Good Luck!

Nation,

Good luck to our UBC and Ottawa ladies this weekend in Boulder.

It would be so awesome to see both of you in the finals. Historic even.

UPA Women's College Championships 2008: T minus 1 Days

Nation,

Listed below are the women's teams. Tell me

-Who will make quarter finals
-Who will be in the semis
-Who will win.

Atlantic Coast

1) Wake Forest (Winston-Salem, NC)

2) North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC)

Central

1) Wisconsin (Madison, WI)

2) Carleton College (Northfield, MN)

Great Lakes

1) Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)

2) Michigan State (East Lansing, MI)

Metro East

1) Ottawa (Ottawa, ON)

2) Maryland (College Park, MD)

New England

1) Northeastern (Boston, MA)

2) MIT (Cambridge, MA)

Northwest

1) British Columbia (Vancouver, BC)

2) Washington (Seattle, WA)

3) Oregon (Eugene, OR)

South

1) Texas (Austin, TX)

Southwest

1) UCLA (Los Angeles, CA)

2) California-Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara ,CA )

UPA Open College Championships 2008: T minus 1 Days

Nation,

Listed below are the men's teams. Tell me

-Who will make quarter finals
-Who will be in the semis
-Who will win.

Atlantic Coast

1) Florida (Gainesville, FL)

2) Georgia (Athens, GA)

Central

1) Wisconsin (Madison, WI)

2) Carleton College (Northfield, MN)

Great Lakes

1) Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)

2) Illinois (Champaign, IL)

Metro East

1) Delaware (Newark, DE)

2) Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA)

New England

1) Dartmouth (Hanover, NH)

2) Harvard (Cambridge, MA)

Northwest

1) California-Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)

2) Stanford (Stanford, CA)

South

1) Texas (Austin, TX)

2) North Texas (Denton, TX)

Southwest

1) Colorado (Boulder, CO)

2) Arizona (Tucson, AZ)

More College Coverage

Nation,

Just wanted to post a link that gives a lot more info on upa college ultimate than I can.

http://mssui.com/

The MSSUI site probably has the worst name in ultimate website/blog history, but what they lack in brand equity, they make up for in post quantity and sport cliches.

Give it a read!

Tournament One of 2008: "TUF" but Fair

Nation,

First tourney for most teams in Upper (Ontario) and Lower (Quebec) Canada. I always love a good 19th century reference.

Let me start by saying
-I'm not going to bring up the nasty incident involvoing a certain GOAT player. Enough was said on the field and afterwards, and I hope if people want to beef thet go directly to the source.

We had a division champ from Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Tourney results can be found here. As I stated before, I believe the object of almost every team and every city was evaluation and development, so the results have to be looked at with that in mind:

• A GOAT league squad won the open title over Tombstone.
• Seven from Barrie won the B title, beating us in the final.
• Stella won the women's title, losing one game on Saturday but looked strong in victory Saturday.
• Scarlett, who had a very hard Saturday (scoring only 5 points all day) apparently won the B women' s title pool on Sunday.
• RIP from Montreal, a team that has existed for several years now, managed to take the A title in co-ed.

As for personal experience, I played with Firebird this weekend and had a great experience. I haven't gone 1-2 on a Saturday and been so positive. I personally have to give a thanks to my o line. Whether it is my wunderkid handler partners (Rey Rey and Colin) or my cutters, I have a lot to work with this year.

Saturday

Despite still being a very tall and fast team, we were missing a few of the very key tall and fast guys this weekend. Sadly, these players missed out on a very good schedule for Saturday teams- Two games against GOAT squads, and one versus Magma.

FB versus Goat 3- 12-6 loss? (?)

A good first game that started off very close. The GOAT squads were full of veteran GOAT and GT players, and that definitely made the game more exciting for me. We had a couple of rookies that dropped and threw away a lot. They were defintiely rattled, but I'm sure when they are stars for years to come in the near future, they won't remember this one.

I personally played so-so, but saw a lot of good things from teammates. Our defence, setting the tone for the weekend, is very good at forcing turns, and less good at scoring on said turns.

Another thing people learned: Throwing deep on a zone with an very good deep player like Andy O is risky business.

FB versus Magma- 13-7 win

Magma is not the same team that crushed us at No Borders last year and beat us 12-10 at nationals last year. This was an excellent game for us where we learned no wins are easy, but that we can put away teams when needed.

Magma defintiely fought hard, and I expect a bigger squad for future tournies. Ahmad El Sidani, a pickup from Ottawa, played well for Magma.

FB versus GOAT 4- 12-7 loss

I really enjoyed this game. It featured us playing against Ottawa native Colin "Kid" Green.

It was obvious that this team had a strategy both in how they played and what they said. I personally want to thank the guys that chirped me early and often. It made me play much better defence (I still need work) and I was very active on offence. I could have done without the constant fouling, but maybe that was their way of saying I can throw. I will suck it up.

More importantly, the team played very well on defence. Had we played this well versus our first GOAT opponent, we go 2-1 on the day. Even our O line can get it back.

A very valuable lesson from this game: Punch it in when you take it away. Good players will score if you let them have it seven times per point.

Sunday

We knew Saturday night we were playing ROY, our rival since the genesis of time. It made it worth getting up in the morning.

The weather was so windy, it was a crapshoot really. Good experience to throw in those conditions, but not the most enjoyable ultimate

FB verus ROY- 13-7

This was not the final squad for ROY and they will be better.

Our first five points were great. We got some nice upwind breaks. Then we slacked off and realized we can't get away with it.

FB versus Seven- Too Much to Not Enough

Instead of telling you how we struggled agaisnt the zone and made a lot of unforced errors, let me tell you what I liked about Seven from Barrie

-They have strong leadership now with Jesse Robertson and Curtis Kile. Jesse is a very smart player who looks and plays very tough. He also has moved around the last few years (North Bay, Calgary) and always seems to make his team and city program stronger.
-The job Curtis Kile, Pam Chadbourn and others have done with the juniors has been awesome. Worlds 2008 viewers will see one of the Barrie products (Shaw Dungate), but there are more great prospects getting better on every point.
-Despite on chubby red head guy who talks way more than he should, they are very good to play against. Very exciting team.

That's the weekend. Got to meet lots of friends from other cities, but did not get to watch other teams as I had hoped. If anyone has team updates or division updates, let me know.

Another Leadership Post: Player Relations

Nation,

It's the night before I head down to Toronto for my first tournament of the summer. Injury to my non throwing hand aside (I hope it's just a bad sprain), It should be a great weekend getting to know new teammates and seeing old friends who are now 'enemies'.

A lot of teams have new players. One of the things I learned through my masters (school, not the division) and through life experience is that handling the relationship between yourself and those you lead on the field is a delicate process.

Why is it delicate? Simply because:

• You're going to want to fix everything now.
  
• You're going to have to figure each teammate out. Skills and mind.
  
• Setting a good precedent early in the season paves the way for a great season, a mediocre season, or a terrible "Let's burn the jerseys cause we suck and I hate you guys" season
• You're going to see your teammates a lot in the season. You have to maintain your credibility and build trust that you're competent and looking out for the team. You have to ensure buy in and accountability. It isn't easy.
• You're leading a bunch of volunteers. You're getting them to eat dirt, sweat, and dedicate their summer for free. In fact, you're making them pay for the privilege.
  
• Any leader has a shelf life. Players can only listen and understand so much at once, and they only listen to one voice for so long.

Okay, the task is daunting. How do you make these players better and come back next year?

• Properly assess your team now and have the right goals and plans for the summer. Stick to the goals and plans, changing only if your estimates are way off. Don't let early season success fool you and lead you to false hope and disappointments.
• If you're a leader, act like it. Be credible, communicate well and often, have vision, use your charisma if you got it, and be damn passionate/good at what you do.
• Realize that there is a difference between constructive criticism and contempt comments. "What the F^ck was that?" doesn't tell someone what they need to do. Get away from telling people what they are doing wrong, and focus of what they need to do. If you tell people what they are not supposed to do.. that's what they are thinking when they go back out there.
  
• Conversely, don't be overly positive. You're maybe winning a few short term brownie points, but you're making it known that you lie. Serious athletes don't need/want that.
• DO NOT PICK ON THE WEAKER PLAYERS AND CATER TO THE BETTER ONES. I see this way too much. I see this a lot, and it's such a poor sign about someone's character.

That's the end of my rant. Personally, I'm loving my season thus far, and have a lot of good leaders to work with/for. However, I know there are new leaders out there that need advice, and I hope they read this.

TUF2008 Hype

Nation,

The Toronto Ultimate Festival is the first outdoor tournament of the year for most teams in Ontario and Quebec. It serves as a final tryout process for many teams and programs, and gives those interested a brief glimpse of team rosters and national contenders from the area.

Originally called the TUT tournament and run by local Toronto Ultimate Club, the tourney threatened to die out in 2005 due to problems with leadership, as per my understanding. However, the Toronto Sport and Social Club picked up the slack. i don't know how I feel about having the TSSC run a competitive tournament, but they have provided a quality event since 2005 and enabled us all to play/visit Toronto as part of our tournament calendar.

The men's, women's and coed titles are all up for grabs this year, as there has been much turnover/change on last years respective winners (BFC has lost much of their roster, Capitals no longer exist this summer, and Last year's open champ was a GOAT tryout team)

I'll do my best to preview some of the teams I know.. but I just wanted to start the hype.

Who are the teams to beat at this tourney?