Canadian Champions!!!!!

We finally pulled it off. Mephisto won the Canadian Ultimate Championships and no one can take that away from us. One could argue that it doesn't count for much since Furious George and Goat weren't there. To them I say so what; they weren't there to put their hats in the ring for the right to be called the Canadian champions and we were there.


After 14 attempts to get to the top we finally did it. We were confident that we would win but nothing was guaranteed since we aren't that far ahead of some of the other teams at the tournament. The final was a bit closer than we had wanted it to be but we won by 2 points which means it can't be called a fluke. Here is, as best as I can remember them, a summary of Mephisto's previous results at Nationals. 1996 was the first time Mephisto (and I) competed at Nationals so there are a lot of results to try to remember.

1996 - in Toronto. Furious George beats Pam for the tournament and Mephisto finishes in 8th spot after beating North Bay in a 8/9 crossover game.
1997 - in Victoria. This was my first ever trip to the West Coast of Canada. Furious George beats Altar Boys in the finals. Mephisto finishes 6th (I think), one or two spots ahead of arch rivals Wax (who called themselves Gold/Chunx for this year).
1998 - Montreal. Wax comes back and beats Nomads. Mephisto finishes in 7th place.
1999 - Ottawa. Furious goes on to win the final over Wax after destroying Mephisto in our first ever appearance in semis. Finish T3rd.
2000 - Vancouver. Furious beats Calgary 19-1 amid cheers of "We want Montreal!". This after we blew a 12-8 lead in our semi to Calgary amid a bunch of "questionable" calls. Everyone talks about how Calgary cheated their way to the final but in the end we could have just scored a few more points and that would have been that. This was also the first year that Mephisto beat the top Toronto team when we eliminated YES in quarters. Finish T3rd.
2001 - Edmonton. Nomads beat Calgary. Mephisto once again beats YES in the quarters. We then go on to lose to Nomads in the semis and finish T3rd.
2002 - Ottawa. We make it to the finals for the first time and lose to the new Toronto/Ottawa super-team Goat. This is the first year that semis are played on Saturday and only the finals happen on Sunday. Previously both semis and finals happen on Sunday. Finish 2nd.
2003 - Montreal. Furious beats Goat. After 4 straight years of at least semis, Mephisto plays like poo and gets eliminated in quarters. We end up winning the choke-off championship against Phoenix to claim 5th place in dramatic fashion; down by 2 points, we roll off 3 straight to win the game.
2004 - Vancouver. Nomads beats Calgary. We finish T3rd after losing to Calgary in the semis. Calgary may have won the game but we scored back to back callahans on passes from Kirk Savage to Jeff Cruickshank (talk about super-pickups). After the first callahan we scored one again right off the next pull, on the first pass.
2005 - Winnipeg. Nomads beats Goat. Mephisto finishes 4th. The first time we actually played for 3/4.
2006 - Halifax. Goat beats Mephisto in the finals. Our young, inexperienced players did not deal well with the skill and experience of Goat. Some of our guys were so nervous that they did not sleep the night before the final.
2007 - Toronto. Furious beats Goat. Mephisto had an okay tournament but lost to Calgary in the 3/4 game. Now that I think of it, we have never won a 3/4 game at Nationals.
2008 - Calgary. Nomads beats Mephisto in a windy final. Unfortunately we just did not have the skill to compete with Nomads in the extreme wind conditions.
2009 - Winnipeg. Mephisto beats Phoenix 17-15 in the final. The first time we play in back to back finals we make good by winning.

In 14 years here are the numbers
quartefinal appearances: 14
semi-final appearances: 10
final appearance: 4
Championships: 1

DF