Diskapital round-up

Last weekend the crazy weather in Canberra finally let up and we had a great sunny weekend for our annual hat tournament, Diskapital. Six teams were formed on the day with a mix of the usual suspects, a contingent of out-of-towners (including Sammy "Sweet Cheeks" Ogden, all the way from Adelaide, and Felix from Tasmania) and a bunch of new players and up-and-comers from within the ACT.

The standard of play on Saturday looked good, with all teams able to move the disc around pretty freely and everyone seemed able to contribute. The by final on Sunday, though, fatigue was starting to show with everyone slowing down a bit. In the end, the team that still had the legs to run hard pulled out a huge comeback victory to win the game. Unfortunately, I don't know the names of either of the teams, but basically the tall team beat the short team, but not by virtue of their height. I was much too busy listening to the Soma crew singing tight a capella versions of 90s dance anthems to really know what was happening on the field.

Congratulations and thanks to Soma for hosting the tournament. Everything looked really well organised and smoothly run and there seemed to be plenty of work put in to make the tournament a success. Each field even had its own shade tent. Nice. With good weather, a laid back atmosphere and great fields it was great weekend for all.

Diskapital is on this weekend

That's right, Canberra's premier hat tournament is on this weekend.

It's at Dickson, game on is at 11:00.

There's still time to register at http://www.afda.com/rego/showcompetition.php?competitionid=878.

Get out and play.

ACTUA logo redesign competition!

Mission: To rebrand ACTUA into the 21st century.

Many of you may have seen our old logo on ACTUA disc floating around. ACTUA want to update the design.

Can you give us a modern logo?

ACTUA want to offer $300 to someone to come up with a design. The rules of this competition follow:

-The design (or variants of) should be able to be suitable to put on a webpage, on a disc, on a letterhead and on a shirt.
-There are no limit to the number of entries that an individual can submit
-Collaborative efforts are permitted
-Entries must be in by the deadline of 30 November 2010 and must be submitted in electronic format to thomasgabriel.watson@gmail.com

Tips for the entries:
-Have a look at the new AFDA logo. One possibility is for our logo to have a similar aesthetic.
- Alternatively, look at what other states have done and see if their concepts could inspire a unique ACT design. I have also linked the Tassy association site, which is widely regarded as the best logo currently around. Having something associated with the ACT isn't a bad idea but probably best to avoid parliament house or public service references.
-It is beneficial but not compulsory for designers to have experience with putting designs on to discs

The designs will be examined and a winner picked at the next ACTUA committee after 30 November 2010.

-Tom Watson

The Canberra Ultimate Blog would like to apologise to

Chris Warris.


Sorry Chris.

(And sorry to Roger, whose photo I've slightly stolen. Am I allowed to do this? I can take it down if there's a problem. You should check out Roger's photos, he's got lots and they're grouse.)

You see, Blogger now gives statistics on pageviews for each post of a blog, and (in a really depressing way) the most commonly viewed post for this blog is the one from 2008 about the 2012 Dingos, the national men's team. In it, ACTUA graciously decided to save the AFDA the heartache associated with picking the team by doing it for them in an arbitraty and inexplicable way. However, looking back at this post to see just who was selected for one of the highest frisbee honours in the country, I noticed that we left off one man who would definitely be in any team ACTUA ever picked to represent the nation, Chris Warris.

We at the Canberra Ultimate Blog sincerely hope that Chris doesn't now dislike us because we left his name off the list, especially when there are so many other fine reasons to dislike us. It would be a shame to pass all of them over just because of a crazy mistake.

Anyway, this is a fine opportunity to educate the good people of the ACT about Chris Warris, and in doing so recall a fine era in the history of our fair city.

Chris Warris has been a stalwart of Australian representative teams for ages. He's played on the Dingos a bunch of times (and even been Vice Captain or something respectable like that), played Clubs with King Brown (an old-school men's club), Pie Wagon and Deathstar and even got the call up for Doughboy, a mysterious team of mostly Australian ex-pats who go to tournaments like the Kiamana Klassic each year in Hawaii. He also earned a well deserved gold medal at nationals with Newcastle's I-Beam earlier this year. It's a great track record.

But in amongst the glory, people overlook some of Chris Warris' real acheivements, like winning back-to-back league finals with Homebrand back in 2003 in Canberra, and leading the ACTion Men (second worst team name ever after Team Happy) to an earthshattering quarter final finish at nationals in Canberra in 2003 (back when the ACT used to host really big tournaments, when Jason De Roy lived here - he now lives in Queensland, guess which state is hosting the big tournaments now). He also hosted one of the last great house parties of the Canberra frisbee scene, with the stated aim of finishing all the alcohol in the house before he left town. I walked home at 3:00 wearing none of my own clothes and as I closed the front door I heard Pete Liddicoat say "Hey, I've found a bottle of wine." Good times.

So, we at the Canberra Ultimate Blog salute you Chris. Your plucky, reliable handling, enormous workrate, deft skills and unwavering committment are something for us all to aspire to. You'd definitely be on the 2012 Dingos if we were picking the team. Which we aren't. But you'll probably still be on the team anyway, because it's just good sense.

Heaven smiles on the women's hat

As everyone in Canberra knows, everything is better on the North side of Lake Burley Griffin. As you drive/ride/run over Commonwealth Avenue bridge heading North in the evening you can look to the sun setting behind Black Mountain to the West and the clouds over the Brindabellas lighting up and know that life is getting better with every metre you travel. Heading South over the very same bridge at the very same time all you can see are the austere buildings of the Parliamentary Triangle and every metre you go brings you closer to Tuggeranong and damnation.

Anyway, you don't have to take my word for it. On Saturday, while it poured with rain that slowly leached the joy from the Southerners already bleak lives in Woden and the Deep South, it was dry (albeit a little cloudy) on the Northside for the inaugural women's hat. Hosted by local women's club, Factory, the event was well attended with a number of new players stepping up to play. I saw a few points from the final, where it looked like a bunch of athletic new recruits were duking it out for control of the middle of the field. A great start to the season for Factory and a great way to introduce local players to Women's Ultimate.

This weekend also marked the start of Fyshwick United's strangely named "Noodle Sessions". These are a way for players to meet in small groups and run drills that have been preset by the team's coaches, aimed at improving footwork and throwing. Early reports coming in suggest that the first Noodle Session was well attended and got people thinking about some new approaches to skills training. These sessions are mandatory for anyone thinking of trying out for the men's team next year but they're open to anyone attending Thursday night training who just wants to get some extra practise in. Send me an email at who dot is dot the dot schmooze at gmail got com if you're interested in more info.

Also good, and thus likely to be found on the Northside, is Diskapital. Soma are using this to raise some funds to offset some costs for some of their uni student members so sign up on the AFDA website (www.afda.com) and come out for a great weeked of hat ultimate. The party is already looking like being a somewhat epic affair...

Training starts tomorrow

Training for Fyshwick United the (ACT men's team) starts tomorrow. It's at O'Connor playing fields (off Pedder St, near All Bar Nun) and will run from 6:30 to 9:00 every Thursday night. Get there at 6:15 to give yourself time to cleat up and talk smack. Training is open to all comers and new players are most welcome.

The team is looking forward to a new season with a bunch of new faces. It's looking like another great season with Pete Hemphill, Jonno Holmes and Andrew Jackson running the show. This is great chance to get coaching from some of the best players and coaches in the country, and they're keen to give new players an opportunity to train and improve. There's also some momentum gathering to send two men's teams to nationals this year, so this is the time to show up and get involved.

The lads will be heading to the conveniently located All Bar Nun after training for some serious debriefing.

For those ladies feeling left out by the FU bromance about to take place, Factory (the ACT women's team) is running it's reputedly awesome beginner's clinics on Thursday night at O'Connor as well. Not only are these devoid of smelly boys, they finish earlier so you can get dinner at the pub. The sessions kick of at 5:45 for a 6:00 start. Rumour has it that this week will even include a game at the end of the session. If you want to kick arse like the Factory div 3 team, this is way to do it.

THERE'S ALSO THE WOMEN'S HAT ON SATURDAY. CHECK WWW.FACTORYULTIMATE.COM FOR MORE INFO.

League is on

Fields are open, league is on.

Have fun!

Holy crap it is raining a lot

If you're like me and you grew up in Canberra, you might be wondering what all that stuff coming out of the sky is. Lukily, I've been bushwalking in both New Zealand and Tasmania, so I am well acquainted with this phenomenon and am here to enlighten you. The stuff coming out of the sky is water - the very same stuff that comes out of the tap, and when it comes out of the sky it's called rain.

The good news is that rain makes the fields green and lush. In fact, rain is great because ACT Sportsgrounds have been really struggling to keep fields open in the ACT because of the drought and a few good seasons should really help them out. They've done an awesome job of keeping things going for so long so they deserve our thanks.

The bad news is that with enough rain sportsgrounds will be closed temporarily. Anyone who's seen the effect of some serious footwork drills on a wet pitch will know why. In the ACT, field closures are announced before 8:30 in the morning on weekdays, so often fields will be open even if it's rained a heap during the day but has been dry in the days before. I can't really remember when it last rained this much in Canberra but usually ACT Sportsgrounds and pretty good about keeping fields open in wet weather. To find out if fields are open call the field closure hotline on 6207 5957. A friendly automated voice will tell you what's going in no time. Don't call Canberra Connect or the sportsgrounds office, where a weary voice may well break down into tears at their millionth phone call about field closures for the day.

As for frisbee stuff, you can rest assured that if the fields are open, games are on. We play (and indeed have played) rain, hail, shine or earthquake. The only thing that stops games are nearby lightning and perhaps complete nuclear annihilation. Playing frisbee in the rain is one of life's great joys and as Australians it's something of a nationalistic duty to get out and enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime chance to get rained on in that national capital.