Nation,
The world of ultimate is starting to buzz again as teams have already begin to announce final rosters for World Clubs and UPA College sectionals are mere weeks away
WUCC and U-19, U-23 and other Canadian Buzz
Teams are at various stages of organization for WUCC. Rumors about where certain Furious or GOAT players are headed for the Prague tourney are now being realized as fact (Andrew Lugsdin to Mephisto, various Furious players to Invictus, Blackfish players to GLUM) or fiction.
Kudos to Phoenix of Ottawa for being so early with naming their team. It would have been easy for them to delay naming their team in the hopes of landing some of the big names out there still available, but instead they went local and loyal to the players who helped them win their bid. And they spared themselves the ordeal of being "disc teased"by superstars.
U-19 tryouts will be starting soon in various cities, and men's coaches Kirk Nylen and Pat Mooney are in fact implementing some base testing measurements (40, shuttle drill, vertical, etc). These numbers will assist them in the tryout process and be very valuable to Ultimate Canada to compare to future years. Finally, we'll be able to quantify it when people say "Players are getting bigger/faster".
U-23 coaches and team manager will be selected this week. Tryout dates have already been tentatively set by Ultimate Canada.
There is also rumors that Furious George will attend Canadian Nationals in Sherbrooke this year, while Lotus will most likely not. Let the dominoes fall...
UPA College Sectionals
Is your college team representing Canada in the UPA college series. Send me an e-mail with your team preview!!!
College sectionals begin on April 10. After Roll Call this weekend, I will have a Canadian specific preview on both the men's and women's division.
Other News
It's been brought to my attention that Cultimate is taking over the running of the Emerald City Classic. I don't know the people of Cultimate personally, but they organize over 10 tournaments per year, and they are famous for trying to create a elite championship tournament series separate from the UPA before.
Most of the comments I have gotten about Cultimate is that of concern, and many question whether this group will be able to continue the reputation and standards of ECC.
Possibility that a very key member of North Carolina women's team Backhoe will be starting a new team, possibly sharing the same team name as Ottawa men's team Phoenix.
Backhoe has long been a UPA finals club trying to take the next step and challenge Fury and Riot. A new team and the loss of a key teammate might not be good news for the team.
13 comments:
You know, I'm surprised that Cultimate hasn't been more involved in ECC in the past. Cultimate partner Skip Sewell plays for Sockeye, and Cultimate even handled NW Regionals last year. I have a hard time believing that Ben Wiggins didn't previously dip into Cultimate's promotion and management know-how. I trust them.
Another key question with Cultimate taking over ECC is will they remember to avoid a scheduling conflict with CUC. If I recall correctly, last year this was noted as an oversight by the ECC organisers and something to be avoided in the future.
I've heard that ECC and CUC are the same weekend again this year.
I've also heard there is a conflict again this year.
Strike one cultimate!
A lot of people in USA (including me) believe that Cultimate is in for the money .. i.e. the problems with TiV
i find it impossible to put blame in cultimate for this one... they have no reason to support canadian ultimate and they aren't losing teams by conflicting (maybe caps last year?)
I'll talk to Ben and Skip to see what's up.
Jeff,
In life, there's a difference between doing what's good and doing what's good for you. And you (or your organization in this case) is judged accordingly.
Yes, you are right that cultimate doesn't owe it to watch out for any other tournaments. Past ECC leadership vowed to avoid conflicts after last year.
We'll see how the discussions with cultimate go.
Has Ultimate Canada set a different roster deadline date then the set by WFDF?
a small but important correction - it's actually the U20 Jr. Men (ie, 19 and under) vs. U19.
Jake -- not quite sure what you mean, but UC has not yet imposed any 'final roster' deadline for WFDF teams.
Kirk -- Welcome to the curious world of WFDF, where the "U" is employed in unusual ways. To them, for some reason, "U19" = "Under 19" = "19 and Under."
Similarly, "U23" = "Under 23" = "23 and Under." I'm not even joking.
Very annoying; they're the only sport organization I've ever known to use the terms interchangeably. To avoid confusion, I just keep reminding myself that you have to have been born in 1991 or later to play WJUC.
Sorry, after reading that it didn't make much sense. I was wondering whether in addition to the roster restrictions imposed by Trainor and his gang at the round table if they had also required a deadline for them to declare their squads for WUCC. The WFDF deadline is June 15th, and I was wondering if UC had set a different one for the Canadian teams going.
Just trying to get that early scouting report ;-)
No Canadian University teams qualified for UPA nats. UOttawa women, UBC women and UBC men all played in games to go but lost. Carleton open, Queen's open, UVic open and UVic women's all represented well at regionals as well.
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