WMO Debrief...

The Town

• Was great. Think small quaint college town with a humble but well maintained downtown area.
  
• Went to a lovely little diner called the polka dot room on Saturday morning. Train tracks next to the restaurant, so trains came by seemingly beside as you ate. 4 Aces dinner on Sunday was on the way and was very antique. Old ladies who served us were tipped well.
• Had a number of choices for a saturday meal, and went with Thai food at a place downtown called MAI THAI. Delicious. Service was a little bad though.

The Venue/Tournament Setup

• First of all, we always need to be patient with university aged organiers.
  
• Fields were nice. Zero complaints except that they were not lined or set up in time
  
• We had a default team that lead to schedule change. This, along with organizers being tardy and reseeding the teams the night before lead to confusion for all teams (who and where we play)
  
• Water supply to respective fields was scarce on Saturday at best. Sunday we found taps that were not part of the tournament
• Outhouses were disgusting

The Teams

• Out of respect, it is worth the trip to see or play a DoG squad.
• I don't think anyone had the benefit of their full squads, but there was still good ultimate to be seen
• Derek Alexander was on Fire for Phoenix.
  
• Mephisto won the tourney, beating a Bodhi team that featured ex twisted metal guys and some young talent players
• Phoenix had a great 4-0 saturday, winning a great game against DoG 14-13. They were beaten in semis by Bodhi.
  
• Other teams making it worth the trip: Demon, Slow Children, Dartmouth Alum DieNasty, and two split squads from the Gunslingers/New Noise merger

The Team Experience

I liked what I saw from the Ottawa Open Program this weekend. Closer evaluation of Phoenix can be found via the Polish Prince (Patience, we are busy men)

• Saturday was brutal
• A default win that had us get out of bed at 6:30 AM
  
• A loss to Bodhi in which our offence failed to score
• An easy win of U mass Lowell where we didn't play that well
• A very bad start versus Slow Children that lead to a second loss to a team that was far too cocky.

Personally, I had 5 turns (according to our stat taker) which is far too many for a tournament. We also had far too many throwaways and drops as a team. It was an epidemic. Playing in strong winds is definitely a good experience in May.

• Sunday was a complete 360.. extremely positive. We won games against better teams than we lost to on Saturday. Our offensive troubles were solved with a line change and better focus.
• We pasted the Dartmouth college team. it would have been much closer, but we made very few errors on offence. And they had no subs.
  
• We lost a heartbreak against a team called Run Silent Run Deep from Brighton, MA. We took the half with some d breaks and the o line scoring at a very high rate. The second half starts and the d line stops getting breaks. After a couple of breaks for the opponent, our O line goes out time and again and puts it in. Tied at 12, we have them on the run and I throw one deep to a very open teammate with a large height mismatch. A surprising d and a quick rush down the field and we go from winners to losers. Tough one. Our second half builds a lot of confidence, despite the final.
  
• We finish off the day with a win over Colt .45 . Tied 7-7, our o-line and d line both go on big runs to finish it out at 13-8.

Overall, I think the tourney was very worthwhile. Our team has always struggled on day one at Boston dealing with "squirley" american teams that run the vertical and don't play much of a style system. These teams usually have some underated athletic guys that are just "good at frisbee". learnign to play and beat these guys is just as important as stepping up against the GOATs of the region.

In advance, I apologize for not having any results for the women's. Nothing is posted on the upa site.