Sunday, August 5, 2007

Nationals Open Preview- Prairies


Geographically vast. Beautiful wheat fields and rocky mountains. Oil and precious metal rich. Self proclaimed as politically ignored and isolated. This is the Canadian Prairies.

Teams from this region are located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Regina, Saskatchewan, and Calgary, Alberta.



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Invictus- Calgary

Years in Existence: 2nd 'new' year... Before that there was the D&D club and RWBB but the rebirth of Invictus is in it's second year.

Past Results:
2007: Flowerbowl -3rd Solstice- 7th (Estimated)

2006 CUC: Did Not Play

Top Players: Dustin Hong (offense), Jesse Robertson (Defense) & Eric Froese (Overall)

Players to Watch:The Defense...

Analysis:
A Calgary insider has simply said about this team " All out every point on defence.... If "O" can score, they'll be a force. "

Annual team name changes typically indicate internal problems- leadership squabbles, player defection and turnover, and general frustration from results. It now seems that Calgary Open has their sh^t in order, and are ready to assert themselves as more than a legitimate top four squad at Nationals.

Hopes are high in Cowtown, really high. Dustin Hong is a sensational player who is well known across the nation for his play.
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Mangina- Regina

Years in Existence: 4+ years

Past Results
2007: 0-2 Two Losses to General Strike
2006 CUC: Did Not Play

Top Players: Jaime Bishop (Captain)
Players to Watch: The tall Ukrainian kid... oh wait, they all are.

Analysis:
After two solid performances at CUC 2004 and CUC 2005, Mangina returns to nationals after a one year hiatus. Finding information on this team has been difficult. They have attended no major UPA or Canadian tourneys, and only General Strike seems to have had the chance to play them.

This nationals should give the rest of Canada a glimpse of how far Regina ultimate has developed. A Saskatchewan team (by the way, having VC Ultimate misspell Saskatchewan on all tournament apparel was a major embarrassment) did the province proud at university nationals last fall. It's Regina's turn.
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General Strike- Winnipeg

Years in Existence: 4+ years
Past Results:
2007: 6-1 Minneapolis Invite- 3rd
2006 CUC: Did Not Play

Top Players: Kyle Parker, Danny Saunders

Players to Watch: Aaron Dobson, Garrett LeBlanc, Scott Warwaruk

Analysis:

Like many of the other western teams, General Strike returns to Nationals.

Long a city with a dominant coed team at the national level (Chaos represented Canada at the 2004 World Championships), The open program has not shared the same level of success, but definitely competes with the majority of top teams in Canada.

General Strike will look to secure a quarterfinal spot, and will fight with a large majority of teams for final position after the big 2 (or 4).
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4 comments:

Big Smooth said...

Wow. Whoever wrote this garbage should consider doing a little research before posting. The term "libel" comes to mind...

Sport Management Steven said...

cyoung,

I wish you had a greater grasp of the definition for libel...

I can assure you that efforts were made to research the teams competing at nationals. E-mails to captains requesting info, asking sources from the respective cities and teams, and looking at records via team sites, tournament sites and upa score reporting system.

Maybe before you write "garbage" about my "garbage", you should do a little research and contact me.

Sit the next few plays out Champ.

jlo said...

One Mackie is playing for Mayhem and the other is in the Peg and not coming down.

Sport Management Steven said...

Noted JLO. Thanks.

News on Mangina and General Strike were the toughest to find. No team web sites, no word back from the captains, and no tournament stats made.

My Mackie friend sources in Ottawa were incorrect. I'm still impressed as hell that he won the same Canada Games award as Sidney Crosby. :)