Labour Day 2009 Tournament Preview- West Coast Bragging Rights

Nation,

This weekend some of the best teams in the continent square off in Santa Cruz California for some early fall bragging rights.

The 23rd annual Labour Day Ultimate Championships feature 12 womens and men's teams. Clearly, the focus of this tournament is quality over quantity. It appears that the depth of the open pool from top to bottom is improved compared to 2007 but not compared to 2008.

The women's side looks equally to 2007 but is a little weaker than 2008.

Why the drop from 2008? It simply looks like a case of Chesapeake and Labour Day running back to back and taking away teams from the other. This happened to me as a TD last year when we ran counter to a tournament I didn't know about (Wildwood) and one whose date seems to change often (Motown). Hopefully next year tournament directors can start working together to better time and space out tournaments).

Format/schedule is not listed on the UPA site, but here is my predictions:

Womens Finals: Fury over Riot
Mens Finals: Bravo over Revolver

Hot off the Parinella Press!!

Nation,

Two very good posts through DoG's Jim Parinella.

A good discussion of strategy

A forwarded post about Losers and the Losing Losers who make excuses for them.. it's about how losing teams and players make excuses.. and it made me think of a lot of ultimate teams.

Chesapeake Open 2009 Review- Capital Punishment!

Nation,

Quick rundown of Chesapeake tourney that happened over the weekend.

Women

Capitals of Toronto/Ottawa had an excellent weekend in Maryland, winning the tournament with a 13-8 win over Boston's Brute Squad.

The team went undefeated in eight games over the weekend. They had two wins over Brute Squad and two victories of Lady Condors of Santa Barbara.

Great start to the fall season for Capitals, as they look to make the proverbial next step at UPA finals.

Open

Very interesting weekend on the mens side. It really seems like the difference between the top 16 teams in UPAs gets less and less each year, leaving for more exciting tournaments.

GOAT of Toronto took 5th place. Their three losses came at the hands of eventual runners up Ring of Fire (North Carolina) in pool play, Truck Stop in crossover and the much touted Revolver of California in the quarterfinals.

Invictus of Calgary went 0-3 in pool play, lost their crossover to Madcow of Columbus and got bounced to the tier 2 bracket. They beat a North Carolina team (X Rates Open) before losing a tough one point game to Forge of Pittsburgh. After some summer struggles, Forge really had a strong weekend, going undefeated and winning the tier 2 crown. Are they an elite team or a middle of the pack team... I'm still not sure after four tournaments this year.

Mephisto of Montreal had a strong day of pool play, going 3-0 before losing their crossover to Forge. They then had a two point loss to Dallas team Grit and a one point loss to Wiretap to finish up the tournament.

The Tier 3 champs were the Replicants from New York City. Goven their strong play all summer, many teams are asking about this team, and here is a brief description summary from Replicant captain Tim MacGougan about the team composition:

• Some players that are alums of University of Richmond
• Some DC connection
• a pretty big Mary Washington contingent
• a few from Swarthmore and Cornell
• A little bit of NYC as well
• No one on the roster past the age of 25!

Mixed

Clearly, the TD knew his teams well in this division and seeded accordingly. Seeds for the most part were kept in day one pool play.

The number one (AMP) and two (Axis of C'Ville) found themselves in the finals, with the 2nd seed coming out the victor in a 12-10 result. In fact, the top four seeds were all in the finals.