I’m not sure why it hurt so much? Disappointment in not winning for sure, not fulfulling potential maybe, not realising expectation, or just falling short. All feelings felt. The loss made us question our trainings, question our approach, and ask what might we have done different? Though some detail could have been better, individual decisions and such, what seems to stand out strongest is experience.  The experience of the game to go, the game to go to quarters, to go onto something larger and more important.

What leaves us with Prague is a raw sort of feeling that we won’t get the opportunity for another 4 years to compete at this level, and even then, the competition might be somewhere where American teams might not travel in full pledge like in 2006, Perth.  It begs the question: how are we going to narrow this gap of experience between the top and the rest?  At the opening ceremony the president of wfdf spoke proudly of development grants they have created. I sat there thinking development grants? hmm.  what could that mean?  To grow the sport in under developed countries? to promote peace in the middle east?  i am fully supportive of projects which use sport to bring people together to resolve whatever the issue, but frankly I came to Worlds to seek the highest level of competition possible. To pit my team against the best and see how good we are. 

Last week we realised we still have a bit to learn. But what, we get to wait four years for the honours of trying our tactics again?  It seems rediculous, and unfair. Surely WFDF needs to be supporting the sport in developed countries and what they need to be doing is coming up with a tournament format which increases the level of competition, worldwide.   No?  With our current squad we went to ECC last year and this year to the Texas showdown.  In past years, the club has traveled to Chesapeake and the Boston Invite. They have been great opportunities for young players to pit themselves against America’s finest and learn they can compete with the elite. Teams in the four cities we have visited have been more than hospitable to us.  They have welcomed us, supported us with in kind tournament costs, and provided us with great experiences.

What we want to know is how can we compete year on year in a competition that is of world wide quality?  Is there not a clever way of allowing teams to join US nationals?  one european, one austral-asian, one south american?  Nationals has wild cards places and and strengths bids do they not? After Perth four years ago I asked the UPA whether they might consider such a proposal. They responded saying that they do their part in participating in WFDf sponsored tournaments and World Nations, that they would only consider countries that border the US ie Canada and Mexico.  Though i do appreciate US Nationals is about teams from their geographical location, is there really not a place for widening participation?  A radical reassesment of borders and a society where participation and access to opportunity is leveled? I get Nationals is about nations.  I am half american myself and playing at college nationals was an amazingly american experience to have.  thats not in doubt.  I guess what I am trying to suggest is that US nationals could be about something larger and has potential to act on a larger scale to increase inclusion.  For really, how else is the gap to be narrowed? Ideally we’d all be like the buzz, but they are sponsored by the Bunka Shutter and sadly they don’t have a monopoly on shutter making companies the world over.

So Prague is over. Lovely to see old friends and meet new ones.  Great to have a go.  Great to act like idiots with the team.  We will carry on, we will fight for our tenth national champioship, and to reclaim our european title, and next year we will return to the states, stronger and hungrier than ever.  We hope to see you there.

CU

When I first heard that years ago as a rookie it didn’t make sense – why would you want prefer to finish lower? But over the years I have become more atuned to wanting to end a tournament on a positive note, whether it be winning the last game, having a really fun match-up or even some sweet heckling in the final. The last thing you do together as a team can affect the impression you have of the whole event.

Redbacks didn’t have the week we wanted to. While we certainly gave many teams a run and had some narrow losses, we threw ourselves out of many games and we were down the bottom end of the bracket playing off for 45th place against LOL from Hungary. The score was 15-7 and the game was as good as over. I was on the line for the O point and Pete, one of our receivers, quietly said to me, “I’m gonna go. Let’s do it.”

A little backstory: There had been very little talk of personal stats during the week until our captain caught a goal on Day 5, proudly declaring he was “on the scoreboard.” To this point I was the last active player on 0. I play as an O handler and had been playing an ultra-conservative tournament, preferring to be reliable rather than huck it at will. Only one turn for the week but yet, zero assists and zero goals.

So back to the game, the pull comes in and the disc gets to me, around 50 metres from goal. The zone isn’t quite set and I can see Pete drifting deep. I wind up and let a picture perfect high floating huck go. Pete, as cool as ever, gets position and height over the two defenders and comes down with the disc… four metres short of the endzone. We then turned the disc and conceded the goal. With my head down, I headed towards the sideline.

My team however, had sensed the chance for one last small victory for the tournament – get Simon a stat. A timeout was called and a play was set up. Some of you may know it as the Reverse Moses. The pull comes in; one pass to Neil who jacks it in Pete’s direction. He pulls it down easily just shy of the endzone and calls another timeout. This time we set up a Moses endzone play, with me as the third cutter. Disc checked in… first cut… second cut… I take off and get in front of my marker. Pete puts the disc straight at my chest and I clap the disc between my hands. Cue my over-the-top celebration as my teammates storm the field in elation – we had set ourselves one final goal and we had done it.

Up to that point in the week, some of us were getting pretty down on the fact that we were dropping further and further down the table. LOL got the last point pretty easily to seal 45th spot, but at least we got to end our tournament on a high. I just hope that the 132 teams and the thousands of players that didn’t win a championship this week got their personal victory for the tournament and can go home with a smile on their face.

Thank you Prague, thank you Redbacks and thank you everyone else for an amazing week.

I spent a few minutes yesterday skyping family back in the U.S. And the cafe I borrowed computer time from has shopkeepers speaking Arabic, of course I was typing on a Czech keyboard, speaking English on skype, and trying out phrases in Russian, French, German, and more all day long with opponents, fans, new friends, and strangers.

Thats a little taste of the internationalism of the tournament and this city. Chain teammates, non Chain friends, ultimate fans, teams and supporters from all over the world have descended on Prague in an impressive show of love for the game, spirit for the growth of the sport, and of course some good old fashioned competition.

After three days of competition, Chain had only played four games. But in the next two we played five… the variance is mainly due to rainouts on Tuesday. I was really looking forward to trading night last night and it didnt disappoint. Hundreds of folks were showing stuff off and bartering for coveted jerseys and accessories.

Disappointments so far have been the laundry situation and the time allowed for sightseeing and partying… Because Im leaving right after the tourney, last week was for the non ultimate stuff. Now, naturally Im most looking forward to the semifinals tomorrow against Sockeye or Ironside.

Not sure the photos will work, but Ive tried to attach an image of the Chain worlds jersey and a depiction of the scene after Doublewides 20 minute discussion with Sweden about a catch and spike on the goal line.

Sockeye is staying in the dorms. Some teams worried about the comfort and noise level of the dorms, but it hasn’t been an issue. There are mutliple “blocks”(1 through 10, I believe), and many have a small bar or convenience store attached. Bar 10 has been a fantastic place to watch the World Cup games (projection screen in the bar), and I must say that watching the WC surrounded by teams of all nations is a special treat.

The weather has been hot (it’s getting very hot today), and hasn’t had much effect except for Tuesday, when the rains ended our Revolver game early. At 13-10 we had certainly put ourselves in a tough position, but it was quite unfortunate it ended when it did, as we had just scored a loooong O-point and felt a good momentum push on our side. It could have turned into a closer game, but again, we failed to put ourselves in that position early and paid the price.

While earlier days were certainly exciting, now is when it really gets interesting. The biggest game yet has to be Doublewide’s loss this morning to Viksjofors, not only an upset, but slightly controversial. Double-game point, Viks with the disc, they bomb a huck to a receiver who catches the goal and spikes it. But wait, DW calls not in. 20 minute conversation ensues, which I’ve been told included a phone call to the TD for resolution. The debate as I understand it (I wasn’t there) being that under USAU rules, an observer would’ve called him in or out and that would make the difference. However, without observers, it becomes an instant debate, and therefore causes a stoppage of play and the disc becomes dead, without a turnover being possible. If I’m not mistaken, this was the final resolution, and Viks punched it in to send Ddub to the ninals and themselves into quarters this afternoon against Buzz Bullets.

Tonight we face Ironside and are excited. This should definitely be a winnable game for either side, making it a good showcase game. It’s too bad for us that the other showcase features Riot (against Huck from Japan), but oh well.

Thus far our road has been strong, and has certainly tested us. Our initial pool climaxed with a game against Heads of State that I’m sure they wish they could play again, going down 8-1 early and certainly not showing their true level of play. In power pools, the Swiss team Flying Angels proved a difficult team to topple and gave us a great match in the heat of yesterday, and Revolver was our hardest test yet of the tourney, making our offense work very, very hard to move the disc and giving our D all they could handle. They were by no means flawless, and our defense was getting looks, but we had a tough time keeping our defense on the field early on and this proved to be our demise as lightning called this one before any comeback could be mounted.

Finally, time has been hard to come by, surprisingly. Even with just two rounds a day (save for yesterday’s 3 due to the rain the day previous), I find myself constantly searching for time to get to the computer lab; with team meetings, team dinners, world cup games, and generally enjoying the tourney and the atmosphere (while trying to keep an eye on how I am feeling and what I need to do to prepare for each next game or next day), it’s quite busy. The sheer number of players here is astounding, and watching and listening to the interactions alone is enough to keep one entertained. This is a truly special experience for everyone here.

This morning, we took the first bus from our hotel to the Strahov field site and arrived with just over 30 minutes to warm up.  Wildcard was deep into their warmup and I knew immediately that this could be trouble.  They jumped out to a 6-2 lead, capitalizing on every one of our mistakes and punishing us deep repeatedly.  Their tall handlers did a fantastic job of breaking the mark and moving the disc quickly.  We brought it back closer before Wildcard took half, but Wildcard surged ahead again to go up 10-6.  This was gut check time for us and we answered in a big way, going on a 7 point run to win 13-10.  A loss in that game would have left us hoping for some kind of point differential win to get an “easier” pre-quarters game.

After a bye, we traded with Brute Squad for a bit but when they went up 7-3, we opened up our lines knowing that we still had to face an athletic Zephyr (Canada) team.  They took the game easily with their handlers breaking us repeatedly.  We did a much better job of containing their deep game than we have in the past, but Brute dispatched us rather easily.

After yet another bye, we faced Zephyr feeling like we had something to prove.  We went up 7-2 but Zephyr fought back bringing it to 8-10 at one point.  We regrouped and took the game 13-8 to take second in our power pool.

The Woodchicas (Munich) upset Zeitgeist so we will face them in pre-quarters tomorrow morning.  Winner should see UNO (Japan) in quarters as far as I know.

I am currently on the bus on the way back from trading night with an Iceni (England) jersey and a pair of shorts from a Japanese open team in hand.  Also, my personal highlight of the tournament was a Singapore player who had read a college women’s ultimate resources manual I compiled finding me at trading night and giving me a disc to thank me for sending her a copy.  Just another reminder that ultimate is bigger than me, my team, and even ultimate in the US.

Elsewhere, the Open division is going to seed with US teams proving their worth. There’s been little or no time to watch many games unfortunately so it’s hard to tell exactly who’s on form or not.  Japan’s Buzz Bullets looked impressive in their win over Invictus this morning, Clapham (UK) also seem to be coming good with their 10 point thrashing of Nomadic Tribe but  it’s hard to look past Chain or Revolver.

As a whole the tournament has had it’s highs and lows in terms of organisation. The wait for buses to get from field to field/field to accommodation is frustrating but relatively understandable. There were huge queues at the start of the week for food but it seems to have been settled now. The dorm accommodation is old school Communist block in style with two people in a small room and 6 showers a floor (with 60+ people on each floor!) but works out fine. I’d imagine today was particularly tough for organisers with huge amounts of games getting cancelled, but the new schedule was out fairly fast and I’m sure everyone is ready to get back to the most important part of the week – playing. Well, that, and having fun…

During our bye, I watched the Brute (USA)-Wildcard (Australia) game.  Brute’s “rookies” from Godiva are all great pickups (obviously) and while they’re a good team now, I’m excited to see them in 3 months.

We faced Copenhagen (Denmark) in the afternoon and went up early.  The game got pretty chippy and sloppy, which was unfortunate.  Copenhagen had knocked off Jinx in the round prior and that and Jinx’s upset of Leeds created an interesting 3-way tie for 2nd in our pool.  With only the top 3 teams advancing to the power pools, Copenhagen was knocked out based on point differential.

We face Wildcard tomorrow afternoon, then Brute and Zephyr on Wednesday.  It’s been a fun couple of days, and we’re pumped for more awesome ultimate. Also, a special shoutout to our soccer stud turned frisbee player Shelby following from home. Can’t wait to have you on the field with us! :)

The other US women’s teams won their games and Doublewide (the Texas open team) won both of their games as well.  We had a chance to watch some of Backhoe’s game and they have a small roster, but took care of business fairly easily.  Brute Squad beat Zephyr (Canada) 14-6 or so, and we did not get a chance to watch Fury, Riot, or Zeitgeist, but heard that they all won.

I’m not sure what the experiences of other teams has been, but so far, we’ve been a bit frustrated with some of the communication regarding transportation.  It’s been a bit unclear when the buses are or are not running.  Things are pretty spread out around the city, so we’re pretty reliant on the tournament buses and/or public transportation to get around.  Our hotel is also a lot “different” than what was advertised on their website.  But hey, at the end of the day, we’re trying to keep it all in perspective.  We’re at Worlds, in Prague, playing ultimate with 22 of our best friends.  So life is good.

Tomorrow we play Leeds (Great Britain) at 8:30 AM and Copenhagen (Denmark) at 12:30 PM.  If we win those games and the other pool plays out as we expect it to, we should face our friends Brute Squad in power pools.  Our relationship with them has been an interesting one (in a good way- BRUTE DOWN 2010!).  They knocked us out in Quarterfinals of the Club Championships last year and this season, we are collaborating on a big 40-team fall women’s tournament.  They played host to us at Boston Invite and we will be both be headed to ECC in August.  So we’ll be seeing them about 6 times this season, which is more than we’ll be seeing any team in our region (or in any other region) for that matter.

It’s awesome seeing Prague being totally overrun by frisbee players.  There are even billboards advertising the tournament around the city!

Updates from here on out might be a lot shorter… I can’t see what I’m typing on the screen of my iPhone, so that makes writing a little difficult… Thanks to everyone following us from home!  We love you all.

We beat the Frech squad Jack Suns 17-12. Solid overall performance. So winning tomorrow against the 4th seed of our pool will put us into the power pools. Jipiee.

Saw lots of excited and happy faces today. Met plenty of old friends. That’s one of the great things about WUCC…you get to meet people from all over and spend quality time with them.

Looking forward to an unforgetable week. Hope to catch some games tomorrow…keep rocking y’all.

Jens

Having played two games in the heat myself, I’m a bit amiss to try and recall details of matches we lost and those I sort of caught parts of, so for now I’ll share some general thoughts on the tournament.

The Venue

Prague is a nice city. What I’ve seen from bus rides, anyway. However rolling into the Stadion Strahov area you are indeed reminded that this place once was a communist stronghold. Not a bad thing by any means, but listen to the players joke about how their student dorms resemble detention cells or a mental asylum, and it’s pretty clear that it’s not the 3-star hotels we’re used to on the road.

What is notable is Stadion Srahov – Czech for “Strahov Stadium”. Imagine a soccer stadium. Now imagine instead of one pitch, there’s room for nine soccer pitches. Plus stands that can fit somewhere in the order of 200,000 people. Although there’s more vegetation than spectators up there these days. Enough negativity. The fields are flat and green, which is all you can ask for, really.

That’s the Strahov area. The other area – Vrsovice – is a 20 minute bus ride away and seems to contain all the fun stuff, but a little less of a tournament atmosphere since all the fields are long walks apart.

The Uniforms

This sport contains a lot of non-conventional uniform designs. Sure there are a bunch of league teams that have a standard colour/logo/number setup, but some of the design efforts on the jerseys here are incredible. All manner of colours can be seen – right now I can see green, purple, yellow and orange team jerseys being worn. Five Ultimate are responsible for a lot of them, with elaborate subliminated designs being the order of the week. My favourite so far – Sin City (Singapore). I’ll see if I can get a photo at some point.

That’s nice but who is playing?

Redbacks faced Ragnarok and Chevron Action Flash today. Ragnarok played us very smart. They spent the first few points taking each and every deep shot they could, and a lot of them stuck. So we concentrated on the long cuts. So they starting getting open under all the time. Schoolboy stuff, really. Chevron fell for my “make outlandish statements and get more blog hits” trap but they moved the disc very well, with about 80-90% of their throws happening within about 2-3 seconds of a catch. Chevron and Ragnarok face off tomorrow for top of the pool.

Wildcard took care of Brilliance in their game. I caught the second half, and in the sunny still conditions hucks were the throw of choice. Brilliance were trying to counter on their O with hucks as well but simply couldn’t get them to stick.

The only other game I had a chance to actually spectate was Pie Wagon versus Talinn Frisbee Club (Estonia), aka Sexy Legs. Pie Wagon went within two points of Mental Toss Flycoons earlier in the day, but Estonia got the jump on them. The windy conditions at field 30 (on top of a hill) made things tricky, and I think the artificial turf made the Newcastle players think twice about laying out for getable discs on O and D. After about 7-5 TFC’s way, Pie Wagon started to step up and play through their stars such as Jon Tatham and Clare Hussey and were playing better.

What’s on tomorrow?

Only one game for the Redbacks so plenty of spectating is on the cards. Redbacks play Absolut at 10:30am, Heads of State versus Sockeye at 12:30pm, Eastern Greys play at 2:30pm and the Chad Larson Experience vs Jeremy Codhand showcase game at 6:30pm. Right here I’ll throw in a cheap plug for my Twitter feed, where I’ll be on the sideline for those games.

On Saturday the big thing (beside the 4:0 score of Germany vs Argentina football game) was Sockeye’s throwing training. Ben, Idaho and many other Sockeye players were running quite unusual drills. It was a great opportunity to get some useful tips.

Sunday .. “Any given Sunday”. This is it. We woke up at 5:30 to get at the fields at 7:30. First game against Chaos from Canada..the team seeded #4. We are seeded #29. The game was intense and 30 degree weather too. There was no wind or even small breeze at all. We felt every point in our legs. The ‘first game’ mistakes gave our opponents the 3:0 lead. We got on the board with Wojtek’s #2 two handed layout catch from a huck of our D line. We traded some points but Canadians took off with a few more, and took half with 9:4 (i guess). In the second half Chaos got some smooth offences isolating the middle of the field with the split stack. We answered with a preety backhand huck from Lucjan #00 to Smok #11…but it was not enough. We lost 6:17. The game was very Spirited and we enjoyed it very much. We received some MVP gifts and had some nice chats – thanks guys. It was our first appearance at this kind of event and scoring 6 points against team seeded #4 is quite ok.

Second game against Frizzly Bears seeded #13. They used their wide pivots to break our marks and that was the reason we lost many points. The wind appeared which made our longer passes floaty. They took half 5:9. In this game we had to play small ball, and this was working much better. With some nice give and go movements we scored twice. In the last minutes we had three injuries in both teams, and I hope everything is fine. We lost 8:17. Our opponents gave us a badge as a gift-they got a nice logo.

That’s it for today. I’m going to watch The Game of the Day – Czech Hot Beaches vs Storm from Canada.

#00

Ultimate is growing worldwide. One of the places where the pure passion has it’s roots is Poland. The love to sport kicks it forward. Our commitment pushed us to create the first real National team in April 2010. Take a look at the tryout process to get familiar with us:

And now take a step back to 2009 and look at the club scene.
In 2009 we had our first Nationals. The best Polish team on this tournament was Grandmaster Flash from Warsaw. This was a big step – earning a spot at Worlds as a first Polish team in history.

The team was created in 2006 by the students of Bednarska High School, and soon they became the fastest developing team on Polish Ultimate scene. From day one as total youngsters, they struggled thru the tournaments step by step, to win the first one in June 2009. Wise man says – the hardest thing is not to get on top, but to stay on top. And Grandmaster Flash stay undefeated till now, by any Polish team, on any Polish outdoor tournament. Thanks to that through the series of tournaments in 2009 they won Polish Cup.
GMF is known for their great Spirit and wicked beach tournament called Sandslash. Third edition of this event will be held in August 2010. They are also coordinating Warsaw League Ultimate and working on a junior program in their High School.

I’m preety objective cause I’m sort of a pickup for Grandmasters. Originally I’m one of the captains of Astro Disco team. I always remember we had some great intense games against GMF, while off the field we are very close. Check the full game video from the last matchup from May 2010:

#00

We are the only European club team to travel to America in search of high competition, and though our journeys have not always yielded victories, they have proved seminal to the club’s development.  Younger players realise they can run with the elite and the senior players get to scout new tactics and strategies.  Expensive as the trips may be, they keep us ticking over and provide incentives for new players.  The most recent crop of young players I think is our best. They are keen and full of ethusiasm. they enjoy the game, which is great.  not that i don’t enjoy it, but i am sure you know what i mean.

Anyhow, like other contributors, I am not sure how much insight I will really be bringing to this column. i’ll no doubt give summaries of the games we play, and descriptions of the general scene.  Four days til we fly.  last training tuesday, tabatas and other light sessions to ease us in. Carb loading and the rest of it.  Let’s see what the week brings.

OB

I am starting to feel the excitment. WUCC is one special event and this year will see the best competition WUCC ever had to offer!!! Bring it on y’all!!!!!

Jens #91 M.U.C.

Venezuelan teams have an annual battle in obtaining visas to leave their country, and I expect that this is probably why they won’t be in Prague. This same reason kept them out of ECC ‘09.

We (Sockeye) were lucky enough to be able to play them twice in Medellin’s great TEP tournament, and we know them to be fierce competitors with outrageous athleticism. They have a few terrifying players, but what we were excited about was that their full team has a depth and conviction that would have made them our top pick to rise massively in the WUCC rankings. While we might breathe a little sigh of relief (Warao was scheduled to be in our initial pool, so we might have been their first victim) it would have been really fun to watch, play and party with them.

Here’s hoping that the tournament directors can find a fill in team on short notice to join in the fun. Our thoughts go out to Warao, who must be tremendously disappointed…someday soon we will play again!

blw (Sockeye)

First off, my name’s Ben Spears and I live in Atlanta, GA, USA (proud host of the ‘96 Olympics). I learned about competitive ultimate in college in Washington, DC (played for the “g-dub” Hippos) and this is my fifth Chain Lightning season. The city of Atlanta has had a great ultimate culture for several decades – thanks mainly to organizers, lots of talent, and spirited played throughout the area – its no accident that elite teams do well here (including Ozone and others).

Coming off last year’s national championship, expectations and hopes for Chain Lightning 2010 are high. That championship and this Worlds trip are firsts for most of my teammates… and while I expect Chain to be in a good place this Fall to defend the UPA/USAU championship, the Worlds tournament is a rare opportunity for international competition and camaraderie — strong emphasis on both.

What I’m hoping to talk about in short and possibly rambling bursts during Worlds is the following:

1. the feel of international ultimate games, including communication, gift-giving, and general spirit between competing teams on the field
2. the Worlds experience, like having a week-long schedule of ultimate, leisure, tourism, and partying
3. the inter-cultural social scenes we find ourselves in in Prague, such as world cup bars and dance clubs, impromptu singing and storytelling on shuttles, sideline games and more

Since I’m starting my Europe travel tonight, I have already packed, made a list of my goals at the tournament, and printed my boarding pass. I’m excited! Feel free to send along ideas or questions, feedback or encouragement. I’m at benjamin (dot) spears (at) gmail (dot) com.

Looking forward to traveling, playing, and huddle-ing!

a) I’m not sure what you want to read (you’ll already have scores, write-ups, etc)

b) I don’t want to give away trade secrets (or say something that my fellow captains would consider helpful to another team– my fellow captains are paranoid), and

c) I feel like I should be saying “something smart” (I lean towards dumb and simple or rambling)

     With that said, I’ve decided that our trade secrets are really quite simple concepts– nothing new– and that I could offer a more intimate look into how a club team competing at Worlds thinks and operates. So here we go. On to the blogging!

     If you didn’t know already, Sockeye has had a ton of turnover in the past few years, losing more superstars than many teams dream of having. You know the names- Nord, Chase, etc – and now the roster is filled with a lot of people who’ve never been featured on Ultivillage DVDs or played in a National or World Final. This year’s team was faced with the difficult task of discovering its own identity, one that every player — from the seasoned veterans like Bestock and MC to the young noobs like Frank Barich and Phil Murray — could feel a part of. This isn’t an easy task, but for Sockeye, is an absolutely essential element.

     And this is one of the “trade secrets” I was talking about above. I’ve never been a part of a more cohesive team than Sockeye. More work is spent on creating ways to bro-out, act like morons together and create perhaps the dumbest inside jokes than I thought possible. And trust me, it is work. But it’s this relentless enthusiasm for the game and for each other that allows the team to practice and train as much as it does, consistently bordering on too much, and without it I do not believe Sockeye would compete at the level that it does.

     An example: as a warmup, we often start practices with a mini-game, 4 on offense and 3 on defense, played in tiny rectangular field that is only about 3-4 yards narrow and 15-20 yards long. Start at one end, try to get to the other, normal ultimate rules, that’s it. Way, way more fun than any warmup I had known before joining, and one of many of the small things that make Sockeye a team that simply enjoys the game of ultimate.

     Another example: our new, crazy offense. In Marc Seraglia’s (of Furious) words, “Your offense looks terrible.” He might have said “worse than ever,” but you get the jist. Basically, we barely know what’s going on. It’s like free form jazz without the structure. Watch us, and if you can figure it out, I will buy you a Pilsner and then you can explain it to me. A lot of it is based on the principle that most every member of Sockeye plays some form of small-sided disc game often, be it Mini or Goaltimate, and there’s a level of creativity and skill there to leverage and apply to ultimate. Simply put, we find what we enjoy, and try to do that, a lot.

     Last example: we overdo it at tournaments. Some teams mandate staying in, no drinking, stay healthy for Sunday. We did the opposite this year; in Texas we had already mapped out our downtown bar crawl routes and bought Seattle Hoops basketball jerseys (fitting, since our offense uses basketball terminology) before arriving, and we made Flowerbowl a “Big Buck Hunter” themed tournament, with half the team hitting the town on Saturday night as hunters and the other half as game. Did staying out late hurt us in the finals? Maybe. But was it an overall win to create those relationships and that trust that are now our foundation? Undoubtedly.

     This gives some insight into Sockeye2010. For us, smiles creates success, rather than vice versa. If you can tell we’re having fun playing the game, we’re probably playing as best as we can, and we’ve found that this makes for a much more enjoyable and rewarding season than one based upon fear of punishment or a results-based enjoyment of any particular game or play.

     Current seeds would (I think) put us (5) with Australia’s Heads of State (20), an unknown team to be determined(29), and the Dominican Republic’s Domino(44). [updated 6/24 with correct teams] What to expect of these teams? We’ve seen Domino recently in Colombia, and know their athleticism and talent can give any team fits when they’re on, and Australia always field incredible teams, so that should be a great game as well. Having a TBD team in our pool is fitting, as we’re going in focused on us rather than who our opponent is, and on playing our game throughout the tourney– fast, fun, and fair.

     Finally, what to expect from me at Worlds? Well, logistically, I hope there’s easy computer access/WIFI in the dorms. Given that, you can expect daily recaps of our games, notable events, and insight into what the players are seeing around the tourney as best as I can give. 13 days till first games!

TK

tkinley@gmail.com <– email me if you want any specific focus or info, feedback is helpful and encouraged!

ps- on a personal note, I worry that the “Sockeye Throwing Happy Hour” comes across as pretentious, or snooty, or something other than what we intended, as if we’re the masters of throwing or something. We aren’t. But, we have developed some drills that have helped us get a bit more out of every day throwing, and we think sharing them, as well as creating an event for people to meet, get in some throws, and get off to a great start would be fun, and we hope it ends up that way.

I’m not blessed with the skills and athleticism of some of the other authors here, but my passion for the game runs just as deep as anyone else’s. Those who knows me would refer to me as an “ultimate nerd”. I don’t disagree for one minute, but I much prefer to be thought of as an “ultimate fan”. As well as playing and enjoying ultimate, I love to watch top level teams in action and dissect what their gameplan and playing style is. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve watched the likes of Colony, Heads of State, Dublin, Chevron Action Flash, Clapham and Fire of London in the flesh. Throw in the online clips and highlights and that list gets much bigger. Off-field the aspect of WUCC I’m looking forward to the most is inter-continental match ups – how do the South Americans defend Asian dynamic offence? Will the conservative European offence be more effective than the risk-taking Australian style? And can anyone topple the North Americans?

In between Redbacks games I’ll be doing my best to catch the games between higher seeds and other games I think will be close. As well as posting to my own website Force Sideline throughout the week, I’ll also be stopping in here to give you a fan’s perspective on the tournament – who is playing well, who isn’t, who is punching above their weight and who could be doing better. I’m sure there will be plenty of coverage for the well known teams, so if there are any other teams you would love to read up on, get in touch with me (forcesideline at gmail dot com) and I’ll do my best to report back.

Dear WUCC players,

The Seattle Sockeye are having a throwing practice on Saturday, July 3rd, where we will be doing many of the best throwing drills that we have developed and learned. As part of the experience that is WUCC, we’d like to invite all interested players and teams to join us for a Throwing Mini-Camp.

If you are interested in learning new ways to work on your throws, come join us at 6.30pm at the park fields at Strahov area after the Captain’s Meeting. These fields are near the main Strahov field site, but further to the west (20 minutes walk from the Check-in). There will be few Czech players waiting in front of the Check-In to pick you up at 6.00pm and take you there.

Jaime ‘Idaho’ Arambula will lead a session of the 20-minute ‘Ninja Throwing’ routine, and Ben Wiggins will lead a group through the ‘Zen Throwing’ routine. Sockeye players will be around to answer questions, possibly run a few light drills, and analyze throwing form if you would like. Or, just come to throw with us as a warm-up for a huge week!

Questions/comments/greetings? Write us at info@seattlesockeye.org
Bring a disc if you have one, cleats are optional. Free for all WUCC and Czech Ultimate players.

We hope this is a great way to get ready for the Day 1 games, to meet new friends and to give back some of the Ultimate knowledge that we have been fortunate enough to learn. See you on the 3rd!

-Seattle Sockeye

My name is Mark Earley and I’m an Irish player based in Dublin. I’m delighted to be reporting from Prague for The Huddle and am looking forward to what is shaping up to be an incredible week for all involved.

So where to start…well, I’ve been playing Ultimate for 10 years now and it’s still as much fun as it was at the beginning. I began playing in college in Dublin and have been playing non-stop since then. I’ve played club, hat and major tournaments across Europe and spent a year playing in Australia (where I found the standard to be phenomenal!). I’ve captained Ireland on a few occasions and relish matching up against the best teams in the world. This is my first World Clubs Championships and I’m really excited to see how it will differ from a WUGC.

In Prague I’ll be representing Ireland in the Open Division with Dublin Ultimate. The Open division is overflowing with talent from all around the globe so it’s going to be a pretty interesting week. Lots of European teams will feel like they have something to prove, especially playing in their own backyard but its hard to see past the strength and depth of the US and Japanese teams. The Australians are likely to have a thing or two to say come the end of the week as well!

From my team’s point of view – we’ve had a good build up with two tough tournaments in the UK under our belts along with months of training and fitness. We lost 4 players due to work/injury in the fortnight before the rosters were finalised leaving us with only 14 but we’re confident that we’ve put in the hard yards on the track that will stand to us. We’ve been seeded behind a number of teams we think we can beat and a recent win versus Raganarok has given us even more belief. We’ve worked hard for this week and are really hoping to take a couple of scalps. The team is made up of many Irish internationals and a few newer, younger players who will be playing at this level for their first time. We can’t wait to get to the Czech Republic and soak up the atmosphere, play some tough games and enjoy ourselves too.

This summer is a big summer for Irish Ultimate with 2 teams playing at WUCC – Dublin Ultimate (Open) and Little Miss Sunshine (Women), a team in each division at the World Under 23 Ultimate Frisbee Championships in Florence (Italy) and a Juniors Open team at the World Junior Championships in Heilbronn (Germany). The sport is growing every year here in Ireland and having been part of the Irish Flying Disc Association’s committee for many years its really amazing to see how much growth has taken place. Irish teams have progressed from partying hard to playing hard and are now capable of doing both! The standard is being driven higher by players all around the country from Belfast to Cork and back. It’s an exciting time to be a part of the Irish Ultimate scene and hopefully the two teams in Prague will be able to do the recent growth proud.

Worlds is a massive tournament and we’re really lucky to be able to represent Ireland at it. Dublin Ultimate will be working hard to do as well as we can and once the games are over we’ll be at the centre of the party too. We are looking forward to playing against new teams, meeting new players and doing our best. With under two weeks to go, the excitement is palpable.

Finally, if you want to get in touch for any reason please drop me a mail at earley.mark(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Take care and hope to see you in Prague,

Mark

It’s a great pleasure and honor to be able to participate in the Huddle’s initiative to bring to all of you Ultimate fans the most up to date information about what is going on at the WUCC 2010 at Prague. Here’s a little bit about me to get things started:

My name is Paolo Chiappin, but you’ll usually see me sign as Logan Pendragon. Whatever your opinion on pseudonyms, this is how you’ll usually recognize me on-line.

My team is Brazzinga from Brazil and we’ll be playing in the Mixed division at the WUCC. The team is a ragtag bunch of players from quite a few walks of life. Some have been at Worlds at least once before, including our captain, Luis Fazani. Most have not. The sport of Ultimate in Brazil is still not anywhere near as known and played as in places like the US, Canada or Europe, and while we do have people that love the sport, we don’t have very many on teams that participate in tournaments. Of these few teams, none are sponsored. The group we are taking to Prague is a selection of seasoned and somewhat new players. We are a remarkably excited group that have come together to train with the goals of developing the sport further in Brazil and to face off against some of the best in the world. We hope to learn as much as we can from everyone there while at it. We also hope to surprise those who watch our games and those that play against us. Mostly though, we want to have a great time and we would like to show just how much we love this sport. With what we learn there, we want to come home and take the next step in developing ourselves while working at getting more people to come out and join our sport.

Over the last 12 years I’ve played quite a bit of Ultimate. “Played” being the operative word, since for 8 of those years most of what I did was try to get people to learn the sport and have some fun. I spent a lot time teaching new kids and trying to get them to come back, but not really practicing or developing myself.

I learned about Ultimate in high school and played on the school team for a year and a half before it disbanded due to most of our members graduating together. I was left as one of the few passionate kids who tried to get new students to come out to build a new team, but it was just not meant to be. The things I learned best during this time were about the Spirit of the Game, Fair Play, and the Fun of Ultimate. These are the three lessons that, above all other things, I try to teach anyone who plays with me.

So that’s what I did for 8 years. I didn’t want to join any teams – I wanted to start them. Get the sport out there. It was after many bad experiences that, many years later, it all paid off. USP (the University of São Paulo) now has a new team. I’m just recently back in college and playing with the team I helped put together. This is our second year together competing, and the third practicing. It’s with them that I began training to improve my game. Since we are a Mixed team and I wanted to get more practice time in there, I also put together a new (Open) team: Dragons. Then early this year I also joined Brazzinga. It’s with these three that I have begun to really dedicate myself to becoming the best player I can be. The WUCC is the next step in that direction.

This is my first time abroad since I came to live in Brazil and my first time participating in an event that is organized by the WFDF. So I guess my perspective will be quite fresh as to what is going on at the games, especially since my experience in the sport is very restricted to the game’s style and level as it is played in Brazil. So maybe a bit of what I write will feel like I just had a the rush of adrenaline from riding my first roller-coaster. I ask that you bare with me and I’ll do my best not to let that be the only thing that you get from reading my posts.

Please feel free to write to me and share your thoughts. You can reach me at:
loganpendragon (at) gmail (dot) com.

In the meantime go play some Ultimate and remember to have fun.

Logan Pendragon

A little bit about me and my perspective: I am a former captain of the UC Berkeley and University of Texas women’s teams, as well as a former captain of Bay Area Slackjaw.  Last year was my first season on Showdown, and I am privileged to be captaining the team this year with my good friend Tina Woodings, and one of my ultimate mentors (and outgoing captain) Cara Crouch.  I am a (mostly) O-line handler and I love all things ultimate- you’d be hard pressed to find me without a disc in my hands.  In the offseason, I run several college women’s tournaments around the country.  My passion is the growth and development of women’s ultimate.

Our team’s path to qualifying for Worlds was a bit of a rocky one.  We had a rough pre-Series season last year, with an extremely poor showing at Colorado Cup, and less-than-impressive performances at Chesapeake Open and Chicago Heavyweights.  We then went undefeated at Sectionals and beat Regional rival Atlanta Ozone for the first time in our team’s history to win the South Region.  At the Club Championships, we beat Ozone and Zeitgeist twice each en route to a 5th place finish to qualify for Worlds.

Our Worlds roster is a mix of our 2009 roster (some of whom will be retiring after Worlds), new pickups for our 2010 roster (including Amanda Berens, a former Showdown captain, who is back after a year of traveling), and two members of our ATL-pod, Kate Wilson and Angela Lin.  We had the privilege of hosting Texas Shootout in May and seeing fellow Worlds-qualifiers Fury, Riot, and Zeitgeist, and then made the trip to Boston Invite two weeks ago, going 6-1 including a come-from-behind win against the vastly underseeded Lotus (who is basically the Capitals).  We played LeedsLeedsLeeds in a preview of a Worlds pool play game, and we are looking forward to playing them again, as well as seeing a bevy of new teams.

Something that makes our team unique is that we have players in a number of Texas cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, College Station, and San Antonio.  As someone who is still relatively new to this team, I am amazed at how well this works.  This requires a lot of commitment from our players to work on individual skills in our “pods,” and also to drive hours for our 10-hour weekend practices.  This might sound like a lot of work (and it is!), but the camaraderie on this team is unlike any other team I’ve ever been on.  We love each other and celebrate our differences as what make us a unique, tightly-knit team.

For us, Worlds is an opportunity to do what we love best: playing ultimate with each other.  While we have trained hard and want to do well at this tournament, this week is just another (awesome) step in building our team and our program.  We’re still a relatively young team and we’re anxious to carve a permanent place for ourselves among the nation’s elite.  To view our roster and read more about our team’s mission, please visit our new website at: http://showdownultimate.com.  Family, friends, and fans- we love you and appreciate your support!

The process for deciding how we redraft and amend the rules is generally based on several factors:

• making the rules as easy to understand as possible
• reflecting how the game is actually played
• reducing unnecessary stoppages
• tying up any loop holes we discover
• trying to align with the USA Ultimate (UPA) Rules

We have members who are on both the WFDF committee and UPA SRC so we are in quite a good position to be able to remove as many unnecessary differences between the WFDF and UPA Rules. For a sport with such a relatively small player base it seems strange to have two different sets of rules being used. I hope that one day we could all use the same rules, but I’m not sure how we will manage that. At the very least it would be good to remove as many as the noticeable differences between the two rules sets, which I think we are moving towards.

I got involved in the rules committee because I was quite passionate about the rules. As a self refereed sport I think that knowing and understanding the rules is hugely important. Sadly it’s almost all I think about. I recall waking up one night and fretting that I didn’t know how to resolve a specific scenario! I find the best way to learn the rules is to look them up. When something happens on the field that you aren’t sure about, don’t just rely on hearsay to know what to do. After the game, grab a copy of the rules and look it up.

I have been watching with interest what is happening in America with the use of Observers. It seems that there is a push for more and more of the calls to be in the control of the Observers, rather than the players. To me, this is a move away from Ultimate being a self-refereed sport, and to my knowledge, is not something WFDF is considering.

At World Games WFDF used Line Assistants to help players make calls about in/out and up/down (as well as make hand signals of what calls the players were making for the benefit of spectators/commentators). I thought this was a really good step that enabled players to make calls based on the best advice available.

I am interested in seeing if we can add to this role by allowing players to ask the Line Assistants questions about specific rules, but still leave the final decision up to the players. If players aren’t sure what a rule, is or what the correct interpretation is, they could ask a Line Assistant. The Line Assistant wouldn’t give their opinion on what had actually happened in a play, rather they could describe the rule that was relevant to that particular incident and leave the players to make the final decision. Too often players make calls that are actually not based on the rules.

My hope is that we can have a system where players can self referee, based on the most accurate information possible. So if someone isn’t sure if the disc was caught in bounds – ask someone who had a good perspective. If players can’t agree if the stall count is supposed to come in on 6 or 9, ask someone who knows. But I think these types of roles would only be needed at high level championships.

But that is as far as I would like it to go. I don’t think that self refereeing is just some nice feel good idea about how you can play sport; I actually think it is a really good way to fairly adjudicate sport. The part of playing a self refereed sport that I enjoy the most is that players are never trying to do something illegal while the referee isn’t looking, or faking that something happened when it didn’t.

Admittedly self-refereeing doesn’t always work and it can be abused by those who want to cheat, but referees don’t always get calls right either. However it should be difficult for just one player to bias a game with bad calls, as EVERYONE should act as a referee. It’s the one thing that I see that annoys me the most – players knowing their teammate did the wrong thing, or made the wrong call, and not saying anything. If you see a teammate make a bad call – you should tell them!

Note regarding WFDF Rules:

WFDF Rules will be used at WUCC 2010 in Prague. Players can find these rules here: http://www.wfdf.org/index.php?page=rules/index.htm.

There is also a new WFDF Rules Website here: http://www.wfdf.org/rules_ultimate which highlights the differences between USA Ultimate and WFDF Rules (also available here in PDF format: http://www.wfdf.org/rules/WFDF_2009_v_UPA_11_Rules.pdf)

The key new differences are regarding “Travel” and “Marking” Infractions. Videos for these rules can be found on the Rules Website, and here: http://www.youtube.com/user/wfdfultimaterules

Reuben Berg is the Chair of the WFDF Ultimate Rules Committee. He was the Captain of Australia at AOUC 2007, as well as the Assistant Coach of the Dingos and WUGC 2008, and of Australia at The World Games 2009.