The Ultimate Blog For All Frisbee Lovers in Ottawa!

If you stumbled across this blog by chance, you might want to consider hitting the 'Back' button before continuing. Consider this your first, last, and only warning...proceed at your own risk.

Since my el-jay and Facebook seem to be dominated by all things ultimate, I decided that starting an ultimate blog would just be easier. No longer will my el-jay-ians have to read about the sport that is slowly infultrating other areas of my life, nor will my "normal" friends on Facebook be subject to random pictures of me breaking the force, or poaching on defense. Instead, all my thoughts, pictures, and ramblings concerning ultimate, will be conveniently located in one place. Ici!

A little background would probably be helpful. My first exposure to the wonderful world of ultimate frisbee was in grade 9 in high school. Someone came in from some organization or group and tried to teach about 30 of us 14 year old boys how to play ultimate frisbee. Since all of us were more interested in basketball (or floor hockey for the chi's), the collective opinion was 'Who the fuck wants to chase after a frisbee'. Personally, since I was a decent basketball player, and ran cross-country and track to stay in shape, I didn't mind ultimate...but...it didn't grab my attention either. As appropriate as it seems now, I remember being frusterated that I couldn't throw the frisbee far...which I thought would be more exciting than the short passes that the teacher was trying to talk us into.

Fast forward about 10 years, and I was a member of a 24-hour relay team through a former employer. To keep people occupied when they weren't running laps around a mile circuit, the organizers had a volleyball and ultimate frisbee tournament that teams could choose to participate in. Being the only decent volleyball player out of the 20 people on my team, I got pissed when we got beat out of that tournament in two games. My team then proceeded to go over and play the first of our two ultimate games, and that's when the magic started to happen. Looking back, we were playing on a full sized soccer field, so there wasn't much scoring. However, I was lucky to have a girl on my team that was (and still is) pretty awesome. Although she couldn't (and still can't) throw super long, we worked out a nice little sytem of working the disc up the field about 15-20 yards at a time. We won the first game against a group of teens, and then played a team with a few ultimate players. I remember being amazed at how this fat guy (sorry, I should have probably put this up front, but I don't plan to censor my thoughts here since I don't think many people will ever read this) kept getting open when I was trying to cover him. Toward the latter stages of the game, which we lost rather badly, I noticed he had a pair of soccer cleats on. When I asked my knowledgeable teammate about his footwear, she told me that all ultimate players wear cleats, since it allows them to cut sharply. You know, I'm already censoring my thoughts...so I'm just going to say that teammate was Jessica Evans, who's a really solid female player in OCUA. She actually told me how to sign up, and how to pick a decent pair of cleats, so she deserves some credit. Anyway, I loved running after the disc, and decided to sign up to play one night a week the summer following that tournament.

So in May 2006, I started to play for a Friday OCUA team called Urban Sprawl. Most new players sign up for Friday, since it's the lowest caliber night of the week in OCUA league play. However, most new players also sign up to be on a coached team on Fridays, something in retrospect, I probably should have done. Don't get me wrong, I loved playing for Urban Sprawl (and still do), but my game didn't really evolve too quickly for the first six months (summer and fall) since I basically just cut long, and caught a bunch of goals. I got to the point where I wanted to try handling, and knew I needed to improve my flick. When winter rolled around, I decided to try the Coached League at Carleton, and sign up for a hat team (a group of random players of different abilities) at Carleton as well. Coached League was awesome...not only did I learn how to flick (the forehand throw you see players use to death), but I also learned different offensive and defensive strategies. The cool thing about that winter, was I'd learn something new on Tuesday in Coached League, and get a chance to try it out with my hat team on Thursday.

Toward the end of winter, I was really starting to dig the sport. OCUA runs a 'Learn to Play' sophmore clinic in the spring that was basically a continuation from Coached League. Different competitive players teaching you some of the finer points of the game. It was in this four week clinic that I got my first chance to handle, and play against a similar caliber of players. It didn't take me long to realize how much I enjoyed handling, and with a few exceptions, I really haven't stopped doing it since.

Last summer, after a busy winter and spring of ultimate, I started playing for a Monday team (the Berts and Ernies) and a Sunday team (Sushi) on top of Urban Sprawl on Fridays. The B&Es advertised themselves as a mid-tier team, but, turned out to be a low tier team instead. It's really no big deal though, since they were all cool people, and had a few experienced players who'd teach me certain skills. Sushi was a hat team that had a lot of older and extremely new players. This was weird, since I felt like I didn't belong being the "middle guy". Having said that, it turned out to be a great experience since I got a chance to handle with a former competitive player, and also helped teach the newbies the game. On the down side, I constantly had to play defense against the quickest player on opposing teams. About half way through the summer, I got bored, and started to sub for a high-tier Tuesday team. Although I wasn't out of place, there was this girl on their team who I couldn't stand. So, when I saw that a mid-tier Tuesday team (Disco Fever) was looking for a handler, I decided to give it a whirl. That turned out to be a great decision, since I joined at the same time as an experienced handler, and we led the team from being 1-6 to 8-7 at season end. The other thing to note, is I hit every possible clinic last summer that OCUA put on, and found they really helped me improve.

Fast forward to the fall, and it was probably the first time I had to make some tough decisions. As much as I loved playing with Urban Sprawl (I bleed purple), I just didn't think anyone wanted to improve as much as I did. There was actually a point late in the summer, when we were killing another team, that I gave a new girl a tip on how to throw a straighter/longer backhand, that she laughed off. I found that a bit offensive, since I was trying to help her change from being a one dimensional player (she's a good cutter). Couple that with having had such good experiences being part of hat teams, and I decided that was a good way to go for OCUA fall. Big mistake. My fall OCUA team ended up being god-awful, probably since they depended on me to figure out strategy (I actually talked them into a "huck and chase" strategy one windy day lol We lost that game 15-3). On the flip side, I kept playing with the B&Es who put a team in PROUF, and learned sooo much from playing against amazing players in that league. Although the B&Es went 1-16, PROUF got me ready for the tryout for indoor intermediate (IID) and if you don't mind me bragging, I knocked that sum'bitch out of the park. In fact, that tryout was probably the best ultimate I've ever played. The fact that my coach from Coached League, and my teammate from Tuesdays told me exactly what to expect, and what to do (and what not to do) really helped. But yea, I kind of dominated at the tryout...which was sweet.

Which brings us to the winter of 2007/2008. During a PROUF league double-header late in the fall, I noticed some groin pain that got worse after the game. I didn't think much of it, and signed up for IID on Wednesdays (which I made after the strong tryout), Intermediate West on Thursdays, and late night on Fridays. The thing about playing higher caliber indoor ultimate, is that it's super intense compared to outdoor. After my first Thursday game, I knew something was wong with my groin. After the second Thursday game, I went to the Carleton Sports Medicine Clinic, and was diagnosed with a sports hernia (yikes). I immediately quit playing Thursday, since it was the most intense night. I took 5 weeks off to rehab my groin, but kept in shape by biking and lifting weights. That allowed me to return to IID and Friday late nights in January, and be pretty effective on both teams. Although the Friday team didn't do too well in the standings, it was great playing with a bunch of competive players (I'll talk a bit about competitive play in later posts). My IID team was a bit weird, but ended up gelling in the playoffs, and moving from 9th to 5th by going on a 3 game winning streak. However, IID also got me in a bit of trouble, since there's this message board I got a little too involved with...but...that's also a story for another night ;-) Which brings us to...spring 2008...tryouts.

I promise not write another entry anywhere near this long :P I'll tell you more about tryouts, fill in some of the blanks, and get into ultimate related topics in subsequent posts. For now, I'm off to bed...so until I post again...happy hucking!