Thursday, September 17, 2009

UPA Sectionals Preview- Canadian Teams- UPDATED Sept 18th


Nation,

Canadian Teams competing in UPA Sectionals this weekend.

2009 Upstate NY Club Open Sectionals

Number of Bids to Regionals: To Be Determined TBD
Canadian Teams: 8
  • GOAT (Toronto)
  • Phoenix(Ottawa)
  • Medicare (Waterloo)
  • Black Ace (Ottawa)
  • Firebird (Ottawa)
  • Torontula (Toronto)
  • University of Western Ontario (London)
  • Ravens (Ottawa)
The Skinny: Likely a minimum of three teams will get to move on to regionals. This is the first year I look at the team list in this region and wonder why the tournament is not held on the Canadian side, at least for this division.

GOAT will start their UPA finals run here with little difficulty. They will welcome Derek Alexander to their o line for the first time since 2005.

Phoenix comes off their 2nd place finish at CUC 2oo9 and will try to overcome the absence of Kielan Way with several new exciting rookiers (Karl Loiseau and Leon Forest-Nault).

Medicare pulls in the best men's players from the Kitchener-Waterloo players, including those from strong coed team Liquid. Black Ace is Ottawa masters team and CUC Masters champ GLUM. Firebird will be a skeleton crew of junior players and other newcomers.

The final three teams are university open teams that are major contenders for this year's national title. These teams are using sectionals as a valuable tool to get ready for University regionals and nationals.

Outside of a surprise from the Cornell team, expect Canadian teams to grab all spots from this section.

2009 Upstate NY Club Womens Sectionals
Number of Bids to Regionals: 2
Number of Canadian Teams: 2

  • Capitals (Ottawa/Toronto)
  • Starkist (Waterloo/Etc)

The Skinny: The Capitals will breeze through sectionals barring a miracle, much like GOAT. However, Capitals will not entertain the quantity or quality of competition that the open side will give GOAT.

The Capitals are a combo team of the best players from both finalists of CUC 2009. The team got off to an excellent start at Chesapeake Open, winning the tourney and beating some strong competition.

The big question right now is: Who's better right now... Traffic in Vancouver or Capitals in Ontario?

Starkist a mix of the ladies from Liquid as well as some pickups from PPF and the Kdub area. (Hat Tip Gorski)

Expect both Canadian teams to head to regionals.

2009 Upstate NY Club Mixed Sectionals

Number of Bids to Regionals: 4
Canadian Teams: 3
  • Monster (Toronto)
  • Bytown Flatball Club (Ottawa)
  • Tundra (Toronto)
The Skinny: Should be an easy ride to sectionals for the four Canadian Teams. Outside of Kung Fu Grip, the American teams are inexperienced and unknown.

Monster has added some depth for their UPA run (including Jamie Boss of Stella) to help out an already talented roster. Tundra is equally skilled and building off a strong summer season.

Bytown Flatball Club has undergone a roster shakeup in the hopes of reversing a negative trend- BFC has failed to beat any club team ranked above them since May.

Expect the Canadian teams to hold seed and for all three to advance to regionals.

2009 Wash/BC Open Sectionals

Number of Bids: Estimate is 6
Number of Canadian Teams: 4

  • Furious George (Vancouver)
  • BeefShark (Vancouver)
  • Flatline (Vancouver)
  • Blackfish (Vancouver)
The Skinny: Furious George should very easily advance from this section, knowing full well their real challenge will come at the toughest regionals in the country.

Beefshark is comprised of coed team TFP males and others. They have some serious talent and will get to test it versus the Monkey and Sockeye.

Flatline was the C team from Vancouver who skipped out of nationals this year. Little surprised to see them ranked higher than B team Blackfish.

Expect Furious and BeefShark to make it out of regionals. Darkhorse is Blackfish to challenge for the last spot.

2009 Wash/BC Club Womens Sectionals

Number of Bids: 5
Number of Canadian Teams: 2
  • Traffic (Vancouver)
  • SFU Clam (Burnaby/Vancouver)
The Skinny: Everybody advances... five teams, five spots..

Traffic comes off a 2nd place finish at the Labour Day Classic. That's no small feat. Have they been able to attract Ottawa star Anne Mercier this year, or will she return to Capitals this year?

SFU Clam will get an excellent experience playing Traffic and Riot and will advance to regionals. Hopefully, we will see this program at university tourneys this fall and spring. It's weird to see SFU but not UBC at this event.

2009 East New England Club Mixed Sectionals
Number of Bids:6
Number Canadian Teams:1

The Skinny: Red Circus from Halifax competes in a section full of regional bids and stiff competition.

While holding seed and garnering a regionals bid is likely, Red Circus must be very wary of the college teams (Brown, Tufts, Bowdoin) that will be very likely difficult to deal with. Also expect 8th seed Slingshot to be a tougher opponent than rankings would indicate.

2009 West New England Club Mixed Sectionals
Number of Bids: 3
Number of Canadian Teams: 2

RIP (Montreal)
GECKO (Sherbrooke)

The Skinny: Once again, the chances of all Canadian teams in the section advancing to regions is good.

RIP and Gecko both have the talent to make some noise at regionals. Hopefully the wins over TFP at nationals is the mental edge needed to face tougher opponents that they will eventually face in Devens.

Unlike me, these two teams can't overlook their sectional opponents. Diaster and Enough Monkeys might be formidable foes.

2009 West New England Club Womens Sectionals
Number of Bids: 3
Number of Canadian Teams: 2
  • Storm (Montreal)
  • Enigma (Sherbrooke)
The Skinny: Storm looks to be the class of the section. Enigma is a new team from Sherbrooke, and has a real possibility of beating seed and getting a spot to regionals.


2009 West New England Club Open Sectionals
Number of Bids: ?
Number of Canadian Teams: 4

  • Mephisto (Montreal)
  • Demon (Montreal)
  • Magma (Montreal)
  • Crimson (Montreal)
The Skinny: The tourney page finally reveals teams and schedule. The three major squads from Montreal will be participating, and a pick up team from Montreal will also be attending.

Most likely, only CUC 2009 champion will be advancing to regionals.




11 comments:

Taylor said...

A point regarding Upstate NY Open Sectionals: yes, the vast majority are Canadian teams. The TD does a great job year after year organizing. I've heard there are forces trying to sectionals tourneys in the US. Evidence being that Capitals are apparently TDing their Section, but must host it in the States. No judgement here, just observing.

Daniel said...

Information for West New England Sectionals is up on the UPA site... finally.

Jan said...

A note on Women's Upstate NY sectionals, there are two Canadian teams. The other is Starkist a mix of the ladies from Liquid as well as some pickups from PPF and the Kdub area.

homrbush said...

Does GLUM playing in the Open sectional exclude them from Masters regionals? What if they qualify for Open regionals (certainly not an unrealistic possibility)?

GOAT with Derek Alexander?! Does that put them top 4?

Unknown said...

I don't think the Black Aces are making the trip.

Good question about a Masters team playing Sectionals. I had a similar Q when I found out we might be going. I found this on the UPA site:

A Masters-eligible team may play in Open/Mixed/Women's (OXW) Sectionals as an OXW team, provided its roster meets the eligibility requirements of that division.

If a Masters-eligible team qualifies for OXW Regionals, the captain must immediately inform both the OXW and Masters RCs their choice to either play in OXW Regionals or to decline that bid and participate at Masters Regionals. Players may not play in multiple divisions of Regionals or be on two active rosters at the Regional level of any division.

jhaig said...

GLUM is not playing at sectionals.

Had they decided to play it would not exclude them from master's regionals. If they won a spot to open regional's they would at that point have to decide in which division they wanted to play regional's.

Unknown said...

Red Circus (the halifax open team) is competing in the East New England Sectionals this weekend.

http://www.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=20&id=6194

Aaron said...

West NE Open - CRIMSON (Montreal).

Just sayin'

Sport Management Steven said...

"I'm just saying" thanks for the info/input everyone.

jackson byrne said...

awesome post. gotta love the number of canuck teams entering the series.
can we expect a sectionals review/regionals preview?

Sport Management Steven said...

Jacko22,

We'll have a full regionals and finals preview.

We'll throw in some interview with Canadian squads or American squads of interest as we move forward.