Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Who's going to win Autumn League 2010?

Autumn league is coming fast and is looking like it will be one of the closest fought leagues in many years (at least the 2 years I've been playing for). I'm going to make some predictions (despite not playing the last 2 leagues!) which will probably be completely wrong. Hopefully everyone will have forgotten about them by the end of the league.

Firstly Div. 2: With 6 very even looking teams it is possibly going to come down to points differential and goals scored to differentiate the teams. These teams could finish in any order. My bet is
1) Discotheque (no bias here!)
2) Revelation (having a Dingo in Matt Dowle will make them dangerous on O and D)
3) Boffins (a consistently top 4 team)
4) Dam Beavers (another consistent top 4 team)
5) The Punters (darkhorse)
6) Devolutionaries (with no women registered so far they might struggle!)

Players to look out for: u19 rep Ben M-H (Discotheque), Matt Dowle (Revelation), Nat Blood (The Punters) and Liz de Hoog (Dam Beavers)

Now div. 3: With 15 teams choosing an order is going to be very hard so I am just going to choose a top 4.
1) Go Fetch (any team with a Kaboom player must be good)
2) Ugly Shorts (a strong experienced roster)
3) Dynoshite (former div. 2 team that will be tough to beat)
4) Spin Doctors (with 14 players they will outlast most teams)

Players to look out for: Hannah Angus (Ugly Shorts), Annette Zou (ANU), Mike McGee (Ugly Shorts) and Cam Wilson (ANU)

Now that I've given my expert (unbiased) opinion you can go down to the ACTTAB and make some informed bets ... Discotheque with a 4 point start!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Autumn League

Autumn League is a seminal Canberra frisbee experience. No other city in Australia has a league quite like ours, which starts out with mild April nights and ends in June with crisp evenings, occaisional fog and, even more occaisionally, ice forming on discs left lying on the sidelines. Long time Canberra players will tell you of how the cold makes frisbees harder and makes throwing more precise. Other players will tell you about watching finals with mugs of hot soup. Some will point out that the heavy dews in the later weeks of the season make the fields perfect for laying out. I will tell you that the cold only makes it easier to run hard and that Autumn League in Canberra is a chance to genuinely enjoy weather that most people miss by hiding out inside. It's a beautiful time of year in the ACT, a great league and always heaps of fun.

If you're keen for some ultimate as it should be played get yourself registered on the AFDA website. You'll need an AFDA number (which you'll already have if you've been playing at other Australian events). The rego page is:

http://www.afda.com/rego/showdivision.php?divisionid=1370.

The league runs on Wednesday nights, starting on April the 7th and finishing on June the 2nd. It's at the Dickson Playing Fields on Antil Street. Division 3 starts at 6:40 and Division 2 starts at 8:00. If you're already on a team then sign up with your buddies, otherwise register in the "players with no team" section and the League Organisers (Anthony and Sonia) will sort you out.

Once again, unfortunately, there will be no division 1 because the local club team players are all totally snowed under with training for Nationals and the World Club Championships in Prague later this year. More on that in another post.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Congratulations to our local Aussie reps

Hi All,

Two ACT players have been selected to represent Australia at Ultimate tournaments later this year.

Ben Matthews-Hunter will play for the under 19s Australian team at the World Junior Ultimate Championships in Heilbronn, Germany (in early August). Ben regularly plays for Discotheque in division 2 and has been training with Fyshwick United and Kaboom as well to get himself ready for the main event. We're all looking forward to seeing Ben duking it out with the best young players from around the world and wish him all the best for his preparation and tournament.

Andrew "AJ" Jackson has also been selected to play for Australia, and will play with the under 23s Australian team at the Under 23s World Championships in Florence, Italy in July. AJ's positive attitude and cheery tone have been a real hallmark of his time playing frisbee in Canberra and he'll be bringing that same enthusiasm to the field in the green and gold.

If you see AJ or Ben around the traps be sure to say hi and give them some poorly thought out technical or strategic advice. Both also accept donations.