CUC

[GregS]

Is it always this quiet on the BBS when Nationals is going on?

[@UltiCraig]

http://live.iamultimate.com/

[@UltiCraig]

MASTERS:
Toronto's FUEL loses their semi against Ottawa's #1 seed GLUM and TUC's own Ian Brooks and former TUC all star from 4D and IMOD, Chee Chan, 5-16.
FUEL go on to win their next game against Flood to claim Third Place overall.
Congrats Boys!

Glum beats Figjam 15-12 to take the Gold.

LAIDES:
#1 seed and Toronto's own, Lotus upset and smoked by Storm of Montreal 15-2 and get QUB from Quebec City in the third place game.
Lotus win it 15-6 to finish 3rd overall.

Stella vs. Storm in the Final Live Sunday at noon.

OPEN:
Toronto's #5 Moondoggies (baby Goats) looking good to go to the Finals if they beat Winnipeg's #2 General Strike. They win 15-12 to advance.
Seeded #11 Grand Trunk, also of Toronto, played very well to finish 6th overall, losing their last game to Maverick 14-10.

new start time
Moondoggies in the Final against #1 Mephisto of Montreal.
Live Sunday at 2:00p
http://live.iamultimate.com/

MIXED:
Mayhem of Hamilton have MONSTER's number taking them down again, this time a nail biter, 12-11 in the quarters. Mayhem now playing for third. Big Hammers also lost their quarters to surprising Spawn.
Now Hammers and MONSTER, two TUC Monday night competitive teams, will battle for 5th place overall after both winning their 2nd games of the day. Hammers win it 13-7 to take top Toronto team honours.

World Club Championships Finalist ONYX goes for their first Canadian title against 10th place at the World Clubs, RIP Sunday Live at 9:00a

JUNIORS:
#2 OVERDRIVE of Toronto has also been looking good. They are in the semis against #7 MISCHIEF of Vancouver. Win the semi 15-4 to advance.
OVERDRIVE loses in the Final to the #1 seed West Coast Reign 15-6 to finish 2nd overall.

[@UltiCraig]

Canadian Nationals Final Results

OPEN:
Final: Mephisto, Montreal 13 vs. Moondoggies, Toronto 15

Moondoggies place first and win the GOLD MEDAL
CONGRATULATIONS!

Moondoggies down 3 breaks after scoring only one upwind point to Mephisto's three found themselves behind 8-5 at halftime.
In the second half some steady handling by John Hassell and some tough D gave the Doggies two early breaks and the two teams then traded downwind points. Next, after a Toronto time out, the Moondoggies broke again to tie it 12-12. Breaking one more time on the next point they took a commanding position late in the game at 13-12. Soft cap horn went off at 13's, so a game to 15. Doggies scored downwind first, then on the next point, after each team dropped the disc once, another Doggie D turn led to the final goal and the Championship!

Toronto's other two entries did well.
Grand Trunk getting Moondoggies in their first quarterfinals match ended the tourney beating Blackfish from Vancouver 13-8 then losing to Maverick, a Nationals virgin out of Kitchener Waterloo, 14-10 to wind up 6th.
Roy won their last two matches before the party and wound up 13th overall.


JUNIORS:
Final: West Coast Reign, B.C. 15 vs. OVERDRIVE, Toronto 6
After taking an early lead 4-2, Toronto's OVERDRIVE slipped into neutral and lost a hard fought battle to finish second and win the SILVER MEDAL!
Congratulations!

MASTERS:
Final: GLUM, Ottawa 15 vs. Figjam, Calgary 12
Toronto's FUEL takes third place and the BRONZE MEDAL with a convincing 15-5 victory over Flood.

WOMEN:
Final: Storm, Montreal 15 vs. Stella, Ottawa 6
Lotus, favourite ladies of Toronto finished third after an 15-6 win over QUB of Quebec to win the BRONZE MEDAL
Lily also of Toronto finished 7th. (thx VDub)

MIXED:
Final: ONYX, Quebec 14 vs. RIP, Montreal 12
Toronto's Big Hammers and MONSTER met in pool play and again in the 5th/6th place game with the Hammers getting revenge for their earlier loss with a 13-7 win.
Toronto's other entry Tundra did well in the lower bracket winning their last three games to take 9th place.

[VDub]

Small correction: Lily finished 7th after beating Wild Rose!

[tcharb@hotmail.com]

During round robin play GLUM (Masters) dominated with no one being able to score more than six points. The finals was a different story as GLUM nearly suffered a collapse with FIGJAM (down 10-5) came back to within one (13-12) before GLUM woke up throwing to Toronto's own Ian Brooks for a hard cap 15-12 win. Congratulations to Toronto's FUEL for an impressive 3rd place finish.

The West Coast (mostly Vancouver) brought five juniors teams with them capturing, I believe, four of the top seven spots (1st, 3rd, etc.). Toronto's OVERDRIVE went 6-1 in round-robin play before obtaining silver. OVERDRIVE's coach, Gary Wang, was the first Toronto District School Board's Ultimate Frisbee convenor. Also a great reflection on Vancouver's juniors system. It was truly scary to see how good these juniors were.

In mixed RIP was down 10-5 when ONYX pulled a "GLUM" and suffered a near collapse. RIP pulled to within 12-11 due to some amazing pull downs from one of the RIP's receivers. ONYX eventually won 13-11. MONSTER's "winning point" on universe in the quarters was called back due to a "travel" call and they were unable to convert. MAYHEM eventually scored the winner. The TUNDRA games were some of the most exciting to watch with them winning two out three universe points and, I believe, losing another game within a two point margin. Nothing easy.

The score speaks for itself in the STORM-LOTUS semi-final game, 15-2...yikes! LOTUS seemed to be throwing to an invisible woman. Give credit to STORM as their defence was on fire for both this game and in the finals with STELLA (15-6?). Congratulations to LOTUS for winning bronze.

In OPEN the MOON DOGGIES (GOAT and friends), with possibly the worst Ultimate cheer I have ever listen to (you guessed it...howling) came from behind to beat Winnipeg's GENERAL STRIKE and Montreal's MEPHISTO. Both GENERAL STRIKE and MEPHISTO players had expressions of being robbed after each of the games with both teams essentially holding the lead to soft cap, before MOON DOGGIES' comeback. I am not sure what was quicker, the commentator's cracks about Toronto or how fast it took for the mostly Quebec audience to clear the stadium after the MOON DOGGIES' come from behind (down 9-5) win.

Also I have to note how weird it was to be at Nationals without Harry, TOO BAD and those dogs.

Cheers,

[GregS]

Minor corrections to Tony's post:
- GLUM gave up 11 to NSOM (Nothing Sexier than Old Montrealers) in the final round-robin game on Saturday morning, in a game where NSOM had nothing to lose and GLUM had nothing to gain.
- The ONYX-RIP game got to 12-12 before ONYX pulled it out 14-12.

Very well run tournament, I thought, apart from the long wait some had checking into of the residence (which I think was nothing to do with the tourney organizers but rather an underestimation by Bishop's staff of how many people were going to arrive during a small window of time).

The Open final was definitely worth the price of admission, as Moondoggies went up 4-1 early, then fell behind 9-5 with some uncharacteristically sloppy play and poor throwing decisions, then battled hard to close the gap and bring home the gold. The local crowd was definitely pulling for Mephisto; hope the Toronto boys heard the small but loyal group of us rooting for them.

Also have to give props to RIP for turning a game that started out looking like a blowout into a very close affair. I'm sure ONYX had visions of yet another silver going through their heads at 12-12.

And, of course, a shout out to all the FUEL boys for staying strong when the chips were against us and pulling out important wins in the round-robin and bronze medal games vs Flood. After Fossil knocking them out in the bronze game in '08 and again in the last round-robin game to decide the final medal round contender in '09, they must really be getting a hate on for Toronto Masters out in Winnipeg!

[jed]

MONSTER's "winning point" on universe in the quarters was called back due to a "travel" call...

by Chris Mackie... against a player he wasn't covering... while he WAS covering an actively-cutting handler....

... and they were unable to convert. MAYHEM eventually scored the winner...

and the rest is history.

[tcharb@hotmail.com]

Cheers to Greg for the corrections. Too many scores to remember, too many games involving universe points or near universe points. I also agree with the point about registration, particularly since it was my job to be crowd control (not volunteering for this one again). The exact same problem happened this July at Prague's World Club Championships (not my job). The organizers did not seem to realize the volume of people coming in at such a short period of time. Not a lot of happy people. Reminded me of those hot humid days when Barry and I had to tell all those people at Toronto's Nationals that they couldn't go to the bar without having a players' badge in their possession. Fond memories....

Good luck Ottawa Nationals 2011!

[john mc]

I'm glad Jed posted some details about the travel call, I was wondering about that myself.

Not to hi-jack the thread, but i saw Mackie make the exact same call against a team from Barrie in the quarterfinals of a mixed tournament in Guelph in May 2009. I can't remember if it was universe point but it was in the last few minutes of a 1 point game.

In the Guelph tournament, he was covering a cutter and he was about 20 yards downfield, running away from the disc when the huck went up and he made the travel call. The huck was caught for the point but there were no observers and after some heated debate with the kids from Barrie, it went back to the thrower. I'm 95% sure that the guy he was covering is the one that caught the huck too.

Most douchebag moment that I have ever seen in ultimate but what can you do?

[GregS]

Most douchebag moment that I have ever seen in ultimate but what can you do?

Strong words, coming from someone that's played in the Masters division...

[RedSweaterBoy]

by Chris Mackie... against a player he wasn't covering... while he WAS covering an actively-cutting handler....

Jed - i was watching from the opposite sideline and it was not an obvious travel

what was the observer's ruling? i heard conflicting stories .. someone said the call was upheld while another person told me the observer could not make a call because they didn't see it clearly

[jed]

The observer did not have a perspective on the play.

Serenity Now

[Wartank]

taking this thread clearly away from the original direction, but i have an obvious interest in this conversation. does anyone who knows about observers know what the role of sideline observers is when they are not in danger of having to make a sideline call? what if it was to watch explicitly for things like travels? what else is commonly called but frequently missed by the on-field observers?

[Mortakai]

taking this thread clearly away from the original direction, but i have an obvious interest in this conversation. does anyone who knows about observers know what the role of sideline observers is when they are not in danger of having to make a sideline call? what if it was to watch explicitly for things like travels? what else is commonly called but frequently missed by the on-field observers?

Hey there. I can answer this... or at least what I think you're asking.

The role of each observer in the various different formations (e.g., one observer alone, one with a lineman, one plus two linesmen, two observers, two with two linesmen, and four observers) is clearly defined in the Observer Manual (easiest to find it on the USA Ultimate website), and difficult to completely answer here... at least not without cutting and pasting multiple pages.

At CUC, we used a few of these models, essentially all those in the above examples that did not include linesmen, and also used a couple of hybrid models (e.g., some 3's), but in all cases, all observers were working as true observers, and we did not work any games with people only in a linesmen role. Which means that they're all actively watching the play in order to be able to help resolve a call that goes to the observers. Yes, some may be primarily responsible for different primary duties (e.g., thrower/marker interaction, lines, mid-field pick and fouls, downfield receptions, etc.). Specifically for the observers with primary line duties, they're also actively watching for any/all of these as they are able.

I don't think it's accurate to say that travels are "frequently" missed by on-field observers. Sometimes, sure, for not so much as frequently. Picks, on the other hand, ARE frequently missed, especially those nearer to the thrower/marker. The down-field on-field can realistically only keep track of the 3 or 4 pairs down at that end, and the handler observer will often be too focused on the thrower/marker pair to keep track of the other couple of pairs. This is often what the lines observers are helping with, those 6 pairs of folks. And can often also give some perspective on the thrower/marker interaction.

There's so much more to say. Interested in attending the next 2-day Observer clinic to get the full answer?

[Mortakai]

The observer did not have a perspective on the play.

... and you know this how?

[jed]

The observer did not have a perspective on the play.

... and you know this how?

Well, we went to the observer, and he said something to the effect that he did not have a perspective on the play. I.e. he neither upheld or overturned the call.