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