Happy Canada Day

Nation,

Happy Canada Day.

Be proud, be safe.

Steven

Boston Invite 2008- Debrief

Nation,

For Canadian teams, the Boston Invite signals the start of the summer homestretch. With Nationals in mid August, the amount of time and number of tournaments left to fine tune is starting to quickly vanish.

Tournament Results

You can find the Open, Elite Women's and Women's divisions on the UPA reporter site.

J.F. Mauger @ CUT 2008 (Greg King Photography)

Run down of the men's Tourney

Canadian Team Results

GOAT-2nd
Mephisto-6th
Phoenix-7th
Tombstone-18th
Red Circus- 21st
Firebird-26th
Grand Trunk-27th
Demon-31st
Magma-31st

Elite

• Boston Ultimate wins the finals over GOAT 15-10. After losing to GOAT in last year's Boston Invite, I think Boston has taken a major step forward this year. Don't be fooled, GOAT will still be a force as well when October and November rolls along.
  
• PoNY and Great Britain finish tied for third, losing by one point in each team's semi. Excellent results for both squads.
• Bodhi and Phoenix continue their excellent results this summer by going undefeated on Saturday and winning their crossovers into the top 8.
• Mephisto gets some revenge from CUT and upends Phoenix on Sunday, after Phoenix gave everything they could to Boston
• Machine and Pike have very tough Saturdays, fall out of the quarters and fail to win tier 1.
  

Open

• A team called the Providence Pack Dogs (apparently a pick up team consisting of stars like Josh Zipperstein) destroy all comers on both days and win the tier 2 crown. A Grand Trunk source describes their match-up as a "slaughter".
• Death or Glory wins the tier 2 title with a final win over Tombstone. Ironically, this will be the match-up at worlds in the Masters division. Wish I could have seen it.
• Red Hook wins a tough one over my very own Firebird to win the tier 3 title

Firebird Experience

I've never lost so many heart breakers in one day. I've never lost 3 games by four points in one day. We had a great chance to win our cross-over against a good team in Philly Love, but lost on universe point.

I wasn't playing as much as I normally do (I'm also an idiot who found out how badly you can get burnt even under clouds), and I had a great view of our performance. The positive is we had an excellent game plan, we were extremely athletic/fast, and we forced many turnovers. The bad news is we didn't follow the plan and we turned it over way more than I though capable. I can only compare it to a dog who catches the ball with the sole intention of handing it back.

We messed up and lost the lead to Colt .45, then got too far behind a jacked up RSRD squad. We then lost a heart-breaker a very athletic Roots of Rhythm (not quite as good as they think they are), losing on universe point once again.

Having said that, the tight games were fantastic experiences, and we saw a lot of good stuff from all the teammates. (This year's team might be as fun to be around as my " 4AM This is a a shitshow" Western crew).

Missing out on a chance to move up and play DoG (I dare you to come to No Borders guys...) we won some close games versus Savage Strike and Nor Easter and moved on to the tier three final versus Brooklyn's red Hook. We lost 12-10 and the consolation hardware. The quality of the teams that low in the tourney is pretty suprising.

Off-Field Stuff

The ride to Devens from Ottawa is long, but always well worth it. The trip down was miserable due to Montreal traffic and construction on the highways, but luckily I had the Praha Princess with me. (She had a great time at the Wrenthem Premium Outlets by the way, and highly recommends it to Canadians next time around). Is it just me or do the accents south of Boston differ greatly from those north of Boston?

We took a different route on the way back and it was much better.

We always stay in Leominster with all the other Canadian teams at the Motel 6. It's not the greatest hotel but the near-bye amenities are vast and within walking distance. I didn't make the trip with the team to the local Italian restaurant El Dente, but I did manage to get a Calzone at Pizza Fort on Sunday before the trip back. Those are two places I strongly recommend.

The only downer was watching some good old fashion child abuse by a mother in the grocery store in Leominster. Yikes.

Boston Invite 2008- Women's Preview

Nation,

The Boston Elite and Women's schedules are up.

As good as the men's side is on a year to year basis, Boston 2008 could be remembered as the year of the elite ladies. The elite ladies categories features almost all the ladies teams that everyone wants to see this year. We may also see a worlds preview between Fury from San Francisco (Team USA) and Traffic from Vancouver (Team Canada).

Photo by: Corry Berghout

Get your popcorn ready!

Elite

• Okay, this field is F-ing stacked!
  
• Canada is represented by our Worlds team and Stella from Ottawa. If Vancouver's Canada team is borrowing key members from Stella, the ladies from Ottawa might have a long tough weekend in this pool. That comment has more to do with the talent on the other sides than the young promising talent of the Stella squad.
  
• I would encourage all players to watch this games as much as possible on the weekend. You won't see as good a field on the east coast for the rest of the summer.

Women's

• Lots of Canadian representation
• Lotus, Lily, QUB, Storm, and Salty make the trip down, and should have lots of good games from Yankee opponents.
• Key games on day one should include Salty-Lotus, Storm vs Wicked, and Nemesis vs Ambush.

Boston Invite 2008- Open Preview

Nation,

The Ottawa Program, two teams in full force, is headed down to the Boston Invite this weekend.

It should be great.

The tenative schedule was up yesterday, and it should be a good Saturday for both Firebird and Phoenix.

Boston 2007- Yvan Abel Pictures

Sadly, teams in ultimate get hyped and seeded accordingly to past season glory or failure. The general outsider wisdom of true team strength is always a few steps behind the status of the team. Thus, teams like Pike or Mephisto (who were unquestionably NOT at their best this year at CUT) are in the power pools ahead of DoG, Bodhi and Phoenix. We're honestly not talking about much of a difference in terms of team talent, so as long as everyone has a chance to move up on Sunday (they do), we can halt protests in the streets over seeding.

Phoenix will be sending a stronger squad down than at any point this season. Unfortunetly, as I said before, they seemed to be ranked on past years instead of their current lineup. They are not in the elite pool, but will have a chance to move in the elite brackets with a strong first day. if their pool holds, they will get a very valuable experience playing one of the more efficient teams of all time (DoG), Team Canada's 2008 Worlds masters entry (Tombstone), and then play an aggresive athletic game with Gunslingers. (By the way, who got the better players in that gunslingers new noise merge?)

Firebird benefits from full Phoenix attendance, as players move down to the team and will benefit their chances greatly. By no means does this make our Saturday a cakewalk though. If the schedule holds, we get another chance at revenge on Slow Children (who were a bit cocky during White Mountain), a chance to play Halifax based Red Circus for the first time since 2006, and then a chance to reverse our universe point WMO loss to Run Silent, Run Deep.

Other Canadian Teams include Grand Trunk, Magma, Demon, and GOAT.

This is a list of teams I want to see play

• Great Britain Ultimate
• All the big boys in the power pool (Boston, GOAT, etc)

Hope everyone is safe on the trip down and looking forward to seeing everyone.

Northern Flights Updates

Nation,

Sadly, I didn't make it to North Bay for the Northern Flights co-ed tournament.

Long one of the best party tournaments, I'm asking readers to give me the details both on and off the field. In the meantime, I wanted to post this picture of some of my MAUFO teamates at the 2004 party.

Discussion Revisit- Ultimate: Team Game or Game of Stars?

Nation,

Early in the season, I discussed the Boston Celtics and asked if their ability to dominate with 3 big stars and a roster full of cheap depth players was the way to go about winning a championship. I also wondered if Ultimate is a game where 3 stars can make all the difference. The opinions were varied.

The Celtics high risk 'win now' strategy paid off. The big 3 played all year and played relatively well in the playoffs. They secured low cost veteran talent (Cassell and P.J. brown) to comtemplate the bench of James Posey, Tony Allen, Kendrick Perkins, Big Baby Davis, Eddie House. The bench played well beyond expection. Rajon Rondo turned out to be a VERY decent starting point guard (He still can't shoot, but his efficiency and speed was well above perceptions of him).

The day after their NBA championship, I really think it was both the bench and the Big 3 that carried the day in the playoffs. The Big 3 gets all the glory, but there were games when Garnett missed jump shot after jump shot, Allen went cold for the entire Detroit series, and Pierce failed to dominate.

Cue the bench.

Back to ultimate. I still see the big guys on top ultimate teams and recognize that they win many games for their teams. But they need a strong supporting cast to do what they do, as much as the bench needs them to win.

What did you think of the Celtics run? Was the Big 3 as big as the media tells us?

The Sad Facts About Air Travel and Ultimate

Nation,

By this time, your team has made a decision about whether or not to attend regionals in your province, with the hopes of going to nationals in Calgary.

With all the positive information I have heard about the Cowtown tournament from those in and out of ultimate, I was originally saddened to realize that the World Championships, happening the week before in the neighboring province of B.C., was going dampen the quality of the nationals tournament. Many worlds players will miss nationals because they can't/won't play in two high level tournaments in successive weeks. Now, it is also rumored that some great teams in their entirety will skip nationals.

Are good teams skipping nationals to imitate Furious George? Sadly, it's not that simple. These no shows might very well continue into the near future.

It's those d@mn airplane ticket prices.

They are killing the growth of our game at the highest level.

I won't make many excuses for the airline companies in this countries. Essentially, we are at the mercy of an oligopoly. Air Canada has managed to endear themselves to no one with inefficiency, constant service reduction and self entitlement when it comes to government support and government regulation. WestJet's reputation as a cheap fare carrier is taking a beating.

However, we all know the cost of fuel prices. They are skyrocketing. It is estimated that trips across Canada cost $129 or more per seat. That's the start of the sunk costs, and we can start to see why players can't afford to come to Calgary and experience a great host.

It's our nature as ultimate players to either b^tch among friends and pay , or bail out on our team with the explanation of cost. If we want to do something about it, we have to do more.

How do other sports do it?

• A strong national organization that centralizes membership size and strength
  
• Early planning
  
• Sponsorship affinity programs with the airlines that give strong benefits to the airline.
  
• Organized purchases by groups and associations
  

Much like being on an ultimate team that has to adapt to its opponents, we have to adapt to the way sport business works. The lack of support from government is actually a strength for us, as we are flexible to do business with the corporate world.

It sucks that we are playing in a time where the cost of airplane travel is becoming more of a barrier than an enabler. In such a big country, there is little we can do outside of getting organized, working together and flexing those purchasing muscles of ours.