pretty hard to get through it on your own. There were a few times where I think my body and mind were ready to give up but I had team mates on the sideline encouraging/forcing me to pick it up and keep going. That support was absolutely crucial in helping me fight through.
A couple of things to help you fight through that feeling are to:
1) Have high expectations. The moment you meet a goal you set for yourself you have a tendancy to think that your job is done. If your goal is to make the quarterfinals of a tournament and you do you will let up a bit without realizing it. You will be more likely to accept a setback in your next game because overall your goals have been acheived. Either set really lofty goals to start with or the moment you meet your goals, immediately set new goals.
2) Support your team mates through the feeling. Most of us hate letting our team mates down more than we hate letting ourselves down. If your team mates really work to encourage you to give more on the field, you'll find that tiny well of energy that will help you fight through the feeling of wanting to let up.
3) Don't think about the score. Let the captains worry about that. As an individual on a team your job is to go out and play. How many times has it happened that your team is down a few points, you fight back to tie the game and then go on to lose the game anyway. That's because once you fight back to tie the game your brain says, "whew, it's tied, we are back in this," and you let up just a bit. It's that letup that allows the other team to pull away again. You need to train your brain to say, "this is not enough," in those situations and go out for more. An even better habit to be in is that you don't even care about the score, you play all out every point and you just win the game outright without having to come back and deal with the internal mind-games.
I'm starting to get used to winning but it is still a struggle for me to deal with the mental aspect of it. At least now I'm more familiar with how it affects me and what I can do to fight through that block. From experience it is worth fighting through the feeling; you either fight through and win the game or you fight through and lose with pride. There is nothing worse than succumbing to the feeling and looking back with regret; it might be an easier thing to do at the moment but it's a much harder thing to deal with in the long run.
By the way, my team won 4 Corners. Make it 5 in a row (even though 4C is more a disc game than ultimate).
DF Read more!
Monday, February 25, 2008
4 for 4
So I've probably just jinxed myself but I figure that my run of good fortune will be coming to an end pretty soon anyway.
Regionals, UPAs, Vegas and now CdF in Sherbrooke; I've somehow managed to win the last four ulti tournaments that I've attended. As much as I would love to attribute it to my awesomeness, the reality has more to do with the fact that I've been afforded some great opportunities in the past few months. I got to play with the legends of DoG in the fall, was invited to play with a bunch of guys from Furious in Vegas and I'm fortunate enough to have friends in Montreal who are good enough to win a 42 team indoor tournament in Sherbrooke.
"What? You went to Vegas and didn't tell me?" Yeah, something like that. Vegas was a fun time. It's the first time I've gone south for a tournament on grass this early in the year. I'm not quite sure I know why I agreed to go but getting the chance to play with Mike Grant and some of the other Furious guys was a big draw. Those guys are so good and they just know what it takes to win. Our team was pretty strong and we managed to win the tournament against some really good teams.
The big thing about the tournament for me was it was my first time in Vegas. What an incredible place! It has no place existing, yet there it is, in the middle of the desert, rising out of the sand like a mirage... or more likely a drunken hallucination. It is everything that is great about the US and everything that is horrible about the US. It is opulent, gaudy, lavish, indulgent, run-down, excessive, beautiful, ugly, garish and tacky all at the same time. It was just too much for the senses to absorb. I have never seen hotels as big as these. They obviously spared no expense in building these behemoths; I rode a spiral escalator in Ceasar's Palace! I've never been on an escalator before where everyone was looking at the thing wondering how they manage to get it to do a nice 180 degree spiral but there I was in Vegas doing just that. And then there is the fountain at the Bellagio. That was probably the coolest thing about Vegas; a gigantic man-made lake in the middle of downtown Vegas with a massive fountain show every 15 minutes. The fountain show we saw was set to the music from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". It was absolutely amazing and was probably the highlight of my Vegas experience but you can't help walk away thinking that it's completely nuts. I want to go back as soon as I can and at the same time I never want to see that place again. However conflicted I may feel about Vegas I'll admit that it takes one heck of a place to make me feel this way.
Having played with Parinella, Mooney, The Count et al. in the fall and with Mike Grant, Kirk Savage and co. in January, what do you do next, what comes after that? Coup de Foudre in Sherbrooke of course. If you know the province of Quebec at all, you'll know that ultimate just can't be played outside from about November to May. How do Quebecers get their fix? By going indoors of course. There has been a huge growth in indoor ultimate in the province in the past few years and with the number of indoor Field-Turf facilities taking off there is ample opportunity to play. The problem with these Field-Turf complexes is that they cost a lot of money to rent. On average it costs about $350 for an hours use of a full soccer field. A full soccer field is a bit excessive so the alternative is to split a soccer field thrice and voila, you have three fields that are slightly smaller than regulation and the cost of the field has just been divided by three. Someone had the "great" idea of splitting these fields thrice again creating tiny little patches of turf on which to play. This is what CdF was, a 42 team tournament on one soccer field; 72 players running around on a space normally reserved for 14 people.
It's a bit of a strange game as normal length passes now risk flying out of bounds and speed is negated but quickness is key. It's a game that seems built for short, speedy guys (or how we like to call them, French Quebecers). My friends and I kinda look down on this type of ultimate since it isn't "real ultimate"... and because it doesn't really play to our strengths of height and speed. On the flip side I can see how these short speedy guys are taking to this version of the sport seemingly more than they are to the outdoors game; they are probably tired of getting beaten by me and my tall, fast friends. I'm not joking when I say that these players are really taking to the indoor version of the game. There is now a 4 tournament series in Quebec that ends in an 8 team championship tournament. Points are given according to the finish of teams throughout the series to establish a ranking of teams in order to decide on the top 8. This is a big deal for some players. Teams have set rosters, jerseys, practices, etc. all for these indoor tournaments. I don't get it but I think I used to be that crazy about ultimate at some point myself so who am I to judge.
The team I played on worked really hard throughout the weekend and we managed to finish first. We were hoping that our victory would give us enough points to qualify for the championships without having to attend another tournament. Alas, the person who came up with the Nascar-style points system was smart enough to reward consistency and attendance over a one time result and we won't be able to go. On the plus side we beat the number 1 and 2 ranked teams twice each at this tournament. We won't win the 4 on 4 Quebec Championship but everyone else knows that we are the best team; I don't need a stinkin' trophy to feel good about myself!
So what's next? I am going to 4C in Burlington, VT this weekend. I'll see if I can stretch out my streak to 5 but I won't hold my breathe. It will be fun I'm sure but I'm ready for a break from disc. The season hasn't even started and I'm tired of it already... that's not good. I need to make sure that I don't break myself before the summer rolls around. Well after 4C, I only have indoor league for a while. No more tournaments for me until the snow melts and the grass starts growing. With the amount of snow we have in town this year I'm hoping that will be a while yet.
I'm a bit surprised at myself for not being more obsessive of my streak but I know that I'm not going to win them all. I think a more important figure for me is 6 of 9 (completely unrelated to the Star Trek hottie 7 of 9). I've won six of the last nine tournaments I've attended. That means that the teams I'm playing with are quite strong and I've been fortunate enough to have had important roles on all of those teams. I want to keep that success rate going into this summer. Hopefully it's doable. There are some changes afoot in the Montreal ultimate scene and they should make Mephisto a much stronger team than we have ever been. I'll give you some more details of that after they become public when Mephisto has their pre-season meeting on March 2... that and an update on the streak.
DF Read more!
Regionals, UPAs, Vegas and now CdF in Sherbrooke; I've somehow managed to win the last four ulti tournaments that I've attended. As much as I would love to attribute it to my awesomeness, the reality has more to do with the fact that I've been afforded some great opportunities in the past few months. I got to play with the legends of DoG in the fall, was invited to play with a bunch of guys from Furious in Vegas and I'm fortunate enough to have friends in Montreal who are good enough to win a 42 team indoor tournament in Sherbrooke.
"What? You went to Vegas and didn't tell me?" Yeah, something like that. Vegas was a fun time. It's the first time I've gone south for a tournament on grass this early in the year. I'm not quite sure I know why I agreed to go but getting the chance to play with Mike Grant and some of the other Furious guys was a big draw. Those guys are so good and they just know what it takes to win. Our team was pretty strong and we managed to win the tournament against some really good teams.
The big thing about the tournament for me was it was my first time in Vegas. What an incredible place! It has no place existing, yet there it is, in the middle of the desert, rising out of the sand like a mirage... or more likely a drunken hallucination. It is everything that is great about the US and everything that is horrible about the US. It is opulent, gaudy, lavish, indulgent, run-down, excessive, beautiful, ugly, garish and tacky all at the same time. It was just too much for the senses to absorb. I have never seen hotels as big as these. They obviously spared no expense in building these behemoths; I rode a spiral escalator in Ceasar's Palace! I've never been on an escalator before where everyone was looking at the thing wondering how they manage to get it to do a nice 180 degree spiral but there I was in Vegas doing just that. And then there is the fountain at the Bellagio. That was probably the coolest thing about Vegas; a gigantic man-made lake in the middle of downtown Vegas with a massive fountain show every 15 minutes. The fountain show we saw was set to the music from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". It was absolutely amazing and was probably the highlight of my Vegas experience but you can't help walk away thinking that it's completely nuts. I want to go back as soon as I can and at the same time I never want to see that place again. However conflicted I may feel about Vegas I'll admit that it takes one heck of a place to make me feel this way.
Having played with Parinella, Mooney, The Count et al. in the fall and with Mike Grant, Kirk Savage and co. in January, what do you do next, what comes after that? Coup de Foudre in Sherbrooke of course. If you know the province of Quebec at all, you'll know that ultimate just can't be played outside from about November to May. How do Quebecers get their fix? By going indoors of course. There has been a huge growth in indoor ultimate in the province in the past few years and with the number of indoor Field-Turf facilities taking off there is ample opportunity to play. The problem with these Field-Turf complexes is that they cost a lot of money to rent. On average it costs about $350 for an hours use of a full soccer field. A full soccer field is a bit excessive so the alternative is to split a soccer field thrice and voila, you have three fields that are slightly smaller than regulation and the cost of the field has just been divided by three. Someone had the "great" idea of splitting these fields thrice again creating tiny little patches of turf on which to play. This is what CdF was, a 42 team tournament on one soccer field; 72 players running around on a space normally reserved for 14 people.
It's a bit of a strange game as normal length passes now risk flying out of bounds and speed is negated but quickness is key. It's a game that seems built for short, speedy guys (or how we like to call them, French Quebecers). My friends and I kinda look down on this type of ultimate since it isn't "real ultimate"... and because it doesn't really play to our strengths of height and speed. On the flip side I can see how these short speedy guys are taking to this version of the sport seemingly more than they are to the outdoors game; they are probably tired of getting beaten by me and my tall, fast friends. I'm not joking when I say that these players are really taking to the indoor version of the game. There is now a 4 tournament series in Quebec that ends in an 8 team championship tournament. Points are given according to the finish of teams throughout the series to establish a ranking of teams in order to decide on the top 8. This is a big deal for some players. Teams have set rosters, jerseys, practices, etc. all for these indoor tournaments. I don't get it but I think I used to be that crazy about ultimate at some point myself so who am I to judge.
The team I played on worked really hard throughout the weekend and we managed to finish first. We were hoping that our victory would give us enough points to qualify for the championships without having to attend another tournament. Alas, the person who came up with the Nascar-style points system was smart enough to reward consistency and attendance over a one time result and we won't be able to go. On the plus side we beat the number 1 and 2 ranked teams twice each at this tournament. We won't win the 4 on 4 Quebec Championship but everyone else knows that we are the best team; I don't need a stinkin' trophy to feel good about myself!
So what's next? I am going to 4C in Burlington, VT this weekend. I'll see if I can stretch out my streak to 5 but I won't hold my breathe. It will be fun I'm sure but I'm ready for a break from disc. The season hasn't even started and I'm tired of it already... that's not good. I need to make sure that I don't break myself before the summer rolls around. Well after 4C, I only have indoor league for a while. No more tournaments for me until the snow melts and the grass starts growing. With the amount of snow we have in town this year I'm hoping that will be a while yet.
I'm a bit surprised at myself for not being more obsessive of my streak but I know that I'm not going to win them all. I think a more important figure for me is 6 of 9 (completely unrelated to the Star Trek hottie 7 of 9). I've won six of the last nine tournaments I've attended. That means that the teams I'm playing with are quite strong and I've been fortunate enough to have had important roles on all of those teams. I want to keep that success rate going into this summer. Hopefully it's doable. There are some changes afoot in the Montreal ultimate scene and they should make Mephisto a much stronger team than we have ever been. I'll give you some more details of that after they become public when Mephisto has their pre-season meeting on March 2... that and an update on the streak.
DF Read more!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
And Then "Loser Beer" Became "Winner Beer"
It's been a hectic past few weeks so I haven't been able to finish up the thoughts I've been wanting to put down on paper but I'll give it a shot here. First off, I'd like to congratulate my nephew for being a trooper and finishing up his chemotherapy and hopefully putting the leukemia behind him for good. Ben, you had a lot of people worried sh**less but you didn't let it get to you. Of course at one and a half years old he didn't realize what was going on but good for you anyway.
I think I left off my last post with DoG winning UPAs. We didn't celebrate enough in my mind but I can see how for someone like Mooney, who was attending something like his 20th UPAs and winning at least his seventh title, it can get a bit old. Well I was ecstatic; Master's or not, it was a big thing for me. I think I recall most of what happened that evening but there were some beverages going around. We got our medals and celebrated at the fields for what seemed like hours. Shaggy and Eric were there too celebrating their semi-final appearance with Goat; I think they were as excited as I was about their first UPA appearance as well. One thing is for sure, I wasn't anywhere near as drunk as they were but then again the two hours I spent playing the finals they spent in the beer garden pounding back the free "loser beer". Advantage, Eric and Shag. I absolutely loved how all weekend the old guys were refusing to touch the free beer because it’s “loser beer”. You only get to touch it once you’re done; for most people that happens once they are eliminated but for a select few “loser beer” becomes “winner beer”. Damn, “winner beer” tastes real good!
Eventually we made the move to some restaurant with the name Turtle in it for a celebratory DoG team dinner. The second to last game of the World Series was on the big screen so all the Red Sox fans on the team (everyone) was too busy watching that. We went back to the condos and half the crowd went off to the beach to party and the other half went out to the bar. The bar sounded like it was a little too crowded so I was happy with my decision to go to the beach. If I had gone to bar I would have missed Marshall getting introduced to a "dance move" called the pussy-bop by some drunk girl from Barrio. Apparently it requires Marshall to stand still with a stunned look on his face while the girl backs her rear end into him, leans over with her hands on the ground as she gyrates at about 360 bpm. Was it good for you Marshall, 'cause it sure as heck looked like it should have been? The alliterative trio of Matt, Marshal and myself spent the evening poaching beers and chatting up people on the beach. It seemed like the beach party was mostly Pike guys and Zeitgeist girls; since Matt and I didn't really feel like going around introducing ourselves to dudes we spent most of the night with the Zeitgeist girls (it's what JT would have done). The highlight of the beach party was overhearing two random guys introducing themselves to the ladies as "gold medalists from DoG". Good on you boys for using your imaginations while trying to score the ladies; I sincerely hope it worked for you whoever you are... as long as you didn't use my name.
It was quite the day/night/early morning. After a few hours of sleep I headed over to the fields and got there just in time to watch Fury put away Riot and then sat around to watch a very exciting but slightly sloppy men's final; the sloppy play almost entirely was due to the windy conditions but it was also what created a lot of the exciting plays. Case in point; the last point of the game. I can't even describe it, just go and check it out on Ultivillage.com. It was probably the craziest, most exciting point of ultimate that I've ever seen.
Eric and I headed over to the airport after that for our leisurely flight back to BTV to be followed by our drive back to Montreal. Leisurely, my ass! There were an awful lot of people sitting in the seats by our gate and sure enough the call for volunteers to skip the flight comes out. I didn't have a seat assigned and it turned out the flight was overbooked by just over 25 people! Eric of course has himself a seat but he couldn't really use it without me since it was my car that was parked at the Burlington airport. Evetually we pull one of the ladies at the gate away from some other irate passengers and rather then do like them and yell at her we asked her to see if there were any alternate flights to Burlington. Sure enough, an hour later there is a flight to DC and then to Burlington. Thank you very much, sign me up as a volunteer to skip this flight, give me my free flight voucher and put me on the later one. The best part was that we ended up getting to Burlington before our original flight.
What a weekend, going to my first UPA championship tournament, winning it and getting a free ticket to cover next years flight to UPAs (hopefully).
So beyond this being a trip of a lifetime, did I learn anything? Getting a chance to play with some of the legends of the game was great but it would have been nothing without having picked up a few pointers from those guys. Well, I learned a ton but most importantly how to win. I'm not sure it's something that you just describe to someone, I think they need to actually experience it to feel it. Winning requires a mental focus and desire above and beyond what you can normally get away with. It's deciding when you think that you are tired to push harder; it's never giving up; it's adding the extra bit of effort when you think that you have given your all and then trying to give even more. It's not just wanting to win, everyone does that well, it's realizing how hard it is going to be to win and being willing to pay the price. The human body gives you all sorts of signals to make you think that you are done, exhausted, drained, finshed. knowing how to win is being willing to put those feelings aside and push your body even harder and once you've reached that level still able to focus well enough to manage to do the simple things like throw. Like I mention before, it's a difficult feeling to describe because you need some skill to combine with the effort in order to win but I think the best example I can give is from my feeling going into the final.
We had about 30 minutes to go before game time and I was sitting on my duff thinking about how sore my arms and legs were and how heavy they felt. I didn't want to warm up, my body was telling me to lie down and fall asleep. I managed to start my warm up which was a bit of a challenge. While I was warming up my body didn't want to do certain movements and it would have been easy to shorten or modify my routine but I fought through that feeling and warmed up like I needed to. When the game started and it was time to play my legs felt heavy and sluggish. The easiest thing to do would have been to give the effort that my legs wanted to limit me to. Many players reach that level and give in to their bodies; those people are losers. I don't mean that they are losers as people but that more often than not they will be on losing teams. I didn't really understand Alex's comment that some people find it easier to lose than to win until we won the final. It's not that people choose to lose it's that they don't understand what is required to be able to give the effort that you need to give to have a chance of winning. They give into their brain all of a sudden deciding that second, third or fourth place really isn't all that bad. After the final was finished I was running all over the place and my legs felt light as a feather. In the end my legs were fine; all of the tiredness and soreness was entirely mental. It really helped that I was surrounded by phenomenal players with a history of winning but each player has to bring it or the entire team suffers. It's a feeling that I want to share with my team-mates on Mephisto because it's something very few of us have ever experienced, even if we think we have.
Aside from that there were some very game specific things, both tactical and strategic, that I learned and that I hope to begin to apply this upcoming year. I hope that DoG doesn't mind that I take their zone and teach it to Mephisto... because I'm just going to do it anyways. I also don't feel like giving away too much info that I learned from DoG through this blog since I don't want to give away too much info to my potential opponents (I am of course making an assumption that people actually read my drivel).
So that sort of summarizes my UPA experience in a brief or not so brief series of writings. What will I write about next? I think I'll go into my first tournament of 2008 and why they heck I'm stupid enough to start my season in January.
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I think I left off my last post with DoG winning UPAs. We didn't celebrate enough in my mind but I can see how for someone like Mooney, who was attending something like his 20th UPAs and winning at least his seventh title, it can get a bit old. Well I was ecstatic; Master's or not, it was a big thing for me. I think I recall most of what happened that evening but there were some beverages going around. We got our medals and celebrated at the fields for what seemed like hours. Shaggy and Eric were there too celebrating their semi-final appearance with Goat; I think they were as excited as I was about their first UPA appearance as well. One thing is for sure, I wasn't anywhere near as drunk as they were but then again the two hours I spent playing the finals they spent in the beer garden pounding back the free "loser beer". Advantage, Eric and Shag. I absolutely loved how all weekend the old guys were refusing to touch the free beer because it’s “loser beer”. You only get to touch it once you’re done; for most people that happens once they are eliminated but for a select few “loser beer” becomes “winner beer”. Damn, “winner beer” tastes real good!
Eventually we made the move to some restaurant with the name Turtle in it for a celebratory DoG team dinner. The second to last game of the World Series was on the big screen so all the Red Sox fans on the team (everyone) was too busy watching that. We went back to the condos and half the crowd went off to the beach to party and the other half went out to the bar. The bar sounded like it was a little too crowded so I was happy with my decision to go to the beach. If I had gone to bar I would have missed Marshall getting introduced to a "dance move" called the pussy-bop by some drunk girl from Barrio. Apparently it requires Marshall to stand still with a stunned look on his face while the girl backs her rear end into him, leans over with her hands on the ground as she gyrates at about 360 bpm. Was it good for you Marshall, 'cause it sure as heck looked like it should have been? The alliterative trio of Matt, Marshal and myself spent the evening poaching beers and chatting up people on the beach. It seemed like the beach party was mostly Pike guys and Zeitgeist girls; since Matt and I didn't really feel like going around introducing ourselves to dudes we spent most of the night with the Zeitgeist girls (it's what JT would have done). The highlight of the beach party was overhearing two random guys introducing themselves to the ladies as "gold medalists from DoG". Good on you boys for using your imaginations while trying to score the ladies; I sincerely hope it worked for you whoever you are... as long as you didn't use my name.
It was quite the day/night/early morning. After a few hours of sleep I headed over to the fields and got there just in time to watch Fury put away Riot and then sat around to watch a very exciting but slightly sloppy men's final; the sloppy play almost entirely was due to the windy conditions but it was also what created a lot of the exciting plays. Case in point; the last point of the game. I can't even describe it, just go and check it out on Ultivillage.com. It was probably the craziest, most exciting point of ultimate that I've ever seen.
Eric and I headed over to the airport after that for our leisurely flight back to BTV to be followed by our drive back to Montreal. Leisurely, my ass! There were an awful lot of people sitting in the seats by our gate and sure enough the call for volunteers to skip the flight comes out. I didn't have a seat assigned and it turned out the flight was overbooked by just over 25 people! Eric of course has himself a seat but he couldn't really use it without me since it was my car that was parked at the Burlington airport. Evetually we pull one of the ladies at the gate away from some other irate passengers and rather then do like them and yell at her we asked her to see if there were any alternate flights to Burlington. Sure enough, an hour later there is a flight to DC and then to Burlington. Thank you very much, sign me up as a volunteer to skip this flight, give me my free flight voucher and put me on the later one. The best part was that we ended up getting to Burlington before our original flight.
What a weekend, going to my first UPA championship tournament, winning it and getting a free ticket to cover next years flight to UPAs (hopefully).
So beyond this being a trip of a lifetime, did I learn anything? Getting a chance to play with some of the legends of the game was great but it would have been nothing without having picked up a few pointers from those guys. Well, I learned a ton but most importantly how to win. I'm not sure it's something that you just describe to someone, I think they need to actually experience it to feel it. Winning requires a mental focus and desire above and beyond what you can normally get away with. It's deciding when you think that you are tired to push harder; it's never giving up; it's adding the extra bit of effort when you think that you have given your all and then trying to give even more. It's not just wanting to win, everyone does that well, it's realizing how hard it is going to be to win and being willing to pay the price. The human body gives you all sorts of signals to make you think that you are done, exhausted, drained, finshed. knowing how to win is being willing to put those feelings aside and push your body even harder and once you've reached that level still able to focus well enough to manage to do the simple things like throw. Like I mention before, it's a difficult feeling to describe because you need some skill to combine with the effort in order to win but I think the best example I can give is from my feeling going into the final.
We had about 30 minutes to go before game time and I was sitting on my duff thinking about how sore my arms and legs were and how heavy they felt. I didn't want to warm up, my body was telling me to lie down and fall asleep. I managed to start my warm up which was a bit of a challenge. While I was warming up my body didn't want to do certain movements and it would have been easy to shorten or modify my routine but I fought through that feeling and warmed up like I needed to. When the game started and it was time to play my legs felt heavy and sluggish. The easiest thing to do would have been to give the effort that my legs wanted to limit me to. Many players reach that level and give in to their bodies; those people are losers. I don't mean that they are losers as people but that more often than not they will be on losing teams. I didn't really understand Alex's comment that some people find it easier to lose than to win until we won the final. It's not that people choose to lose it's that they don't understand what is required to be able to give the effort that you need to give to have a chance of winning. They give into their brain all of a sudden deciding that second, third or fourth place really isn't all that bad. After the final was finished I was running all over the place and my legs felt light as a feather. In the end my legs were fine; all of the tiredness and soreness was entirely mental. It really helped that I was surrounded by phenomenal players with a history of winning but each player has to bring it or the entire team suffers. It's a feeling that I want to share with my team-mates on Mephisto because it's something very few of us have ever experienced, even if we think we have.
Aside from that there were some very game specific things, both tactical and strategic, that I learned and that I hope to begin to apply this upcoming year. I hope that DoG doesn't mind that I take their zone and teach it to Mephisto... because I'm just going to do it anyways. I also don't feel like giving away too much info that I learned from DoG through this blog since I don't want to give away too much info to my potential opponents (I am of course making an assumption that people actually read my drivel).
So that sort of summarizes my UPA experience in a brief or not so brief series of writings. What will I write about next? I think I'll go into my first tournament of 2008 and why they heck I'm stupid enough to start my season in January.
DF Read more!
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