World Cup 2010- Putting the 'I' in Team

Nation,

I have been closely following the World Cup this year, as I often do. Once you put national jerseys on in any sport, I become infinitely more interested as many of us do. Every four years, North America tunes in to football/soccer and picks apart the aspects of the game we don't quite understand (The excitement when there are so few goals, lack of replay, the offside rules, the terrible diving and the ties).

For the first time, the World Cup is in Africa, South Africa to be exact. Do we need to have a world sporting event in a place that can't afford the 9 soccer stadiums built, that have cities so unsafe reporters (e.g. Stephen Brunt) are advised not to walk even three blocks without armed escort? That's a moral dilemna. A struggling population has embraced the World Cup, but it's like enjoying a wonderful meal before seeing the final bill. Nobody on this continent will be around for that moment of realization.

Yet we still love the World Cup, and watch it, and continue to support it. It seems like nothing can turn us off this event. We even seem to enjoy the drama of teams self combusting in the middle of the tournament.

Two games in and already teams are turning on each other and their management. Most notably is France. Les Bleus have seen a star player expelled from the team, a captain benched for game three, a player boycott of practice, and several admin and players publicly turning on their embattled coach. Raymond Domenech is certainly hard to love, and hasn't been shy to bash his players that he picked himself. What a mess after two games!

France is not alone. England to be on the verge of collapse and mutiny, less than a week after everyone sang the praise of their coach Capello. Host South Africa's players are yet another team questioning their coach.

Realistically, France benefited from an illegal goal to make the tournament, and they are not the same team that went to the World Cup Final in 2006 and won in 1998. Anyone remaining from those winning squads is four years older, and no replacement has been found for retired star Zinedine Zidane. England is feeling the heat from a soccer mad country, but they seem to be simply not good enough. And South Africa, how are players on the 83rd best team in the world complaining about their coach? They should be glad to be the host, and to have scored a goal!

What happened to 'Praise in Public, Scold in Private'? Everybody seems to be so quick to blame someone else for results that they haven't bothered to finish the tournament as a team. To me, that is a far worse crime than failing to perform.

As ultimate teams (both domestic or international), selfish finger pointing strife mid tournament is a terrible distraction that has very little chance of helping the situation. Commitment to the team, to the game plan (no plan works unless all are on board), and to the leadership is crucial to being a good team member and a person fans and teams can respect.

U23- Team Canada Womens Roster

Nation,

Several weeks ago Ultimate Canada announced the mens and womens rosters that will represent Canada at the inaugural u23 world championship in Florence, Italy. The tournament will be held July 19-25 2010.

Team Canada-Women's Roster

The women's head coach is Danielle Fortin. Fortin, a club team player for Stella, Capitals and Lotus, won junior gold as a player in 2004 and will play for Lotus at the 2010 WUCC in Prague. Her experience as a coach/player coach includes several university national titles with the Ottawa Gee Gees and a 5th place world juniors result at the 2008 WUGC in Vancouver.

Her 21 player squad will include at least 6 ladies with world junior experience.

Players to watch include Jordan Meron of Western/Lotus (who scored an outstanding 29 goals at the 2008 world juniors), McGill captain and star Rachael Moens and former Ottawa Gee Gee/Stella Alex Benedict, a smooth handler with nice throws.

U23 WOMEN'S TEAM

Alex Benedict
Amanda Ho
Amy Zhou
Clancy Budiak-Jarvie
Geneva Locke
Jeannette Quach
Jenny Lo
Jordan Meron
Kaity Williams
Kat Lee
Lauren Romaniuk
Lindsay Olimer
Lydia Rasmusens
Maria Chau
Megan Thomas
Rachel Moens
Rena Kawabata
Sarah Bobak
Stephanie Mandal
Stephanie Salerno
Valerie Lefebvre

U23- Team Canada Open Roster

Nation,

Several weeks ago Ultimate Canada announced the mens and womens rosters that will represent Canada at the inaugural u23 world championship in Florence, Italy. The tournament will be held July 19-25 2010.

For various (and valid) reasons, The United States will not be fielding teams at this event, and Canada will only be sending teams in the men's and women's category. Regardless of the lack of US participation, this will be a unique opportunity for some very good players to represent our country at the national level.

Open Roster

The open team's head coach is the young but experienced Kevin Cheung, most notably from Team Fisher Price. Kevin's barely too old for the tournament himself, but he has national championships, a world clubs championship (Perth 2006) and a Worlds title (2008) on his resume already.

Cheung's roster is as follows

U23 OPEN TEAM (World JR year in brackets if applicable)

Cam Harris (2008)
Russell Street (2006)
Jeremy Norden
Will Ranson
Daniel Dantzig (2008)
Graham Landon
John Norris
Adrian Yearwood
Thomson McKnight
Richie Tam
Aaron Liu (2008)
Dave So
Scott Hislop (2006)
Andre Gailitis
Kevin Fong
Blair Underhill
Thomas Black (2008)
Gord Harrison
Kevin Horgan
Kielan Way (2006)
Mike Adams
Nathan Dandurand
Raynaldo Arteaga
Michael Jones
Ernie Lin (2006)
Andrew Watts
Bobo Eyrich
Mark Lloyd (2008)

Analysis

A very talented squad will represent our country in this division. Many of the players listed have assumed key roles with various college teams throughout the country and with club teams in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg.

Clearly, past participation in world juniors was not a requirement for selection. This makes sense for several reasons

• Players start and stop playing during the 18-23 age period
• Some players peak and some plateau after junior age
• Sometimes junior selections are wrong (It's not easy!)
  

With so little time this summer for the team to practice and play together, you would think it would be a major challenge for team cohesion. However, looking at past world junior rosters, college experiences, and club play, we see that many of the players have experience with other members of this team.

For instance, the University of Western Sharks will be heavily represented by star handlers Mark Lloyd, Scott Hislop, Andrew Watts and the 6'6 Kevin Horgan.

National college champions Carleton Ravens will have speedy Rey ("Rey-Rey") Arteaga and the dominant Kielan Way (Phoenix newcomer Mike Adams is also on the roster). Toronto will have a slew of club players familiar with each other, notably Cam Harris, Adrian Yearwood, Daniel Dantzig, Thompson McKnight, and Michael Jones.

Bolstering the team will be emerging talents like Mephisto's Nathan Dandurand and Dalhousie star Bobo Eyrich.

Cheung has selected some players he is very familiar with as teammates. Hislop, Russell Street, Ernie Lin and Blair Underhill will be vital parts to a winning equation.

With United States out of the picture, Canada should be the pre tournament favorite to win the championship. (2nd in the 2006 and 2008 juniors). However, with many players new to the world stage, and the growing talent levels of teams outside of North America, Canada must be ready to deliver a strong performance in Florence.

Preview: Northern Flights 2010, No Surf 2010

Nation,

Ultimate action this weekend in North Bay and Cleveland.

Northern Flights

The 22nd annual Northern Flights tournament takes place in North Bay, Ontario this weekend.

18 teams are registered this year, comprised of a mix of touring, pickup, and local squads.

The tournament favorites are a GOAT/Lotus + friends squad named The Dockers, champions for the past two years and three out of the last four years.
No Surf- Open

Cleveland's big tournament has a strong pool of open teams.

In addition to a high number of Canadian teams, (Maverick, Too Bad, ROY, and Grand Trunk) the tournament has added some stronger US teams to the mix. These include 2009 USA finals team Madison Club, a split squad of fellow USA finalist Madcow, LouEVIL (KY), Direwolf (Pittsburgh) and the always gritty BearProof.

No Surf- Women

The women's bracket for No Surf is much smaller and much more modest than their open counterpart.

Canadian content will be represented by Lily of Toronto.

FlowerBowl 2010 Review- Open Elite Division

Author: Alex Davis, Furious George

Flowerbowl (June 5-6, 2010) is Vancouver's hometown showcase tournament, and the earliest of the season in Northwest. Its cachet rises and falls, depending on the year, the timing of the major heavyweight tournaments and the objectives of the nearest clubs. Regardless, it is Furious George's home turf, and every year the Monkey can be found there, plying its trade and tuning up for the season. This year, with the timing and costs of WUCC2010, U23s, and WJUCs, the tide of talent rolled back into Vancouver again, turning Flowerbowl once more into a pitched battle.

Elite Open Division- Pool Play

Blackfish

Vancouver's national-level touring team is farming a lot of talent this year, sending players to all three world championship events. The talent pipeline has been good to Blackfish, replacing graduated veterans with younger pick-ups like Gordon Harrison, Jordan Tessarolo and Bobo Eyrich. Still, losing two former captains to Furious makes it difficult to direct all that raw talent, so Blackfish can expect its early-season tournaments to be learning experiences. Although they struggled with better-honed opponents like Furious, Sockeye, and ECU they gave a solid showing in a loss against Rhino (8-12) and took wins from Winnipeg and UBC, going 2-4 in pool play.

Furious George

The Monkey's roster looks largely unchanged after 2009's changing of the guard, and skillwise, well ahead of the mark from last year at this time. Still, the majority of Furious' D-line joined Invictus for this weekend and left something of a skeleton crew to navigate six games of pool play. Nevertheless, Vancouver held the fort, going 5-1 with only one loss (12-10) against Sockeye in a turnover-heavy game that both sides admitted was stilted and uninspired. Setting themselves up for a rematch in the final, the Fish and the Monkey later delivered a real crowd-pleaser.

Sockeye

The Fish will never die, one has to conclude, as Seattle continues to find substitutes for each name-brand veteran who moves on. Sockeye has changed its roster quite a bit in the last two years, but they thrive anew every year. The Fish added to the weekend's identity-confusion by donning basketball singlets and playing as the "Seattle Hoops" for pool play. Despite an awkward first game against Furious, they pulled out a victory and came down hard on Invictus in the showcase game, going 6-0 before the final.

Emerald City Ultimate

ECU of Seattle is Danny Karlinsky's brainchild, combining elite ultimate with a mission of spirit and charity. To this end, he has recruited an impressive team, with veritable museum of stars past and present. Most of ECU's marquee players were not hand for the weekend, but ECU still played a fast and grinding game, quarterbacked alternately by Karlinsky and Jeremy Noorden.

Rhino

Rhino of Portland, Oregon, grows steadily more dangerous a threat every year. Franchise player Matt Melius is difficult to contain, and when working in combination with deep-strike Tim, the offense never shies away from a late huck at the endzone.


Winnipeg U35 Junior All-Stars

Keeping TDs and captains everywhere guessing as to the true meaning of this moniker, a General Strike contingent landed in Vancouver and picked up local talent (notables Andy Siy & Pat Dowler, to name a couple) to enjoy some early-season competition against the Northwest. They impressed with an uncanny ability to score on fast and flat hucks despite surging crosswinds, but their greatest victory of the weekend may have been convincing Tyler Kinley of Sockeye and Danny Karlinsky of ECU that they were in fact a national team of sorts (no kidding).

3-Coiler

Another mysterious name for the weekend, the scatologically inclined "3-Coiler" was in fact Calgary's Invictus, with most of its WUCC roster on hand to practice as a team. Invictus has drawn heavily on Edmonton and Vancouver for players, producing a team that may yet prove to be a real contender in Prague if it can sync up its different components and personalities. Invictus went 3-3 in pool play, losing only to better-prepared teams Sockeye, Rhino, and Furious George -- the latter in a predictably fierce and spirited game that forced the tired Monkey to run. Invictus suffered a bad rout in the showcase game against Sockeye, in which the Fish exploited both offensive and defensive miscues. Tyler Kinley later observed, "they aren't short on talent, just on chemistry."

UBC Alumni

A handful of UBC T-Birds rounded out the elite men's bracket with their style of casual, fast-and-loose weekend ultimate. A note of caution if you meet them on the field: they may not look too serious, but standouts Eamonn Watson, Mike Aizawa, Blair Hole, and Jordan McPhee, all of TFP 2008 fame, will punish a lazy defense and put you back in your place.

Sunday Playoffs

After six games in pool play, all teams were ranked and paired into finals. The tournament final put Furious George against Sockeye once more, but this time, the Fish graciously agreed to play against Vancouver's full roster now that Invictus had released them for the day.

The game played out in exciting fashion, with Seattle scoring breaks early and late, whilst Vancouver took a strong lead in the middle stretch. Both teams played hard, fast and efficiently, in contrast to their earlier match. While Furious converted on some high-pressure turnovers, Sockeye could not force the same back on the Monkey, who used a combination of creative throws and deep looks (in particular to Andrew Lugsdin) to escape the Seattle defense.

Sockeye mounted a trademark late-game comeback that recently won the final for them at TEP Medellin, but this time Vancouver closed out the game at 15-12 -- the first time they have defeated Sockeye since WUGCs in 2008.

Dropping the 'F Bomb'

Nation,

There's a new coed team from the Maritimes that will be looking to qualify for CUC 2010.

F-Bomb, as coach Scott Underwood pointed out, played at Mixed Easterns. Their weekend was summed up by their coach:

"F Bomb from Saint John NB attended their first international tournament with a pre-seeding of 31/32. We went 2-1 in pool play, won our crossover against a tough Boston club OTP to finish Saturday 3-1 and advance to the top pool. Sunday we hit a tough schedule, running into Slow White X who made the finals. Overall, we improved our ranking to a tie for 13th."

Here is their team website. It will be interesting to see how this team fares against other east Canadian teams (especially Fredericton's SPAWN) in their bid to qualify for Sherbrooke.

Weekend Warrior- You Pick It!

Nation,

This past weekend saw several strong performances from Canadian squads in tournaments south of the border.

In Cazenovia (CUT), Phoenix of Ottawa made it to the tournament final for the first time since 2005. On Saturday, they narrowly beat out split squad GOAT 12-11, lost 13-7 to the pool's top seed Bodhi and then beat Philly Open by a score of 10-9. Two wins by a single point each= two wins and a likely trip to quarters.

Maverick of Kitchener-Waterloo had a great weekend as well. They won their Saturday pool with a smooth 3-0 record. Starting the day with a narrow 12-11 win over Thrown Together, they then "upped their game" to beat more established teams Sons of Liberty (13-8) and Medicine Men (13-9). Maverick lost their pre quarters to Goat split squad (Y), but garnered top seed for the consolation quarters.

On Sunday, Maverick and Phoenix continued to impress. Maverick defeated Eastern Motors (14-11), Medicine Men (15-9) before defeating New York's Replicants (One of last year's surprise teams) in the consolation final to finish 9th.

Phoenix had won their pre quarters over Super Seed, and went to work in a tough quarters match with PoNY. Ottawa won 12-10 and met a very tough Bodhi in the semi. Bodhi, who had beaten Phoenix the day before, wasn't able to recapture that success on day two. Phoenix pulled off the upset (15-11) before losing to Ironside (15-5) in the final.

Both GOAT split squads went 0-3 on day one and lost their respective quarters.

Over in Boston at Mixed Easterns, three Canadian teams were duking it out in their respective pools. Tournament top seed RIP went 2-1 on day one, as did ONYX of Quebec City. Spawn of Fredericton went 0-3 in a challenging pool.

Our Canadian squads showed promise in their crossover games. ONYX had an impressive win over a Slow White split squad (15-8) and took top seed into Sunday's championship bracket. Spawn managed to win their crossover to join RIP and ONYX in the pre quarters.

Sunday clearly belonged to ONYX. They won their pre-quarters over Pandemic (15-8) before easily handling RIP in the quarterfinals (15-5). The beat Slow White split squad X in the semis (13-8) and Slow White Y in the final by a score of 12-10.

Who was the Weekend Warrior?

The poll question to the right of this article asks: Which team was the Weekend Warrior for June 5-6th?

Without any results from the Boston Invite Elite women's tournament being available, we still have several Canadian teams that turned some heads on the past weekend.

On the men's side, Phoenix went to the finals at CUT for the first time in five years. They also beat teams (PoNY and Bodhi) that have been very tough foes in past years and will be barriers to USA finals qualification.

On the other had, Maverick from K-W really threw down the gauntlet this weekend. They are not in the elite levels yet, but their wins over Eastern Motors FB, Sons of Liberty, Medicine Men and the Replicants in their first major US tournament is very impressive for a first year club (technically).

And then we have ONYX. RIP is the first Canadian team I can recall entering the tournament with top seed. ONYX is definitely the first squad from Canada to win the whole tournament since I have been playing/blogging.

It's an impressive victory and feat. But should we be really shocked with ONYX exploits? Before their loss to Chaos in the wet and windy CUC 2009 finals, this team looked almost unstoppable last summer.

Have your vote and your say about the most impressive Canadian performance last weekend!