Nationals Seeding

1. Bravo - I think they earned it. Only loss to JAM at Labor Day. I put more weight on ECC.
2. JAM - Should be #1?
3. Sockeye - Last Year's Champs
4. Furious George - Last year's finalist.
5. Condors
6. Sub Zero
7. Boston
8. Ring
9. GOAT
10. Doublewide
11. Chain Lightning
12. Rhino
13. Truckstop
14. Machine
15. Pike
16. Van Buren Boys

Pool A
Bravo
Ring
GOAT
Van Buren Boys

Seems like a pretty easy pool.

Pool B
JAM
Boston
Doublewide
Pike

Could be interesting pool.

Pool C
Sockeye
Subzero
Chain Lightning
Machine

Looks like the pool of death. I can see any of the top three seeds winning the pool, though Sockeye has the advantage.

Pool D
Furious George
Condors
Rhino
Truckstop

Should be a good pool.

Central Regionals - Recap

We'll start with the games first, and then for those who care, I'll do a review of regionals in Tulsa.

As most know, it was two pools of seven. Top two crossover to play semi's with winners getting their tickets punched to Sarasota.

Saturday Recap

Game 1 - Forget who, but it was 11-4
Game 2 - Forget who again, looked it up. Apparently Van Buren Boys. 11-4. yea. Cruise over to watch Frontline and Madcow battling it out and madcow pulls out the win 12-10 after being tied at 10's.
Game 3 - Forget who. 11-4?

Game 4 - Subzero. Looking at the regionals and know that BAT, Madcow, and Frontline were battling it out in the other pool to not play Subzero...we made a decision. Let's just play ultimate, make the points short and quick and not expend too much energy as our energy will be best served on Sunday. We also wanted to try out a bit of strategy and see how it worked out during the points. SZ beats us 11-5. We cruise on over to watch Madcow and BAT battle it out.

Game 5 - A few of us take this game off to get ice and let the yoursters play. 11-1

Sunday

Game 6 - Illinois 11-2 - The rains started coming down early in the morning pretty hard at times during this game and we just rolled them. Being a young team they had trouble with a wet disc.

So the semi's are set up SZ vs BAT, and Machine vs. Madcow.

SZ finishes off BAT pretty easily and quickly, maybe 15-6?

We start off well against Madcow. 5-1. A few calls here and there and welcome to the game to go, without observers. Madcow starts a bit of a run. They are going up wind and move the disc to the corner of the endzone to try and break our O team. The player tries a break mark backhand that is partially point blocked and the wind catches it hangs. O Player barely gets his finger tips on it while falling down backwards and calls foul on our player behind him. I get a bit upset to say the least as I was in the corner and had a great view. It was a horrible foul call and have a few words to let him know as you know in that situation they aren't going to take it back.

A couple points later we are going upwind, Kreece puts a nice flick up, but it hangs a bit so it becomes a bit crowded. I hang in the back to try and mop up in case it is misread by the tall people. It's looking like a really good choice and I get ready to jump and get clocked in the shoulder and head and only get a chance to recover and see the disc fall a 5 -7 feet away from me as I most likely would have either gotten it in the air or ran it down if I didn't get clocked. Have to call foul on that, knowing what was about to happen and what the outcome would be...I refused to argue the call and left it up to them to contest or not contest. So the disc goes back after a couple minutes of being called a cheater, etc. Hence the reason for not arguing with them. We end up turning it over, they score, we are up 6-3. Oh, go figure that the guy who clocked me was the same one who called the foul earlier.

Next point a nice huck goes up that would have made it 7-3, but the receiver drops it in the endzone. Madcow scores to make it 6-4.

We take half 8-6, I believe. We trade out to about 11-9 when our O is about to get broken and Bjorn makes a sweet layout D. He basically made the cut for the O and the throw was crappy. O player calls foul on the play since he had to jump into Bjorn to try and get to the disc before Bjorn. That was a great D Bjorn.

Move ahead to 12 - 10, caps are coming on soon and the game because slow and moving slow. We score to make it 13-10.

13 - 10. We generate a turn, I pick up the disc in our endzone walk to the line on the backhand side, pick called, so I survey the field knowing the hard cap is coming soon, and if we are going to turn it we are going to turn it in their endzone to waste some time. I see what I want the receiver takes off and I put up a huge breakmark backhand huck down the line. Kolb runs it down, 4 feet from the endzone (weany arm) while everyone from SZ was yelling for him to layout...bummer. We end up turning it over on their endzone.

We are playing great D and Vijay gets a huge layout block 10 yards from their endzone. Another foul called...another BAD foul called...at least according to everyone on the sideline and anyone else who say the play. Vijay was not happy to say the least :) The take the disc back, a huck goes up that is missed. Move the disc down the field, I get it and move it to Vijay....Vijay throws the goal to end the point. Fittingly.

We get a turn and score, game 15-10.

Finals against Sub Zero.

During the warmups, it is pooring, then it stops right before teh game. We get broken and trade to 3-3 and it is pouring again with us going up wind in down poor. Kreece puts up a great flick to Vijay and Vijay throws the goal. Huge point. however, lighting is seen...so it is a 30 minute delay.

It has cleared up now only slightly raining and we come down in Zone. We get the turn after someone drops in near our goal line. We move teh disc up field and I get the disc and see Kolb cutting for the hammer...i get a bit excited and the hammer comes out bad, turnover....SZ scores...4-4. They break our O for 5-4...and continue to take half 8-4.

We start on D and they score, 9-4. We score, get a couple breaks, make it 10-7. Then a couple more errors and SZ 15-7. All in all, they made plays, we didn't.


General Thoughts

SZ is a young team that is athletic. I'm not sure that they quite have the skill level to take out the top 4 teams. However, if anyone of those teams overlook them, they will. I liked the way they played, most of the time.

Machine - We are still growing as a team. Saw some good things this weekend. We are capable of doing good things and we'll see how we do in Sarasota. If we can put together a whole game or two at Nationals, we'll do alright.

Van Buren Boys...interesting. They beat BAT 15-10 in the game to play the winner of Madcow vs Front Line for the 3 seed. I was not impressed. Sorry.

Madcow - Had to follow a tough game with us with Frontline to get to play VBB. I think they won 15-13? Then looks like they had a tough game with VBB at 15-13. I think they are a better team than VBB, but probably ran out of gas...just a guess as I didn't see the game. But running in mud against FL while VBB watched, couldn't have helped out.

Strategy Notes

Making sure no one played too much and taking it easy against SZ i think helped us out against Madcow who had a tough pool. (Then again, all three qualifiers were from our pool). As it really didn't matter to us who we played, BAT, MAdcow, Frontline...all the same....so why waste energy.

Madcow. Gotta give them props for trying to battle back...but was that really a smart idea? Maybe if they mailed it in and saved their energy, they would be going to Nationals...but win and you're in, right. I bet that is what BAT was thinking playing SZ.

Tulsa recap

1. There were no Observers for the Semi's, or any other playin game. Coming from the NW, that was different. Whether or not that is the RC's fault, or not...don't know. However, if at all possible, there should be observers at EVERY game to go. I've heard about Central for the past few years, and just got a taste. It's not very good. Spirit...is dead...imho...save that for coed and summer tourneys.

2. Semi's Start - There was no schedule or RC to tell us where to play the Semi's until 15 minutes before game time. unacceptable.

3. Fields - Ankle breakers, imo, and not very flat. They were reasonable soft, but that is probably due to them being muddy from all the rain.

4. Beer - Good.

5. Growth of the sport, Tulsa - Well, if you consider placing the tournament 30-40 minutes outside of town in a pretty isoloated soccer complex, then you might want to rethink using this as a point. I'm pretty sure no one in tulsa even had a clue we were there, if a tree falls.... I'd say somewhat similar to going to "Chicago" for CHC...it wasn't Chicago, and where we were was not Tulsa.

6. Flights - Very limited flights to Tulsa. Ours was delayed 2 hours, from Chicago due to AC issues, so not Tulsa's fault, however, there was only one other flight we could have caught if a plane was not able to be found. So...that's not good.

Latest flights out of Tulsa are about 6, I feel bad for Madison, Madcow, and VBB (though they probably drove).

7. Food - seemed to be limited, but where we ate was good at Peppers.

8. Tournament amenities, etc. 2 of the johns were jsut plane horrible. So that left like 4 good ones for 30+ teams. Water - was there water, other than the rain? there were some bagels and fruits, yea!

Overall ranking, from the UPA to RC to the Tournament itself - F. Simply the worst tournament I have been to in the past seven years. I don't mean to hurt feelings...and don't bother with the...do it yourself...but if you are willing to take on the responsibility...do it right.

that's all, for now.

Thought of the day

I'll give Frank a bit of credit. Ultimate is somewhat stagnant at this point. O's and D's are pretty standard, even the old new horizontal O. At least that is my general feeling.

Does this mean we should play dischoops...I'll have to go with a no.

The interesting question to me is why is ultimate stagnant in terms of strategy of O and D? I chalk it up mostly to the fact that ultimate is still a fringe sport. This means that players do not get to practice year round (ie no one is paid). I feel this severely impedes the progress on O and D that could and should be made from year to year. Therefore, to implement a new strategy you are looking at a minimum 2 year, if not 3-4 year implementation process.

A couple good examples. ( I think)

Furious George. The spread offense (not necessarily crediting them for creating it) took them a few years to implement into a winning strategy. Once everyone was on the same page and knew where/when to cut, they became a dominant team. But they weren't able to do so in year one. It took them a couple of years to get it together, along with their skills improving.

Buzz Bullets. In 2002 at worlds, if i recall correctly, they finished 9th. Which was the highest non US finishing team. Fast forward to worlds 2006 and ECC 2007. The defense that I had seen at worlds in 2002 they had now 'perfected' and played the finals of ECC. I'm sure, even though I wasnt at ECC that their skills had also improved.

In this time of instant gratification, I think many teams may be somewhat unwilling to take a long term approach to new O and D strategies as opposed to using the tried and true strategies. Which then somewhat comes down to who has the better athletes.

as for CHC. just a building block. Cant wait for regionals.

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General Musings

Since last post...played one more co-ed tourney...Sandblast....which was a blast. We lost in the Semi's to Dago Tea. We came out slow and they played well to start...and hung on to win while we made a pretty good comeback.

Only bad thing about sandblast was it was so hot the sand burned your feet. Had to wear socks or some other type of protection otherwise your feet would get scorched.

Been practicing with Chicago so far and feel pretty good. Just now really starting to get in shape, so that is nice. I have been able to keep my intensity pretty high so far...however, this season already seems longer than last season...not sure why that is as of yet.

Colorado Cup is next weekend...right now I'm not going, but that could change as I'd love to go and see many friends and see where we are and where we could be by the end of the season.

That's it for now.
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Poultry Days

This was my first Poultry Days in...6 years? and it was definitely worth it.

We show up late Friday night to Heritage Park and it is like home sweet home. Poultry Days was the very first tourney I attended outside of a sectionals/regionals in college so I was anxious to get back.

We manage to get our tent set up and decide to go touring around 2 am to see who is still up. We manage to run into some OU (my alma mater) personnel who is also hanging out with the one and only Garrett (sp) and end up over at the Chicken Pax tent hanging out. Wookie, who I played with at KK this past year invited me to play with Pax for the weekend, seeing as though I hadn't committed to a team...so, I figured....why the heck not.

I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out and playing with Wookie, Jay and John , AJ, Robbie , Taylor, Cade, Sam, Nate-Dog, Cricket, McConnell. Even though we had only four girls, Adrien, Rachel, Trucks, and one other (her name escapes me right now), they really brought it. Rachel had any number of sweet D's.

Those players, man, are damn good. Coming from the west coast I may be a bit jaded, but, damn they are good and it was fun.

So, on Saturday, we cruz through our first two games. Our third game, for whatever reason, becomes a game. Baked Beach Chicken was up on us 10-8, and we ended up winning 13-11. Squeaking out a win. Our final was another cakewalk. Unfortunately, our point diff wasn't that great and we got seeded against Cock Ringers (Chicago) in the Pre Q's. Not exactly a great draw.

Our Pre Q's was a good game. Cock went up early 5-2 before Jay calls a genius TO. We eventually went on a 6 point run and ended up winning 13-11 in a very good game.

Second Game was against the NUTC team, Declucktor with Dylan, BVH, and Simpson. We take an early lead and build on it. They make a valiant comeback, but we still are able to take the win at 13-11 (10?) on a fantastic hammer from Jay to me :). I also roll my ankle which limits me in the semi-final :(

On to the Semi's against the smurfs. We come out, not really playing, and they take advantage...and it wasn't really close as they rolled us for the most part. Nothing too exciting to me...other than they seemed to want it more...but, whatever...they won and had a great tourney.

AJ is definitely interesting to talk strategy with. Very insightful. Especially with John and Jay adding their quips :)

co-ed. Well I did have a good time playing. We'll leave it at that.

P-Days is definitely a great tourney.



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Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz was awesome. As Brian said, there is no place where it is foggy, and 30 minutes later you have one of the most awesome views in the ultimate world.

So this is my perspective, right or wrong. I went into SC not expecting to play much, just wanted to hang out with old teammates, and hopefully contribute some. I think I played 10 points over 6 games, which is completely fine by me as I was not in shape. Maybe I'm getting old, but I enjoyed watching and viewing the strategy employed at different times. (working on my head coaching capabilities).

First game we started off against Condors. We came out flat, and they played...well...they played. They beat us. Nothing overly impressive, but somehow they do manage to bring out the best in each other, which is impressive.

Next up is Sockeye. They take an early lead...that's pretty much it. They go on to win 15-8ish. They had a couple of their 'tryouts' who were pretty darn good.

Fast forward to Sunday...get to play JAM in the Q's. We come out a bit flat, they play well enough, go on to win 15-10. The score is not really indicative, and I'll leave it at that for now.

Played Entourage/Monster and crushed them..not much too it.

Unfortunately we had to play during the Finals, so I can't comment too much on them. But I did see some of the JAM/Sockeye games.

Sockeye is the team to beat this year. With their new recruits and their core...they are just better than everyone else. I would follow it up with Furious/Bravo...and if Chain picks up another couple players...they might make a big impact.

It is a great tourney. I mostly got to watch, which was fine by me and can't wait to see what revolver does this fall once they get together with their new pickups. :)

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General Ramblings - Touches

How to become a great thrower. Well, I don't know that I am exactly the best person to answer that question. That being said, I have had the opportunity to play with a number of (whom I would consider) great throwers in my short career.

I have had numerous conversations with these throwers always trying to improve my throws and add additional throws. As an example, Idris' post regarding hammers led me to improve my blades and hammers, which has definitely paid dividends.

The first point of becoming a good thrower is your grip. This is definitely something I have struggled with.

The second point is repetition, repetition, repetition.

However, the problem any number of throwers have is that their form is not good (not that mine is). So they end up practicing bad form, over and over. Some people are able to break it easily, others are not so. I am fortunate to have used an idea from Idris to improve my throws. But I had to go and throw at least a hundred backhands and forehands each day using the right form in order for it to take and to become natural.

Where I am going with this though is how to become a good thrower in game situations. Here again, I have to go with repetition.

One of the biggest issues I have with practice is the actual lack of repetition a player receives while playing a game to 5 or whatever during practice. Generally speaking, the handlers touch the disc most, which will naturally lend to those individuals becoming better faster.

Secondly, playing games where the stall count is still at 10 doesn't force a person to develop field sense and use their throws efficiently.

I have found that games such as 3 on 3 (or 4) causes a player to get a number of touches during the game that they would not otherwise receive. This is why I highly recommend cross training games such as Goaltimate, Dischoops, or other innovative games that give everyone ample touches during practice. An added benefit is that you get to know your teammates throwing tendencies.

Secondly, field sense is improved. By having a shorter stall count, you force everyone to make decisions faster and develop a better field sense.

To put it all together (somewhat) IMO, the best players are usually those who can survey the field and then make the right decision. And finally, execute on that decision by making a perfect throw.

To be expanded upon at a later date...time to watch NBA :)

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Crazy Frank = Steve Nash?

Alright...Crazy Frank's message is very poor...etc, etc, etc.

But, let's put some perspective on things.

It is great that he can throw equally well with both hands. How many of you can actually say that? (Silence?). I know i can't.

Look at at baseball, they put a premium on switch hitters.

Steve Nash comparison? Well, watching tonight, he is able to pass and drive with his left hand better than everyone else. Additionally, he is able to FINISH with his left hand where 90% of the NBA players would finish with there right. Can anyone say Jermaine O'neal? Greg Oden?

So where am I going with this? Well, Frank is nowhere as good as he thinks he is at his age. I'm not old enough to comment on how good he was in his prime, and I could only surmise based upon feedback I've received from older players.

However, the point is that (as Frank) I can forsee players becoming equally adept at throwing with both hands in the future. I know from experience that many players (right-handed) have adapted the lefty backhand for short and break mark throws. So, in reality, how far off are players that are adept at all throws with both hands?

No, Crazy Frank is not Steve Nash. However, I think he has a good point as to where the future of ultimate is heading and what skills the great players of ultimate will have in the future (and no I'm not talking about chicken wing whatevers). No matter how poor his messaging is.


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Kaimana and paganello

Long time, no post. Mainly because there hasn't been much to post about lately.

Idris hit on Kaimana. Great tourney. Lost in the finals to Ono. Not much of a fun finals as they played zone the whole game. As he alluded too, great strategy on their part as they couldn't hang with us otherwise. Also made for a pretty boring game as we tend to like to make it exciting...though some would consider me the antithesis of exctiting. Anyways, congrats to Ono...

Paganello...this was my eighth year going, having won 5 of 7 and last year. We had a hard pool pretty much all the way. We got to play Chicago Scandal in the Q's, which is always a good team, and picking up Sammy CK didn't hurt. We played well and made it through the Q's pretty easily.

Up next was Sexxxpensive in the semi's, against my Revolver teammate Rocky Beach (great name for the tourney). We expected a better game from them, and I know they were disappointed at their performance. That being said, we were rolling...and I don't think it would have mattered who we played that day.

Side note. Finally met Siegs (sp). Thoughts...well...he'll probably read this so...I think he still owes me 20...can't quite remember. Either way, i'll collect. :)

So, we played UTI in the finals. UTI was a former UKish team. This year however, they had a few Swiss guys (Lorenz of Condors), a couple french (Fass and Nas), a couple Boston (Seigs, and??)...so they were more of a pickup team. A damn good pickup team at that.

Unfortunately, we started off pretty flat and our O was not as fluid as we were the previous day. Maybe it was the D, maybe not...I tend to think we just threw it away. But they played great O and made us pay for our mistakes. They ended up winning by a few, and we never really were able to make a comback after our bad start. Congrats to all of UTI, game well played.

So...now....what's next...not sure...