Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Eastern University Games comes to Canberra

Eastern Unviersity Games is the third in the Trifecta of amazing Tournaments that Canberra has been lucky enough to host this year (BCI and Eastern Regionals being the other two). EUGs starts next Monday, July 4 and runs through to the finals on Thursday, July 7.

Along with all the rugby, judo, badmington, chess, etc, etc, this year 13 University Ultimate Frisbee teams get to duke it out over 4 days of play in the beautiful Canberra winter weather on- wait for it- 2 fields . Thanks AUS! Oh well, maybe the presence of 13 teams in such a small space will either a) warm the surrounding area slightly b) provide a wind shelter or c) both. It'll certainly be cosy!

For the first time ever, the ANU is sending 2 teams to EUGs, which is a pretty exciting development for the club. It's hard to say which is more exciting: the star-studded lineup that the ANU has for the Annunaki 1 team, or the team of raw potential that will be taking the field- many for their first ever tournament- as Annunaki 2.

Unfortunately, we don't have a complete draw at the moment, so we are unable to provide you all with times that you can come and join the hordes on the sideline, so we'll try to keep you posted on results and schedule throughout the Touranment. At this stage we can say that Annunaki 1 is in a pool of 6 with USyd1, Newcastle Uni, CSU Bathurst, CIT, and UTS2, whereas Annunaki 2 is in a pool of 7 with UTS 1, Macquarie Uni, UNSW, Sydney Uni Cumberland, USyd 2, and CSU Bathurst 2. Teams play a complete round robin, then go straight into either semis or playoff games so in order to advance in the tournament, teams must place in the top 2 of their pool.

We'll keep you posted with times and updates. Keep Thursday at 3.30 sacred- hopefully you'll be able to spend it watching Annunaki1 in the final!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

League final results and Dingoes in Canberra

Darwin's Finches won div 3, and the Balaclavas took out a baffling and controversial victory in Div 2 (both teams lost track of the score and the time cap hooter, and the rules for ending games all at once). Congratulations to both teams who will now be sporting their winter snuggies with pride in shopping malls around the nation's capital.

We need a league organiser for Winter. Basically, if you're willing to run something, ACTUA will accept whatever format you propose - outdoor, indoor, daytime, nighttime - it's up to you. Get in touch (who dot is dot the dot schmooze at gmail dot com) if you're keen to contribute.

And finally, the Australian Open team, the Dingoes, will be training in Canberra this weekend. If you've ever wanted what ultimate looks like when it's played by the best male ultimate players in Australia, this is your chance. The training camp runs over Saturday and Sunday at Hughes 1 playing field (on Webster street in Hughes). If you're even remotely interested in the existence of ultimate outside of league, this is a great chance to see it first hand.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

League Finals

After seven weeks of gruelling competition, the finals of Autumn League are on tomorrow night! In a shameful admission of blog failure, I have no idea who's playing in the final of Div 3. Regardless of who actually plays you should hang around and watch the game. The standard of this league has been really high and the final is likely to be a good game to watch and heckle.

In Div 2, the Balaclavas take on Shazam. The Balaclavas have some superstars in their line-up and plenty of new talent and depth. Against this star-studded line-up, Shazam are looking like total underdogs. Also, many of Shazam's players are out of town and thus cannot play. To compound the risk of forfeits, the Balaclavas only have two players registered.

Despite the possible absence of players, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that this might be one of the highest quality league games of any league in Australia. I'm then going to qualify that by saying that both teams are also capable of plumbing the very depths of awfulness. But, returning to the limb, I think this game will see moments from both teams that wouldn't look out of place at the international level. With a number of players from each team involved in the All Australian camp two weekends ago, expect fireworks when the Div 2 final starts this Wednesday.