Tuesday, October 13, 2009

CUUC 2009: Open Preview


Nation,

Results link

Montreal hosts CUUC for the first time since 2005. Expect a great tournament from a great team, lead by TD Kirsten Niles.

The pool of open teams is both large and full of talent. Teams are reviewed as per current schedule/pools (Schedule subject to change).

Full reviews of East teams that participated at CEUUC 2009 can be found here.

Pool A

  • University of Western Ontario Sharks
  • US Tommy Douglas
  • McMaster
  • Waterloo Mannshaft
  • Concordia

The UWO Sharks are the defending CEUUC 2009 champs. It has been a long time coming. The team boasts height, speed, skill and efficiency throughout the roster. The team will have a plethora of talented players, and all will need to play as expected to making national title hopes a reality.

Of the many Shark players to watch, one will be Andrew "Drew" Watts, who plays club for Grand Trunk. Watts has always brought a winning attitude to the Sharks team since 2006. It's hard to explain, but the kid is a gamer. He brings a swagger but is a hard worker. It's invaluable to have players like Watts that don't change their game or mindset regardless of the score.

University of Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas Dream Machine returns east for the first time since 2006. In 2006, they impressed many teams with their height and athleticism. They overcame a tough seed that year to make it to pre-quarters. Expect this team to fight heavily with the remaining squads in the pool for the second place

McMaster finished 8th at CEUUC. University of Waterloo Mannshaft had a disappointing 9th place finish at CEUUC 2009, and will be looking to rebound.

Concordia University did not participate at CEUUC 2009, but did take part in 2008 (tied for 11th) and make their first nationals appearance in their home town. No one is completly sure how this team will fare. Do they have students that also play for Mephisto? Is the team made up of newcomers? What we do know is that no team in the pool is taking the unknown team lightly.

Pool B
  • UBC T-Birds
  • UO Geegees
  • UQAM
  • Lakehead
  • UWO Seals

The UBC Thunderbirds are a perennial powerhouse at the national level and, until proven otherwise, are a solid number two seed. They will be very tough to beat in this pool and should emerge However, they have not won a national championship since 2003, and they lost in 2007 to Torontula in Vancouver. Thus, they have something to prove at this nationals.

University of Ottawa Gee Gees, long the weak college sister in Ottawa, had a strong 6th place finish at CEUUC 2009. While the jury is still out on their ability to beat the top clubs above them, one can expect them to finish as seeded in pool play.

University de Quebec a Montreal is a local team that did not attend CEUUC 2009 in London. They are lead by Jean Levy Champagne of Mephisto and are rumored to have enough established club talent to pose as darkhorse sleeper candidates.

Lakehead University from Thunder Bay, Ontario makes an appearance at nationals and appears to be a growing program on the rise. Lead by ex Firebird player and Ottawa native Eric Mathieu, the team is unknown to its day one opponents and will get an excellent acid test of where the program is and where it needs to go.

UWO Seals is the B team from Western, and are a combo team of two teams that competed at CEUCC 2009. B team label aside, expect this to be a very difficult team to face given that they get to practice with and scrimmage

Pool C
  • UT Torontula
  • Queen's Mothership
  • Dalhousie DKUT
  • U d Montreal
  • McGill Redmen B

Finishing 2nd at CEUUC 2009, 3 time defending national champion Torontula from University of Toronto is by no means ready to give up their national title without a serious battle. Lead by Taylor Martin and Adrian Yearwood, this team is once again loaded with talent and working hard to build the next group of Tula starters. A player to watch would be former world junior Giorgi Traini. He's a very large physical player that needs to be a factor for the team to repeat.

Queens Mothership finished 5th at CEUUC 2009, and impressed many viewers with their athletes and their team's play. A very great and historic program seems to be on the upside again and they will look to challenge TULA for top spot in the pool.

Dalhousie (DKUT) from Halifax will be a very tough 3rd seed in the pool and are most likely a little underseeded. Matt Hogel will be an animal/machine against Tula and his alma matter Queens. Hogel also promised some of his teammates will really make their mark in this tournament.

Universite d Montreal makes their first national appearance. Like UQAM, they skipped out on CEUUC 2009 and their unknown abilities make this pool very interesting. As a host city team, expect their best players to be available and ready to play.

McGill Redmen B finished out of the top 8 at CEUUC 2009 (I wish all results were posted) and has a very tough schedule on day one. Any victories they can generate in this pool should be seen as huge victories.

Pool D
  • Carleton Ravens
  • Guelph DOA
  • McGill Redmen A
  • Sherbrooke
  • Queen's Superfly
  • UT Torontula B
University of Carleton Ravens from Ottawa finished 3rd at CEUUC 2009 and are a legitimate championship contender. University of Guelph DOA finished 4th and was gave eventual champs UWO Sharks a tough time in the semi finals. Both teams realize that their key pool matchup will be against one another. Whoever wins gets an easier route to quarters and semis, and that can make a big difference.

McGill Redmen A had a 7th place finish at CEUUC 2009, and I am sure no one on the team will consider a similar result at CUUC 2009 in Montreal an acceptable finish.

Sherbrooke finished an impressive 6th at CEUUC 2008 and that means pool d opponents have to be ready for an impressive squad. Failing to make it to London for easterns, Sherbrooke will be at a disadvantage against McGill, Carleton and Guelph, those teams already with at least one tournament under their belts.

The second squads of Queen's (Superfly) and Toronto (Torontula B) have a shot at making it to the power pools. However, they will need to win the head to head matchup against one another and beat two of the four teams above them. It won't be easy, but it's strong motivation for both teams.

26 comments:

Batch said...

The final standings off CEUUC 2009 for places 9 to 16 are:
9) Waterloo A
10) Waterloo B
11) Western B1
12) Queen's B
13) Western B2
14) Toronto B
15) McGill B
16) McMaster B

McGill B was placed higher in the seeding so that McGill A and B wouldn't be in the same division.

Batch said...

http://www.upa.org/scores/tourn.cgi?div=18&id=6952

GK said...

Any details about possible streaming of games/Twitter coverage? The European fanbase wants to know!

higy said...

GO SHARKS

NateB said...

Predictions?

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

kaw kaw

Unknown said...

DKUT 4-0 on the day

GK said...

Great job DKUT! That's a couple of quality wins.

No other updates?

I can't believe that no one is reporting scores. No one at the fields has a cell phone that can use Twitter or some sort of equivalent?

Even if there were a fanbase of people who wanted to follow along with ultimate tournaments (which is another issue entirely), you can never get scores until the end of the day/sometimes never depending on who is running the tournament. Updates (despite the possibility of using available technology) are few and far between. Definitely a shortcoming of promoting the sport in my opinion.

AC said...

GK - Berg and I will be on kawwiter tomorrow.

Moonshine said...

i received a text message today that said queens went 3-1

were up 8-3 at half on Dal but hogel and the boys pulled out the huge come back for the pool

they also beat mcgill B, toronto (15-7) and montreal

one of the power pools tomorrow is UBC, ottawa, dal, queens and B3& C3???

the other likely has western, carelton and guelph and a few others

Batch said...

score reporters are updated.

GK said...

Just to clarify, my comments were not directed only at CUUC (and in fact the score reporter updates were made very quickly, thanks Batch!) and that this is a general issue in many higher level tournaments worth following.

I also love the format of this tournament (power pools formed on the second day). Show you deserve to be there on the first day and you're in. Interesting to see that McGill was bumped down (with Sherbrooke edging them out on what looks like a universe point victory). I'd alos like to say that Pool F looks like a doozy with Ottawa, BC, DKUT, Queen's and Toronto who will probably come out strong after what I think would be described as a disappointing first day. Yikes! That's 5 serious semi contenders in the same pool. Someone is going to be unhappy after today with TO looking to be in the worst situation carrying in their 2 losses.

GK said...

We've got some live-ish results (depending on beer consumption):

AC reporting live from field side @
http://twitter.com/andycorey

Moonshine said...

queens goes 3-0 and takes power poolF (take it on point diff after 3 way tie between them, DKUT and UBC)

GK said...

Wow! Looks like Queen's is back after having a couple of down* years.

*down of course is only compared to the huge success they had in the early half of the decade.

Unknown said...

I won't pronounce Queen's "back" quite yet (if I even have that authority). They've had a fairly good tournament so far, but they're still suffering some inconsistency (e.g., their 2nd half vs. DKUT and their late game vs. UQAM).

A promising performance for the spring, nevertheless, and good enough that maybe somebody over there will finally take over the Mothership fitness blog. Seriously, that profile photo gives even me the creeps. Someone should update that, pronto.

And speaking of DKUT, they made opponents pay for complacence yesterday. When I shut my eyes, I can almost hear Hogel's conspicuous warcry. My only fear is that this may be a team not quite used to winning yet. Can they maintain focus and consistency when they face single-elimination on Sunday? A loss today may be the wake-up they need. Hopefully, they're not satisfied yet.

I have nothing but sympathy for McGill and UQAM. Three losses each, each on universe point. Optimism must be in short supply in their camps, but they both came excruciatingly close to a fantastic set of upsets.

The UBC men are suffering from their 8.5-man roster. This year marks a stark contrast from some previous years (2003, 2004, 2007) when they had armies on the sideline at CUUCs. Playing shorthanded is tough for anybody, but especially for a team that traditionally uses dense sidelines and a trademark swagger to intimidate opponents. We'll see if they can rally that "grr" for a final effort tomorrow.

GK said...

Ac must be MIA. Anybody have updates from action thus far?

Moonshine said...

queens vs carelton in one semi

i assume western vs ? in the other

Moonshine said...

SEMI 1:

Western over UBC 15-12 (UBC up 8-6 at half) supposedly

SEMI 2:

Carelton over Queens on DGP

not a bad weekend for queens considering they lost two starting players earlier this week to injury/illness

good luck to both teams in the final but im cheering for western and my boy known as BigBalls!

GK said...

Let's go Ravens!

GK said...

Oh and thanks for the updates Mooney.

GK said...

Just heard that Carleton won CUUC!!!! Way to go Ravens.

Bobo Eyrich said...

DKUT's loss to UBC really hurt as instead of placing top of the power pool we ended up 3rd (lost on point differential by 3 points) and had to play Carelton.

Well done to Kielen and co. for pulling it together. The final was spectacular. Huge plays from both Carleton and Western. Flying to Montreal was by far the best option as I was able to watch the whole game!

joelyb said...

CAW CAW.

Unknown said...

Bauer for Callahan 2009!