Weekly Recap: Week 5

Winter Parity/Parody is one of the best times of the year! We get to play frisbee, and we get to chirp and heckle each other! Who could ask for more? It's basically the only thing that keeps me from slitting my wrists* in the winter months, when I never see the sun. To help spread the joy of Parity andto help everyone else with any SADness they may have, let's take a look back at the week that was.

But first, it's been a while since I've done one of these, and I didn't do one to start the year, so let's take a look at the league this year. First and perhaps most importantly, we've gone 3:3! We now split the field evenly along gender lines. The league is trying to actively build more space for women so we can get ever closer to gender equity, which is a Good Thing(tm).

We've gone to 10 teams, 5 games a night, and 120 players meaning this is the biggest Parity has ever been! We have more of everything! More players, more games, more stats, more heckles, more trades but most importantly, more Parody (more on this below). We also have a bunch of new players who haven't played before (as we do every year) but the number of new faces this year is remarkable. So to all you new people, hello, and welcome to the gong show that is late night Monday frisbee.

A few ground rules when I do these things is I am never allowed to toot my own horn**, and always try to look at the exceptional, the funny, the bizarre and the downright weird. There's a bit of a secret language we talk about when we discuss Parity because of all the long-standing jokes. This year I have resolved to write out the Parity Dictionary of Inside Jokes AND to regularly update it when we create new ones, so everyone can be in the know. It will be out early in the New Year, and if you want a signed copy I will be happy to oblige.

With all that said, let's take a look at Week 5.

Outstanding Performances

The Robi-show: Rachel Robichaud put on a show on Monday, and it was spectacular. I'm not really sure how she did it, but she had a statline of 6/6/2/1 (G/A/AA/D) over 40 touches, AND she had 6 throws to nobody! Everything was exciting! That's $177,000 worth of excitement! Come early to the games next week, to make sure you can get tickets to the next Robishow, she plays at 7:00pm!

I've long been a fan of the Robishow, and subscribe to her news letter. This week she wrote:

Dear Keates,

Thank-you for toppling me from the throw-away leaderboard for week 5.

Sincerely,

Rachel Robichaud

So not only was she statistically spectacular, she also dropped one of the finest chirps of the week.

Stop Me Before I Score Again: Notably, Katie Toogood (best name in Parity) and Erin Courtney both scored 7 times this week, making them league leaders for that category. Katie has made a point of scoring at ridiculous rates since she joined the league, but this is a standout effort from Erin!

Booby Prizes

Pew-Pew-Pew!: I threw it away 10 times. 10 times, my decision making or execution was so bad that the disc wasn't even remotely catchable. I hit the dome wall with hucks more often than I hit the hands of receivers. I was ~2 Robishows worth of badness and 1/10th of the goodness. My motto is A+ effort, would huck irresponsibly again.

Berry*** Good: John Haig, also in the 10pm game with me, got a Berry. He did a lot of great offensive things, had 7 throw aways, 2 drops (?!), and at least one of every stat making him perfectly mediocre (one more thrown drop and he'd have had the elusive double berry!). Angela Mueller had a great game and was also perfectly mediocre, doing at least one of everything. Mike O'Hare had a berry, and so did Patrick Kenzie. Renée 'App Breaker' Gauvin also Berried, which actually upsets me a little. Everyone else that got a berry was on Flaccid Fingers. I would have loved to have seen a week where every Berry came from the same team.

Funny Stories

Geofford Is A Grand Master: To resounding sideline boos, Geofford took away a sure assist from Craig Anderson by fouling the throwing arm instead of putting on a proper mark. His response to the boos? "Anyone else would have done the same thing!" Geofford thinks so low of the rest of the league, and that's sad.

Cowherds and Stable Hands: Everyone keeps trying to milk things. Why do you do this? Week 1, Luca "The Milkman" Lafontaine had an absolute gimme of a goal. He could have caught it at will at any time in the endzone, and the throw was floaty and perfect and easy. Instead, he milked it for the show off pancake-to-spike in the corner. Instead, Steve Bisang ran right through him from behind and D'd it just before he closed his hands.

This week Rachel Ng put one on a platter for Kelsey Charie, and he basically did the same thing. He tried to milk it into the endzone with a jump and toe tap, and instead ended up dropping it. 

A note to everyone reading this! Every time you do this you risk a goal against looking like a fool and the infamy that comes with it! So please, for the same of the league and everything it stands for, please keep trying to milk the disc every chance you get.

In-N-Out: Ryan Wallace, near a sideline, jumped up to catch a contested disc, and bobbled it. His running path took him into the net, and he was able to push himself out of it and leap back into the field to catch the disc on a great second effort. 

"Out!"

Ryan Wallace looked outraged and confused, lying there on his stomach, clearly in bounds, clearly with the disc. Alas, he thought about it for a moment and realized it was the right call. He'd jumped from out of bounds to in bounds to make the play, which means that by rule he was considered out of bounds when he caught the disc.

A sad outcome for a great play.

There Was An Attempt: Adam MacDonald tried a greatest! It failed, but that's because a Greatest requires two players. In Adam's case, Katie Toogood could have been the yin to his yang, the buddy to his holly, the simon to his schuster. Instead, she stood there and watched idly by as the throw went to no one.

Sassypants: Katie Achtell, GM extraordinaire, D'd Jared Cohen in the endzone! Reports say there was some minimal contact involved, and Jared ended up on the ground. Katie then asked "Oh, did I hurt you?!" while she scampered off to go score. Sidelines and players on the field report it was a bit sassy, although Katie insists that wasn't what she meant.

Medic!: Greg Kung hit the turf hard on Monday (but he's okay). Worried that he was hurt, someone called for a medic. The two closest players to Greg were a doctor, a paramedic, and Greg himself is also a paramedic.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Vivianne Fortin (Ninja!) bombed a huck to Matthew "Skynes" Schijns! He caught it in the endzone, but it's a two throw to score league, so he ran to the front of the endzone and looked for someone to throw to. Late in the stall count and with few options he bailed it backwards... 30 yards. That's half the field, buddy! We don't add yards thrown to salary! You're wasting Vivianne's work!

Thankfully, Schijns got the disc back and then promptly gave it back to Ninja so she could finish the job. She did, to Toogood. Goooooooooooal! Eventually.

Special Thanks

Thanks as always to the stats keepers who make the league work! If you are a stat keeper, we love you! If you aren't a stat keeper, why not?! Sign up, socialize, mingle, give back to the league!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lunhlXMe5_sefD6Dy9OCreQxMtEi2mzD...

Read the guidelines, slap your name down for a time slot, and the league (read: Alison Ward) will take care of the rest making sure you are paired up with someone who can help you learn the ropes. It really is fun and easy to do.

Many of these anecdotes are crowdsourced, so if you want to help with that get on OCUA's Slack and then let me know! I'll add you to the channel we use to compile the good, the bad and the ugly from the week that was!

* I am not actually suicidal.

** Unless the horn I am tooting is a sad trombone, I won't talk about myself. I give myself one exception to talk about being good. Big reveal: this week I will not be using that exception.

*** A Berry is where you get at least one in every tracked statistic, named after Simon Berry, the only person in recorded Parity history to deliberately throw away a disk**** just to say he did a bit of everything in a given week.

**** probably