The Vancouver Ultimate League wrapped up it's summer season last week. It seems early to be finishing by Aug 11th, but there's just no way of getting 2 games in with daylight sadly disappearing earlier and earlier. Vancouver summer ultimate is just huge. On any given weekday night, there will be 50+ games, most of which are double-headers. That means there's roughly 800 people playing, divided into typically 13 people per team on 60 teams in roughly 7 divisions of 8 or 10 teams.
After all was said and done and the last disc caught, it was an incredible year for hardware. Of the teams I played on, we finished Monday Div 3 champions (Shaft), Tuesday Div 4 champions (Fresh Meat) and Wednesday Div 2 4th place (Sallies). And it could have even been better, as the Sallies lost our semi-final game 13-8 playing only 6 players against 7. The team we lost to, also lost to the Karmavores in the finals and the Sallies beat Karmavores all 3 times in the summer season. I haven't gotten hardware since 1998, since the old days of the Free Radicals Wednesday Div B3 champs, so it was by far the most rewarding hardware season of ulti.
This is a wonderful way to finish off my modestly competitive ultimate career, with the upcoming large family addition there's no way I'll be as fit or on as many teams. I'm hopeful of playing, but I'll be lucky if I can even play in 1 team next summer..
The worst part was being effectively away for most of 7 weeks as I picked up an Achilles injury.
3 teams?
Now 3 teams might seem like a lot, but the only week that I played on all the teams was the first week of playoffs. This was definitely the best set of teams I've played on. My good friends Dawn and Sandy got me on the Sallies last fall, and then Shaft ( a summer only team) this year. One of my teams from last summer didn't renew, so that captain mentioned me to Fresh Meat. FM was starting at Div 6 but with lots of keenness and practices. It seemed like a no-brainer to play on the div 2 and div 3 teams and drop the div 6 team, but I really liked the team spirit, practices and frankly youthfulness of FM. So I figured I'd sign for all 3 and then just skip at least 1 set of games any given week. I figured rain, travel, injuries would make it all work out.
Things worked out as expected. The season started on May 2nd. I skipped the first Tuesday with a slight pull - old guy gets hurt first game of the season! I missed the following Wednesday to see Thievery Corp. Rain cancelled another few games, then I was off to Europe on May 26th. I came back on June 8th, played that night, and hurt my Achilles. I missed a TAG and WS-Addressing F2F for family medical reasons. It was a bit of a bummer that I couldn’t really play ulti even though I was home. My physio said I could play really slack ulti starting on June 28th. Slacker Ulti basically meant no serious running. That basically meant I couldn't play on Shaft or the Sallies because I just couldn't keep up with the people I needed to cover.
Turns out that signing up for 3 teams paid off as I was able to play about 3 weeks with Fresh Meat where I was a handler on offense and played mid-mid on Zone defense (the least running position). How's that for things working out unexpectedly? I got to have fun and keep playing slacker ulti because I'd decided to gamble on joining 3 teams.
Comparing teams
It's interesting the difference between the teams. The Sallies are filled with guys who've played ulti for 15 or more years, have won American Nationals and played in World Championships, and there's about 10 kids with 4 on the way amongst the team. I think our first game we had 8 women on the sideline and 9 kids. Our last game had only 1 woman as all the rest were on vacation with kids. The competition is really talented as well, so I find it pretty hard to get open and be heavily involved in the play. The games are at a different level then I've ever played at. I've learned a lot, like how to do better long cuts, faking throwing, playing force middle, break-force throws, etc. I'm still in awe of Doug's layout catch for a score from Kyle's back of the endzone huck. The team is pretty tight off the field and almost everybody is in that same career + kids combination.
Then there's Shaft, which is a bit lower caliber and I felt much more part of on the field. Of the 3 teams, I'd say that Shaft is probably the right level for me, but the summer only aspect meant that I find the other teams more interesting to be on socially. I also found that Div 3 was about the best division for spirit. It had the right amount of knowledge of the rules, is pretty competitive but not super competitive. Often the lower div teams didn't know the rules (like thinking that "on the line" is in), and the upper div teams played quite aggressively resulting in lots of calls. The div 3 championship had exactly 1 call, which was a completely deserved pick call. Couldn't ask for a better finish.
Fresh meat team picture:
Team captain Zilya and practice coord Paul did a really great job of bringing together people with some experience and others with little experience and molding a team that wanted to win and have fun. Some of the teams that I was on in the past really frustrated me with the "we're just here to have fun so who cares about playing proper defense or offense". I find a lot of fun in a team executing on what it wants to do. On the way, FM moved from Div 6 to Div 5 to Div 4 with a combined record of 17-4. In stark contrast with the Sallies, there's no kids on the team - though the Dalzell's are due any time now.
To no surprise with my public speaking/teaching history and keenness, I turned into a bit of a player-coach on FM. I really enjoyed helping people learn zone coverage, variations of zone like force-sideline or Rabbit, how to cut for long throws, the various rules of the game, chilliness on offense, sneaky poach moves. Alas, I still need to learn more about being "chilly" when the other team makes a questionable call or objection. There's nothing like being part of a team that learns, practices, and ultimately(!) successfully executes on it's plan.
So there we are: a great finish to the summer season and some really fun teams to be on. Thanks again to all my teammates and opponents, and it was a blast.
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