Saturday, March 28, 2009

From Emily, our lovely Autumn league organiser:


Hey there,

To those who haven't signed up for Autumn League, please sign up soon to your respective teams as the deadline is this Sunday, 29 March 2009.

Players who don't sign up by this date will miss out.

Cost is $30 per league (if you pay on time), and the league starts on Wednesday 1 April (6:35pm Social; 8pm KPL) at Dickson playing fields. Payment can be made electronically to:

Account Name: ACT Ultimate
BSB Number: 801009
Account Number: 309871
Reference: Put your name (otherwise we don't know you have paid)

Social league

Div 2 players can sign up at:

http://www.afda.com/rego/showdivision.php?divisionid=1045

Div 3 players can sign up at:

http://www.afda.com/rego/showdivision.php?divisionid=1046

Teams that don't have a minimum of 4 women and 5 men signed up by Sunday 29 March will be dissolved or merged with other teams at the league organiser's discretion.

Kaboom Premier League (KPL)

To play on a KPL team you can sign up in the draft or on a team (with the permission of the captain). Captains are:

Plan B - Tom Watson - thomasgabriel.watson@gmail.com
No Ians - Jonno Holmes - mrfrisbee@hotmail.com
Hebs's Team - Heather Tolley - heathert@ecoaus.com.au
Bookends - Andrew Jackson - andrew99.46@hotmail.com

Sign up for KPL at:

http://www.afda.com/rego/showdivision.php?divisionid=1044

KPL Rules will be basically the same as last season.

Any questions, please let me know (nobodyz.angel27@gmail.com).

Cheers,
Emily

Friday, March 20, 2009

Eastern Regionals Results

Hello again avid readers,

At some stage in the past, Eastern Regionals was on. It might even have been last weekend (holy crap it actually was last weekend. I just had to check that because I was sure it was two weeks ago...). Anyway, last weekend the ACT's two single-gender club team's packed their cleats and sweatbands and headed to sunny Newcastle for a delightful weekend of ultimate. The tournament was run by the illustrious Tim Gee and the Fakulti boys who are actually based in Sydney but because the Sydney fields were all booked out they had to run the tourney up in Newwie. You see, dear reader, the fields situation in the ACT might be occiasionally inconvenient but it's vastly better than that of our northern friends who are lucky if their fields even contain grass rather than sharp things like rocks and sticks and ordinarily recyclable household waste.

The ACT contingent piled onto a chartered coach on Friday night and enjoyed the scintillating dialogue and intricate plot of "300" on the journey up. Hiring a coach was a great ploy for our trip to nationals last year and worked well again, giving everyone a chance to relax and socialise for the duration of the journey without having to worry about driving.

But I know, you don't care about stories of public transport, you want to know about the ultimate. Well, I suppose we should have ladies first:

The Women's division this year was awkward to organise because it had seven teams registered. It's tough to find a good draw with that sort of number and the Fak boys made what seems like a pretty reasonable choice and opted for a round robin with no finals. Although this lacks the excitement of a big final it does give everyone a chance to test out their opponents and it seemed to work pretty well (except perhaps for some wierd schedualling), especially considering that only a handful of the seven teams actually intend to travel to Perth for Nationals. FG drew their traditional first round opponent, Wildcard (X or Y I can never remember which is which), who had split into two. Wildcard are a pretty tough gig for any team and they showed it again with a solid victory. The FGs took another game to find their rhythm with another tough match-up against Manly (now called the Northern Beeeaatches or something like that). In their third game FG finally hit their stride with a gritty 1-point win over the Sugar Mags from Newcastle. On day 2 the Factory Girls had another early start but took a comfortable win over Hills, then lost to the other Wildcard in a better game. Finally, they had a hit out with one-time women's powerhouse Southside whom they beat up for another win. This brought the FGs in in 4th overall. I'm not sure how many women's teams from the East are heading to Perth but it should ensure a pretty strong seeding for Nationals. The Factory Girls are building from tourney to tourney and should be in good shape by the time the main event finally comes around. Their next gig is Into the Wild, a women's tourney that will be held in Sydney next weekend. At nine teams it looks like it'll be as strong or stronger competition than nationals so it should be another good test.

The boys had a slightly more relaxed schedual for the tourney, playing five games rather than six and starting at a leisurely 11:50 on Sunday. In their initial pool Fyshwick United had two fairly genteel games to ease into the tourney, dispatching Manly's Brick and Sydney's Umlaut fairly efficiently. FU's offence seemed to be firing and their team defence was starting to bite so they took some momentum into their afternoon matchup against one of the two Fakulti teams. FU took control early on and rolled the Fak kids to win 15-6 or something like that. This sent them into Sunday's semi against the other Fakulti with a likely match against the in-form Newcastle if they made it to the final. FU really took control on defence during the game and broke up Fakulti's preferred offensive style. Good conversion on offence saw the FU boys win with a handy 15-10ish scoreline.

This brought the weekend to a head with a final against Newcastle's I-Beam. In their last matchup Newcastle seemed to have all the answers with a 15-10 win at the Brisbane Canberra Invitational so it was always going to be a good contest. Newwie again came out strong and got up a break in the first half. Both teams traded points until Newwie fought off a late rally from the FU lads to take half 8-7. FU made a few tactical adjustments and sharpened up to come out firing in the second half. The scores stayed close until about 10-9 with Newwie still leading but Fyshwick had the legs in the last part of the game and came away with a 15-11 win. This sends the lads through as the top seeds from the eastern region and gives them the first seed position for nationals. Hopefully they can fend off all comers in Perth to win the title. The next appointment in the FU diary is New Zealand Nationals in Wellington at the start of April. The generous ulty community of NZ kindly offered FU a spot at their nationals last year and the Canberra lads suprised everyone by winning the tourney. Hopefully their hosts will be as gracious this year as the boys attempt to defend their title. NZ nationals is a great tourney, big enough to have some great games and small enough to still have that old-school frisbee feel. I had a ball last year and I wasn't even playing. If you get offered a spot on a team you should definitely take it.

Anyway, that's all from me for now. I'd better get back to putting the Factory Girls handler movement into a PowerPoint animation.... I mean, applying for jobs.

(Seriously, if you need someone to write rambling blog posts or do algebra or something let me know.)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Glorious Victory for Heb's Team!

Yes, as Brett mentioned in a previous post, it seemed that nothing could stop the charge of the rampant Heb's Team in the Kaboom Premier League. After attaining an unassailable lead on the league ladder Heb's Team generously conceded defeat to bottom of the table The No Ians after failing to score any of the first 5 or 6 points. My sources inside the team tell me that this was to stop Jonno from crying and embarrasing himself in front of the young Rathbone lads.

Last night the team continued their unstoppable march to greatness by blowing the league prize money on pizza and beer at Debacle. The glorious Hebs herself was seen to eat TWO WHOLE PIECES of pizza (but not the crusts) and AN ENTIRE SALAD (which under normal circumstances would have served two). To further cement her mastery over the world of food as well as ultimate she even sampled the garlic bread and some of someone's cheesecake. A magnificent performance. Heb's Team's notional rookie even turned up (hi Chris) but it was only to collect some takeaway pizza he'd ordered earlier and return home. Excellent work!

With the first KPL completed and the leftover pizza pieces safely stored in the fridge, thoughts are turning towards the next KPL season. Heb's Team are sure to be back, as are the stalwart Bookends. Plan B must surely be looking for a chance to turn their very tall roster into a very large pizza order and The No Ians, bolstered by their final round win, will surely be looking for another shot. Now is the time for captains and their lackeys to start recruiting fresh meat to grease the cogs of the KPL. There are plenty of talented players out there and the chance to strenthen one's roster in time for the next league is not one to be missed.

But for now, all glory and honour must go to the fine men and women, the heroes, of Heb's Team. Having suffered the outrageous slings and cruel barbs of jests about their inadequacy of their team-name, let their battle cry of "HEBS!" fill the sky as they march ever onwards to glory, victory and elected office.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Summer League ladder - Round 2

Hi all,

Just a quick update on the league results after round 6 (that's round 4 for KPL).

Div 3
The mighty Revelation appear to have lost none of their divine inspiration: ably captained by the Gentles they're still leading the division. The key match up for round 7 will be Slipped Disc v Dynoshite, who will be playing off for the right to play Revelation in the final.

Div 2
League leaders FRNU (formerly the High Flyers) are swatting their opponents like so many pesky flies. Can the seasoned all stars from the Bubs n Suds (last season's victors) halt FRNU's march to the title?

KPL
As predicted by many, it's looking like a toss up between Hebs's team (seriously Hebs, the league's nearly over - don't you think your team needs a proper name?) and Plan B, with the Bookends keeping the first two honest.

Here's the League Ladder in full (team name/points/total points for and against):

KPL

Hebs's Team/8/+19
Plan B/6/+22
Bookends/2/0
No Ians/0/-41

Div 2
FRNU/12/+32
Bubs n Suds/10/+11
Bananas/6/+10
Dam Beavers/6/+4
Boffins/6/+3
Clap Attack/6/-8
BBC Ride the Llama/6/-19
Devolutionaries/4/0
Jailbait/2/-8
Bolivar Floaters/2/-28

Div 3
Revelation/12/+40
Dynoshite/12/+23
Slipped Disc/10/+23
Gooni GooGoo/8/+29
Beginner's Luck/6/-2
Team UFO/4/-11
Flighters/4/-15
Saturated Velocity/2/-33
Hockey Girls/2/-33
Dickey Knees/0/-22

Brett

Sublime and Wildcard win Brisbane Canberra Invitational

Last weekend saw the first ever BC Invitational, a tournament that will be shared between Brisbane and Canberra on alternating years. This year saw top teams from around the country get together for an old-fashioned bar fight in a great preview of what nationals will offer in late April.

The Open division saw Fakulty X and Y (both from Sydney), Heads of State (Melbourne), Chilly (Melbourne), Firestorm (Brisbane), I-Beam (Newcastle), Fyshwick United (Canberra) and Sublime (Perth) attending while the Women's division starred Wildcard (Sydney), Honey (Melbourne), Sultry (Brisbane) and the Factory Girls (Canberra). I can't think of another lead-up tournament with such a number and variety of teams from all over the place. Kudos to Sublime, Firestorm and Sultry for making the trip.

And it's good that Sublime did head over because those unpredictable West Australians finally showed those of us in the east that the only thing holding them back is regular tournament play. They earnt the right to engrave the first team name onto the trophy by beating I-Beam in the Open Final. It's a great result for Sublime and an exciting sign of things to come as Australia's club teams build towards nationals in Perth, Sublime's home turf.

In the women's division Wildcard stamped their seal of authority on women's ultimate in Australia with a dominant performance, taking out the Factory Girls 15-8 in the final. They are definitely the team to beat again this year and with the absence of New Zealand will be tough to stop in Perth.

It was a weekend of upsets as Fakulty Y beat Faculty X in their quarter after losing all their pool games and Sublime beat Newcastle in the final after losing to them in the pool games.

In all it was a great weekend of competition and thanks must go to Myall for running the tournament despite considerable beaurocratic difficulties. We at the Canberra Ultimate Blog secret underground facility look forward to heading up to Brisbane next year to see the next invitational hit-out. I'm excited!