Worlds 2008- Exciting Game

Nation,

I'm following this nail biter via the Internet.. it might be the match up of the tournament..

http://www.wugc2008.com/game/X602

LogJam 2008 Results

Nation,

Trip to St Alban's was an interesting one. Here's a breakdown on the weekend

The Tournament and Town

• St Alban's is a little over 5000 and has a great little town feel to it
• It's almost impossible for the town's restaurants to handle a tournament rush for dinner, so plan accordingly
• The fields are directly accross the street/road from a nice hotel call La Quinta. You'll never get that close at any other tourney
  
• Field food was good on day one, absent on day two
• Water was great and refilled often
• Fields were of good quality. Some fields were REALLY narrow though
  
• Tournament format was cool. Late Saturday start, 6 games for everyone, stresses performance in the round robin

Our Team

• We went down with a smallish roster and hoped we could play our best on point one. That didn't happen
• We had a miserable first two games versus Providence (we want that one back) and Chuckwagon (Should of been closer, but the better team won)
• o-2 to start a weekend where we expected to go to semis, we then took off with some great wins versus Prankster Robotics, Good News Everyone, and Magma on Sunday morning.
• Knowing Prankster went universe with Chuckwagon, we hold out hope that theywill beat Providence and allow us into the semis. It doesn't happen.
• We end up playing for 5th versus Red Hook. A great game that sees us take half, and then falter in the second half. Outside of one aggro player (who Polish Prince silents with a taste of his own rough medicine) it's a great fought game in the rain.
• Overall, good bonding weekend for the boys and a nice tune up for nationals

Tourney Results

• Chuckwagon pleases the local crowd and wins the Open tourney over Montreal A in the finals
• Ambush (our adopted women's team for the weekend) wins the women's title over Missconnduct

Mixed Up Results

Nation,

Brief rundown of the weekend:

Saturday

• Montreal's RIP takes Pool A with a 4-0 Day, 3 teams go 2-2 and local coed "A" squad Bytown Flatball Club goes 0-4
  
• Onyx takes Pool B with a 4-0 day, while Ringer pickup team Phella goes through a 2-2 day. Monster, Ontario regional champs, has a tough 1-3. Underrated Liquid puts together a solid 3-1 day in the pool of death
• Polatouches and Tabasco (I told you to watch out for them!!) move into quarters by winning their pool.
• Big Fish of Ottawa goes undefeated in pool play and D.I.R.T. is the class of the junior pool

Sunday

• Like most ringer teams, Phella gets better with each game and makes it to finals versus RIP
• Quebec City's B squad wins the 9th place bracket
• The Company from Waterloo wins the 19th place bracket
  
• Ottawa Junior B (O2) has a fantastic sunday and finishes above the Ottawa Junior A team
• RIP takes the final and wins the tournament in time cap 13-9

Congrats to RIP the consolation pool champs, and to the organizers and volunteers.

Worlds 2008

Nation,

Worlds is Going on Aug 2-9 in our home and native Land.

Here's the site

Here are the teams

Poll Question is simple... which of Canada's teams has the best chance to win Gold?




Best of luck to the teams!

Log Jam 2008 Preview..

Nation,

Tough week for me personally, with the passing of a tremendous uncle. I wasn't able to write much on worlds because of that and a lack of internet conenction at the new home for most of the week.

Firebird heads to St Alban's Vermont this weekend for LogJam. We're going down with a very small but potentially talented roster, so it might be another big weekend for a team having a great season.

12 men's teams, with three canadian squads (Mephisto, Firebird, and Magma).


John Haig Being John Haig Like





Here is how our schedule shapes up

• Our first game is not till 11am (sweet) and we play our biggest game versus the Providence Pack Dogs. If we win, we really help our chances of finishing top 2 in the pool and automatically making it to semis. It should be a tough match.
  
• We then play the top seed Chuck Wagon in another tough match. Our toughest games are the first two, so we better be ready for the challenge
• We play Zebra Muscles third, and will look to win our third straight from them this year. Zebra looks to improve every time we see them.
• We finish Saturday versus unknown 'Good News Everyone'. We hope it's not Sockeye taking a break from worlds. Damn pick up teams and their ?? factor.
  
• Sunday morning we play Magma and hopefully set ourselves up for playoffs

Little is known about our opponents, but we have the following objectives

• Be ready on point one Saturday
• Put teams away when we get the chance, something good teams need to learn before they can be very good or great
  
• Have fun

I'm not one to hype american tourneys, but this one looks fun
-Finals for women and men will be in a stadium
-Double Dragon is hosting a game of STUMP. We are told "Don't ask questions, just show up."

MoTown 2008 Results

Nation,

Detroit's annual summer open and women's tourney quietly went down last weekend. I went to this tournament once in 2006. The good things were the results we had, the teams, the free beer offered (for those who partake) and the quality of the fields. The bad was the fact the tourney almost got shut down by a sheriff/marshall, it was a twelve hour trek, we didn't get water until the afternoon and it tasted of sulphur, and the heat that can't be blamed on anyone. Here are the results.

Open

-Madcow of Columbus pulled a mild shocker and won the title
-BAT and Chicago's Machine took 2nd and third respectively
-Grand Trunk was the best Canadian finisher, going 0-4 on day one in the power pools and then winning 3 games to take 9th on Sunday. Have not played Trunk all season, but I assume they will be tuned up and ready at nationals
-Too Bad was Just Bad all weekend. 0-4 in the power pool Saturday, and 1-3 on Sunday. I find it hard to believe this was the same squad that finished 6th at Borders.
-Roy went 0-4 on day one (Not in the power pools) and ended up finishing 19th. Dissapointing results after a strong No Borders.
-Team of Note: Impulse, an under-19 team from Pittsburgh, went from the 14th seed to 6th place finish. Damn those juniors.

Women

- Unknown local team team called Hooptie takes the crown, beating Madison Jazz in the final
- Canada was represented by PPF from Southwestern Ontario. They go 5-0 on day one and then finish third, losing to the champs in the semis. Still don't know why they choose to go to this tourney over a much better field at No Borders, but they should be saluted for going down and getting results to boost confidence before nationals. They have the athleticism to challenge Stella and Lotus.
-Toronto's Lilly had another tough weekend, going 0-5 on Saturday and losing all games on Sunday as well. I really feel for this team and its players for going through a learning season like this. When your record is 4-19 since June, it's easy to get down if you don't remember that this will be great experience moving into future seasons.

Mixed Up 2008- The Final Nationals Tune-Up

Nation,

The coed division at this year's Canadian Nationals promsies to be exciting. Defending champion TFP will play both worlds and nationals in consecutive weeks, and could face any number of challengers on their way to the finals.

The final major coed preview before nationals on the east coast takes place in Ottawa this weekend. Mixed UP features 30 teams, and is the first tournament to have 5 of the top 6 Ontario and Quebec contender teams involved.

Here's the schedule. It looks like power pools, with the other pools having no chance for crossover at this time.

What to expect in each pool:

• Pool A is definitely okay. RIP and Gecko are almost locks for the quarterfinals at Nationals. Bytown Flatball Club is the home team, and they are on a confident wave following their surprising finish at regionals. Tundra is lead by local Craig "Frogger Froats. YNOX is the big question mark... are they a split squad or ONYX or are they a b team?
• Pool B features Onyx, who is not just a really angry rap group from the nineties.. it's a really good Quebec team featuring some open and women's players who are set to medal at nationals. Their toughest foes will be Ontario Regional Champs Monster, Waterloo's Liquid, and a pick team featuring Stella and Ottawa Open Players. Wannabago gets the prievlege of entering a bloodbath between four very strong teams.
• Pool C is filler
• Pool D has Tabasco, which may have some former comp open and coed players who can throw/shoot the lights out. If that old savvy veteran with the Tiley hat is on the field (You know him, Camelot, many other teams) zones will be in big trouble.
  
• Pool E is filler. Look to see how arrested development, which has been tutored all year by long time player Roy Germon. does playing at a home tourney.
  
• Pool F features the best and brightest juniors in the area outside of our worlds players. Hopefully many will hit fields 11 and 13 to see and cheer them on.

Semi's prediction... Phella, Gecko, Onyx and RIP. Darkhorse is Monster.

Your predictions here.....