It’s currently 8pm in Prague and I’m sitting outside a bar at the Strahov dorms. The weather has cooled down somewhat and a nice breeze has been rolling through. Day 1 of WUCC 2010 is over (for the best part) and the hundreds of players staying here are settling in. To the bars, that is.

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.

The first thing you’ve got to know about Worlds is that it is extremely HUGE!
We came to Prague on Friday and saw billboards! advertising WUCC with a photo of layout by Iceni player. There were a lot of volunteers in those sweet yellow jerseys which were able to show us the way to check-in, and at the old town you could see teams enjoying the beautiful city.

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

With kind invitation from the Huddle, I will be contributing thoughts and perspectives on the ongoings of WUCC developments on behalf of Clapham Ultimate.  My name is Ollie Benjamin, and have been a part of the squad since I moved to London in 2002, leaving an infamous Santa Cruz Banana Slugs frisbee team behind. That seems some time ago.  What struck me when I first arrived was CU’s no nonsense, balls out devotion to hard trainings.  Results were a reflection of a refinement of the basics and high fitness.  Years have ticked along and the squad i think holds 3 or 4 of those years, but the ethos is ever the same - bleed for the team and the team bleeds for you (no santa barbara refernce intended here).  The club is a good one. i like it. 

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

…over the weekend the first team/players from abroad are flogging to the Munich area. The Munich Open team M.U.C. will scrimmage against Colony and Heads of State from Down Under on Monday and Wednesday.
Looking forward to sharing some quality time and some beers with the Aussi blokes.

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.