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Ultimate Happenings: Issue 72 - Nov. 2 1998

OCUA Web site: http://www.ocua.ca

Disc Golf: http://www.magma.ca/~spratley/discgolf/

"A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory."

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CONTENTS:

- Ultimate On TV Tuesday
- OCUA Indoor Winter League
- P.R.O.U.F. Ottawa Indoor Ultimate League
- Party Party Party
- Roommate Wanted
- Found
- A Player's Perspective On US Nationals
 
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ULTIMATE ON TV TUESDAY:

Peter McKinnon and others at the CBC have been preparing a
short documentary on OCUA over the last month or so. I
believe it is a general local sports piece with emphasis on
our land development deal. It is on TV tomorrow night about
6:20. The exact time is not guaranteed but around 6:20. Oh
yeah, what channel? Well I am not too sure but it is CBC.
Try channel 6.

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OCUA INDOOR WINTER LEAGUE:

This is an invitation to join the recreational OCUA Indoor
Winter Ultimate league. This insured league has reserved
fourteen nights indoors at the Coliseum at Lansdowne Park.
The season will run from November 6th to March 6th. Teams
will play one 1.5 hour game per week, on either Friday or
Saturday night starting at 11 pm or 12:30 am. The fees, which
includes a team shirt, are only $90 per person for the entire
season.

Players can register as individuals or couples. Eight teams
will be drawn/drafted from a hat before the season starts.
We only have space for 88 players, so get your cheques in
before all the spots fill up!

*Please forward this to any and all who may be interested.*

To register please provide the organisers with the following
information:
 Name:
 Phone numbers:
 E-Mail:
 Sex (M/F):
 Height:
 Your skill level: 0-9
 (9 = too good for this league, 0 = What's Ultimate?)
 Willing to be a captain: (Y/N)

Your organisers:
Glenda Smith (Fulton)
 w: 660-3980
 h: 737-3476
 c: 795-5720
 e: smithgj@stentor.ca

Steve Ott
 w: 660-3687
 h: 747-0123
 c: 724-0868
 e: otts@stentor.ca

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P.R.O.U.F. OTTAWA INDOOR ULTIMATE LEAGUE:

Registration info

This info is for people who want to play Indoor Ultimate at
reasonable hours.

Wednesday night from 7 pm to 11 pm. Saturday afternoons
from Noon until 4 pm

How do I register?
Please e-mail 668prouf@sympatico.ca
or telephone... 231-6530

Under Subject: Winter Indoor Ultimate

Give: Name Phone # When you want to play...
Sat. Wed. or both.

The cost is $150. per player for the season
(prime time does have it's drawbacks...
 more expensive by the hour)

Open house on Wednesday Nov. 4th (7-11) and Saturday
Nov. 7th (noon - 4).

Season starts the following week.
Enter as an individual or as a group.

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PARTY PARTY PARTY:

PARTYDOWNPEOPLE

GETFUNKEDUP WITH 'SUPER FREAK'

P.R.O.U.F's Fall League Season Ending Extravaganza

Saturday November 7th @ The Cave

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ROOMMATE WANTED:

Roommate wanted to share a three-bedroom apartment.

Located in Centre town, on corner of Metcalfe and Gilmour,
behind Jack Cartier Community Centre.

Close to Elgin street and canal.

Rent is $317, all inclusive.

If interested please call Nalan or Katherine at 231-7773.

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FOUND:

A men's watch at the Lighthouse.
Contact:

Rebecca Mann
 h: 990 7216
 e: rebecca.mann@nrc.ca

--------------

Someone left behind a dark blue "Brookfield High School"
rugby shirt at Field One, Linda Lane on Sunday afternoon.

The owner can retrieve it by calling me at 742-6991 (h) or
723-3127 (w).

Thanks,
Eric.

--------------

I found a pair of men's Fila running shoes, size 11 1/2,
white with black soles, at LaRoche fields on Tuesday, October
6th.

They were probably left by someone from one of the early
games that night, meaning a player from one of Dewey, Stackem
& Howe; Toss My Salad; Boneheadz or Mean People Suck.

Contact:
Neihls
 p: 237-1240
 e: neihlsj@nortel.ca

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A clear collapsible water "cooler" at Laroche Park on Wednesday
night. It was likely forgotten after the 6:30 pm game on Field
#2 (furthest from the parking lots).

Please email me at kimberly.brereton@sap-ag.de to claim it.

Cheers,
Kim

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A PLAYER'S PERSPECTIVE ON US NATIONALS:

First of all, thanks to Rex O'Quinn and the many UPA and
Sarasota volunteers for putting together a great Nationals.
The fields were beautiful and lined. There were scoring
markers. The facilities were well maintained. The food was
good. The results were posted quickly and, as far as I could
tell, accurately.

Extra-discfully, the hotel we stayed at was right on the Gulf
and had powder-soft sand. Since the beach faced west, we could
see the sun set over the water, which is tres cool to us
Easterners. On the night before the finals, we saw dolphins
swimming on the water, and we knew good fortune was shining
upon us. Well, we hoped.

My perspective on the tournament is typically self-centred,
so I won't bore you with it. Outside of that, my perspective
is heavily skewed towards my team, but I won't bore you with
that either. However, you are unlikely to ever witness a huge
game so singularly dominated by one individual as Paul Greff's
performance in the semis. It was a thing of beauty. Anyone who
has had the fortune to play with or against this man knows what
he is capable of. It was an honour to share the stage with him
as he realised all expectations. He was dominant again in the
finals and gave us our crucial upwinder, but that semi-final
game is one for the ages. Brian Cameros (stellar all week and
uncoverable), Steve Mooney (no slouch himself), and Billy
Rodriguez (who just happened to have had three blocks and the
usual gaggle of huge grabs that game) were all in awe, as were
we all -- and glad to be on the team with The Greatest Player
In The Game... By Far. About Brian Cameros, it's incredible
that you never read about him. Everyone on DoG knows that he
played tirelessly and superbly the whole weekend (and the
whole year). There are names that everyone recognises, but
Nationals is a time to redress discrepancies between fame and
merit.

With regards to accolades, I want to make some comments to
the reader. Reports often focus on individual plays and
personalities, or ignore great players whom the reporters
don't know personally. But while games can turn on big plays,
the bulk of it is made of small passes. It's difficult to
appreciate from the sidelines how seven players need to work
together in order for this kind of middling play to occur.
Likewise, the defence can only prevent these small advances
by working as a seven-person unit. On our team, many compliments
are given to play away from the disc. These skills create
situations for big plays to occur, and for that there needs
to be seven people on the same page.

Examples.

1) In the semis, Johnbar had a huge block on New York. This
 looked like an easy block or even a mis-throw, but the real
 story was much more than that. We threw the pull and came
 down playing a hard mark. We intentionally concentrated on
 shutting down the dumps (ideally, one would always concentrate
 on shutting down everything, but that's not realistic -- we're
 all human). The defenders upfield knew the defensive scheme --
 I think the first time we used it that game -- and shut down
 the obvious opportunities. Because we hadn't used that defence
 that game, it was a "new look" which also bought us a few
 seconds on the stall count. By the time the offence had set
 up, the handler had looked at the usual throws and found them
 blocked, then looked to the dumps and found them taken away,
 we had a high stall count. At this point his options became
 limited and one pass stood out as the one to try. Johnbar
 then recognised this. As a defender, this is the best situation
 to be in: knowing the throw in advance. He committed himself
 to getting the block and it was a done deal. The play was
 hardly an isolated occurrence of "a bad throw."

2) In pool play against the Condors, Paul Greff had a game-
 saving layout block as the deep in a trapping zone near the
 endzone. To hear him describe it, he got the call from Bill
 to drop back, and did so with complete trust in where that
 order was coming from. Where does a block like that come
 from? It comes from weeks of discussions about deep zone
 play. It comes from years of having played with your team-mates
 enough to know whose barkings you can trust without a moment's
 hesitation. There, a momentary pause would have lost us the
 game. Our zone only works well when we have a team of
 communicators, on and off the field.

3) Offence demands a great deal of teamwork, too. A great team
 like the Condors is fast enough to poach effectively, and
 marks hard enough to make it difficult to burn the poach,
 even if you're luck enough to recognise it early. They cover
 the dump well, and at such a time if we didn't have people
 who know that they are needed to get open in such a "breakdown"
 situation, we'd turn the disc over many more times than we did.
 Often, those people are the ones around the disc, but they
 may also be midfield players who are needed to fill in, in a
 variety of situations. We have several on our team who think
 of this as their primary role, and it is of primary importance.
 Ask Bim for details on this role. He's the master.

4) Clearing up space also requires motion and fakes by people
 who have no intention of making the cut for a big gain. Alex
 de Frondeville had a goal-to-goal backhand against New York
 in the semis. It was an awesome throw, but part of why it
 worked was that 1) the defence was forcing towards the middle
 of the field from the sideline and Cork cut in down the line,
 2) Jim's defender flared ever so slightly towards the direction
 Cork was cutting, freeing him up to go long, 3) Cork's cut
 drew the marker slightly to cover the break-mark forehand,
 4) this motion enabled Al to step around and break with a
 big backhand, and 5) the rest of the team knew the play and
 made sure to keep away from the action and to keep their
 defenders honest.

Spectatorily, we got a chance to watch a good portion of the
Condors-Ring semifinal. That was a fun game to watch at the
end of the afternoon, with a big crowd settling in. The Condors
had many exciting plays -- number 16 scoring goal after goal
after goal -- but what was most impressive was their grace
with the disc. They have very smooth throws, good in wind
(yes), and are not afraid to huck. DoG's long game has grown
increasingly shorter while other teams play the long game
better and better. It used to seem like the west coasters had
the throws, but didn't use them wisely. I wouldn't say that
about Santa Barbara. They took chances upwind and were able
to capitalise, somehow.

One real annoyance this week was the use of the foul to stop
the flow of play (in addition to the old standby of calling
"travel" very selectively). There are certainly times when
fouls will occur and recur -- thrower trying desperately to
break the mark, marker trying desperately to hold it -- but
stopping fast breaks with such behaviour is pretty ugly.
Remember, a player only freezes when the play is stopped;
this preserves his/her position, but not his/her momentum.
Finally, when a team which uses this practices doesn't contest
the calls and then tries to use the lack of argumentation
towards a quid pro quo for calls in their favour, things are
really out of hand. This is not an indictment of a single
individual or team, nor am I exonerating my own. The practice
is fairly widespread.

Though I don't want to carp, I think it's important that there
be negative feedback, too, so I will mention how crucial water
is to the players during the tournament. This year we had much
more water than last year, and it was a great improvement.
Overall, though, there were many times when we were scrambling
for liquids.

After the finals, we had the privilege of being able to celebrate
and watch Godiva-Verge at the same time. Due to identical seedings,
and because they always roll through their games so quickly, we
can hardly ever watch our sisters from Boston. This time, though,
we got a treat. The women's finals was such a hot game! After
a shaky first half, Godiva came back with a grit and desire
that only true champions show. We knew they were champions,
but they rarely have had to prove it this way in the past.
Hats off to Verge for demanding the best ultimate, and for
matching them upwind. This game included a four- or five-
layout upwind point which may have been the best point of
women's ultimate I have ever seen, for its combination of
dynamism and poise. Oh, my goodness!

Nationals was a blast.

Next year will be a very interesting one, as several younger
teams mature. Furious George had a setback, but they're too
talented to disappear. The Condors will be back, no doubt.
Ring is still young and has big-game experience. They'll be
better down the stretches next year. And who knows what will
come from New York, San Francisco, ... Boston?

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Ultimate Happenings is a e-mail newsletter for the
Ottawa-Carleton Ultimate Association.

If you want to subscribe send an e-mail to mharley@sympatico.ca
with the subject "Subscribe Ultimate Happenings".
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