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Ontario Mixed Regionals Preview

Nation,

This weekend, the Ontario Mixed Regionals will take place in Waterloo.

Currently, there are 6 bids available in the region. The schedule seems to be pretty straight forward. Every pool game will be important, as you can avoid any Sunday concerns by winning on Saturday.

(Photo Source: Hilary Leung)

Where are the Sick Mitts from Barrie? They are registered on the CUC site but not in the tournament schedule. They are a really exciting young team, and feature some very athletic talents. (World Junior Shaw Dungate, Joel Bellavance, etc)
Pool A- Liquid (Waterloo), Mayhem (Hamilton), Disgraceful (North Bay), The Company (Waterloo), Desklamp (Guelph), Druid (London)

Depending on who Desklamp and Druid, this might be an easy regionals for Liquid, Waterloo's A team. Andrew Higgins and company (He will be teased mercifully for being singled out) finished 5th at nationals last year, and have their sights higher this year.

Mayhem has been in existence for several years now, and have always been a solid team that qualifies for nationals. 8th at CUC last year, they are capable of beating any of the top coed teams in the tourney.

Discgraceful from North Bay is a new team name. If it is mostly 626 players, they will be a force in this pool. The Company is one of three coed teams from Waterloo, and would probably be the 2nd best of those teams. Druid is captained by former LUCifer leader Pat Pace, and will feature some London players from a growing market. (Note: Did anyone know that St Thomas , near London, is the Disc Golf Capital of Canada?)

Pool B- Monster (Toronto), Tundra (Toronto), BFC (Ottawa), Zen Asylum (Toronto), Crisis (Waterloo), Big Fish (Ottawa)

From the outset, this looks like the much tougher and much more interesting pool.

Monster deserves their seed. I really have to hand it to Hilary Leung, Stephanie Hui and others who started from the very bottom with this team around 2005 and built it up to its current state. 6th at the 2008 nationals had to be a dissapointment given their results during the summer season. If they want to play at 2010 clubs, they have to build on their Boston Easterns results and take the top seed in this pool.

Tundra has the best open player who never played open (Craig Froats) and comes off a 12th place CUC 2008 finish. They are following a slow progress similar to Monster, dealing with the competition that comes with so many open, women's and club teams that exist in Toronto.

BFC, 13th at CUC 2008, finished 3rd at TUF and went 0-6 in Mixed Easterns. This year's squad promises more tournament continutity (having a roster that can dedicate the entire season) and features some male and female players that can produce. Predicting where they finish in this pool is tough- Could be the top, could be the bottom, probably right in the 2-3rd place. Players I like watch include Victoria Cole, Josh Tai, and one of the hardest workers in the game, Thom Ferguson.

Zen Asylum suffers from B team syndrome. They develop players, start to get good, and then have to start again. If you look at the players that have moved on to Lotus, GT, Tundra, Monster and even GOAT, you have to respect the work being done.

Crisis from Waterloo is the successor to B team Quicksand. Given how strong Liquid is this season, Crisis might be a hard foe for the higher rank teams to vanquish.

Big Fish is in year one AG (After Gavin) and that has be hard. However, I have heard a lot of positive feedback from opponents about their results at TUF and Northern Flights. I've also heard scrimmages with A team BFC have been very competitive. Two players to watch are former open players Devin McCabe and Erik L'Abbe. McCabe has battled injuries and inconsistency, but when he is focused and confident, he can be very productive. This is L'Abbe first full summer of touring outside of juniors, but he has all the physical tools needed to develop into a front line coed player.

Predictions

I think the following will still be in the hunt for the 6 bids come playoffs on Sunday

Waterloo, Monster, Mayhem, BFC, Disgraceful, Tundra, Big Fish, Desklamp

I don't see many surprises from the original seeds.

June 2009 Canadian Women's Power Rankings

Nation,

Just as the Women's division heats up leading up to nationals, here are the power rankings.

Photo Source: Lexi Marsh

Criteria (In Order)
-Performance this Year
-Roster
-Past CUC results and previous year's results

1. Lotus (Toronto)- Boston Invite champs have looked like a deserving number one seed. Next tournament will be the defense of their 2008 No Borders title.
   
2. Storm (Montreal)- 2 tournament titles (WMO and Jazz Fest) with a head to head victory over Stella
3. Stella (Ottawa)- A so-so Boston Invite with no other UPA tournaments before or after. 2008 CUC champs will have stars Kate Crump and Anne Mercier back full time after world games. This will be a big boost for nationals.
   
4. Traffic (Vancouver)- Not signed up for nationals, so they slide a bit in the Canadian rankings. Clearly a strong team.
   
5. Wild Roses (Calgary)- Very little data available, as Flowerbowl results are not posted. Is this the same team that posed as Team Alberta and was a top 4 CUC team? 3rd place FLO from 2008?
6. QUB (Quebec City)- I've heard Storm was trying out new strategy when they lost to QUB in pool play. I don't hear storm making those excuses, and I won't dismiss QUBs steady play at WMO, Boston and Jazzfest
   
7. Fusion (Winnipeg)- Will get to see this team play at No Borders this year, and looking forward to seeing what the talent level looks like. As I said with the open rankings, Winnipeg has always had a great junior program, and both open/women's should be able to tap into that.
8. PPF (Waterloo)- Tough weekend for PPF at Jazzfest, finishing 5th when many thought they might win it all. No team is more likely to come back and find better results for the rest of the summer.
   
9. Salty (Halifax)- Up year for Halifax's best ladies team. Excellent Boston Invite, 6th place at Jazz, and have improved their seeding with their play. Have to echo other's positive comments about the committment and dedication of Halifax teams to travel.
10. Zephr (Vancouver)- Maybe a little underseeded at this point, given their location allows them access to good talent, their ability to play good american teams, and their solid captain (former Stella player Nancy Symons). It's very rare that an ultimate team gets the chance to play under a person who has university championship head coaching experience.
    
11. Mystik (Montreal)- Going from an O-for Boston Invite to a dominating pool day at Jazz fest, this team doesn't want the B team label. It doesn't matter if this is their first year, they want better competition and challenges this summer.
12. Lily (Toronto)- Have to rank them ahead of Scarlett from Ottawa, as they have the head to head advantage this year.
    
13. Scarlett (Ottawa)- Ranking two Toronto teams ahead of two Ottawa teams will not be a popular move in my area. If they can improve certain key positions before nationals, they might become a very different (tougher) team to play against at CUC.
    
14. Sirens (Regina)- Very little data. 9th at CUC 2008.
    
15. Pandora (Saskatoon)- Very little data
    
16. Feisty (Toronto)- Definitely going through an ultimate experience both literally (with their Ultimate Experience relations) and figuratively (0-7 record at Jazzfest, ouch), one has to be comforted by the fact that this team allows an entire roster of new players to play club women's. That only benefits Toronto and Canada ultimate.

OCUA Volunteers Needed to work with Rogers TV at No Borders 2009!

Nation,

As posted on nobordersultimate.com and ocua.ca

The No Borders tournament committee is looking for dedicated volunteers to assist the Rogers TV crew with the filming of the Open and Women’s championship games.

We are looking for 2 – 3 individuals to commentate the elite championship game in both gender divisions. Commentators must dedicate time during the weekend to familiarize themselves with semi-final and final teams, the history of No Borders, and meet Rogers requirements as needed. Knowledge of the game at the competitive level is also required.

Interested individuals should be comfortable speaking about the game both on and off camera and have some media background. Other assets would include experience playing at the competitive level, and experience in high level Ultimate strategy.

The broadcast time for the Women’s finals will be Sunday July 26th from 12:10 pm- 2:40 pm and the Men’s will be Sunday July 26th from 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm. Lunch will be provided to the commentators on the day of filming.

If you are interested in this amazing volunteer opportunity, please submit your name along with a letter explaining how you meet the above mentioned requirements no later than Monday July 13th to

teri-lynne@ocua.ca

*We will be conducting interviews on July 14th and 15th.

JazzFest 2009 Recap

Nation,

The results are in from the weekend in Montreal. The weather was reportedly rainy and windy on Saturday, prompting a lot of zone and weather forced errors. However, the weather was better on Sunday, and the tournament was run in a first class manner by the TD and her volunteer staff/partners.

Special thanks to Kirsten for sending the final standings, and for the many who sent me their team results/reports.

Also of note, Tushar Singh from IAMULTIMATE was providing live streaming from the fields and intends to do so in future tourneys. If you had the chance to watch it, please feel free to share your thoughts on the coverage.

OPEN

Every TD's worst nightmare- one team drops out after day one and another team no shows. Space Jam must have read my preview and gotten scared. Jokes aside, No Shows= Not Cool.

In the power pools, Medicare from Waterloo was the most impressive team of the day, beating GLUM and NADS to join Phoenix and Mephisto as the best of day one elite teams before losing their seeding crossover to Big Science.

The big surprises of the day outside of the power pools were Demon, Magma, and Blue Carnival. Demon went 3-0 in their pool (beating rivals QUF and ROY) and then beat the Providence Pack Dogs to cross over into elite quarters. Magma had their first 3-0 pool day since Eric St Amant donned their jersey (OMG, 2003?) but could not advance into the 9th place pool, getting spanked by a talented but short staffed LXG squad from Ottawa. Blue Carnival from Halifax went from last seed, to 3-0, to losing on universe point to ROY to move into the 9th place bracket.

Phoenix won the crossover on Saturday with the local hosts in convincing 13-8 fashion.

On Sunday, everyone expected a Phoenix-Mephisto final. It appeared that would be the case until Ottawa' GLUM beat Phoenix in the semis by a score of 14-9. To many this might be shocking, but not to me. GLUM is fielding perhaps their most talented squad ever this year, and the combination of savvy veterans/athletic newcomers can punish young teams. Phoenix fans shouldn't jump off the bandwagon yet either.

Mephisto played like champs in all of their Sunday games. They disposed of local team The Veterans 15-8, then beat Chuckwagon 15-4 in semis, and finally pounded GLUM 15-5 to win the tournamnet for the second year in a row.

Open- Final Rankings

1) Mephisto

2) GLUM

3) Phoenix

3) Vermont

5) Medicare

6) The Veterans

7) Demon

7) Big Science

9) LXG

10) Opus

11) QUF

12) Chesapeaked

13) ROY

14) Pack Dogs

15) Magma

15) GOB

17) Blue Carnival

18) Thruway

19) Armageddon

20) BDU

21) Jerk Factory

22) Vandalay

23) NADS - dropped out

24) Space Jam - no show

Womens

In my preview, I discussed Salty from Halifax and QUB from Quebec City. If these two teams could turn the corner at Jazz, it might do wonders for the women's programs in those respective cities. It would also help CUC 2009 hype.

On Saturday, the girls from QUB may have made a wind assistance leap over a mental barrier by defeating Storm 8-7 in pool play. Both Salty and QUB went 2-1 and tied Storm for a 1st palce tie in pool play. Chrome Ladies from Frederiction had a tough day but managed to win their crossover on universe versus a red hot Fingerbell.

Vintage Ultimate did play the role of handler heavy sleeper, and won their pool with wins over PPF, Sugar Shack and Hucking Gorges. PPF was missing some key players on the weekend, and took some day one lumps learning to play around the challenge.

The story of Saturday (as was the case on the Open side) was the performance of the local B squads. Mystik of Montreal went 3-0 in pool play and won the crossover into elite quarters. Fingerbell cruised through their pool but lost a heartbreaker in the game to go to quarters. It was nice to see lower level teams make noise and threaten the elite pool spots, not something we often see on the women's side.

Sunday's championship bracket saw Storm and QUB on a rematch collision course to the finals. Storm demolished Sugar Shack in the semis, while QUB won a 13-10 decision over Vintage Ultimate. Undoubtedly eager to re-establish dominance over their provincial rivals, Storm won the finals 15-8.

The consolation bracket saw the matchup everyone wanted- Scarlett versus Lilly. The score at half time was 8-3 for Lily. The second half was dominated by Scarlett. However, Toronto took the game 13-12. These teams are finally starting to build up the same rivalry that Firebird-Roy had. That is, mutual respect while wishing the other team poor results and sadness, especially head to head. :)

Montreal champions in both divisions! Congratulations to Storm and Mephisto.

Womens Final Rankings

1) Storm

2) QUB

3) Vintage Ultimate

4) Sugar Shack

5) PPF

6) Salty

7) Mystik

8) Chrome Ladies

9) Lily

10) Scarlett

11) Fingerbell

12) Chicklet

13) Hucking Gorges

14) Chinchilla Heart Attack

15) Karma Chameleon

16) Feisty