Riot!

This past weekend was the Regina Riot (nee Boh-Down) tournament, the first major co-ed tournament on the Prairies (Beat the Skeeters the week before was strictly local). It was also Chaos’ first tourney as a single unit, the Nationals roster having been decided the week before, and most of those players out for the tourney. Planning for the tournament on our side was typical last minute, well, Chaos, but as usual everything came together well enough and we all made it out on Friday, scattered between a few billets and hotel rooms for the night.

Saturday morning we met at the fields for our first games. We had come expecting the weather to be cold and rainy – they had moved the tournament a few weeks later in hopes of better weather this year, but somehow the weather gods were not fooled – but the conditions were surprisingly miserable. Rain, broken up by occasional drizzle; a penetrating cold made worse by the wetness; and a fairly strong wind to boot, headed mostly upwind/downwind, which meant upwind breaks were going to be the key to victory.

Our first game was against Tantrum from Regina. This was a decent team of local players, many of the men I recognised from Regina All-Stars at the men’s tourney May long. Good, but definitely beatable. Early on we traded points downwind, predictably. Some upwind chances failed to score, but finally we got one and had the chance to hold for the win. Unfortunately we soon allowed an upwind break, then a downwind, then another upwind… it was rather surprising how completely we lost momentum and the game slipped away. Final was 13-8ish.

Second game was against another local team (OK, aside from us they were all local – surprisingly not even a team from Saskatoon this year), HEET. They were decidedly weaker but held with us early. Finally a few upwind breaks and the outcome was no longer in question. I don’t recall the score but it ended fairly decisively.

Third game was against Syndicate. While not an official touring team, this was made of mostly touring or touring-level players (most of the men played with Mangina) so it was clear this would be our toughest matchup. As with the other games, upwind points were at a premium, both teams working hard to score upwind and punting or taking low-percentage deep chances downwind. Our defence was producing plenty of chances but the offence sputtered – often close to a key upwind score – and we could not manage to take the lead. Syndicate got a break or two and took the win.

By the end of the game the weather was deteriorating even further. We tried to keep our fingers relatively dry and warm – hopefully we would be able to feel most of them for the next game – as we huddled on the sideline. As we waited for the start, some representatives of Tantrum and Syndicate were talking to our captains about what the playoff structure should look like for Sunday given the odd five-team division. Listening in on the discussion I thought it odd they were already assigning us third place – didn’t we still have a game to play that could affect the standings? We would have to win this one to take third… Anyway the captains agreed on a 4 vs 5 play-in to a standard 4 team bracket, so if we won this one we’d have a first-round bye – always nice when there’s a Saturday tourney party. Our captains then turned checked with the captains of our next opponent – Team Ramrod – to arrange a shortened game to escape the weather. I was a little nervous at the proposed one hour hard cap, as a shorter game leaves more up to chance…

As it turned out I needn’t have worried. This was the one team in the division that truly shouldn’t have been playing competitively, but had been asked if they would play to make it a larger division. We scored upwind on our first point. Then downwind, then upwind again. I was not concerned about the chance of an upset any longer. We kept rolling, and suddenly we were at half up 7-0. A quick mirror half – standing around in the cold would be death – and right back where we left off. At 8 minutes to hard cap we decided to make it last point. Unfortunately the point dragged on for what seemed like forever to those of us shivering on the sideline. The other team actually had a few goal-line scoring chances, but failed, leaving us to work a long field upwind. Finally we scored and rushed to our vehicles to get back to somewhere warm and dry. Our carload made a pitstop for some hot coffee and chili. We’d be getting a free meal in a few hours, but needed warmth and nourishment first. Then back to the billets for some long hot showers, and a chance to zone out for a while. Then onto dinner and the party.

As usual the dinner was great – salads, baked potatoes, steak – just what was needed after a long day of ulti. We caught up with our teammates and friends playing with Winnipeg’s rec teams at the tourney. Free meals were eaten, free beer was drunk, drinking games were played, dances were dance, a good time was had by all. The usual.

Sunday morning we awoke, many of us mildly hung over, and grateful for the delayed start time. Not too much worse for the wear though as we pulled back to the fields we had played on the previous day. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, the fields were flooded, so we were off to another location to play. Once again we were up against Tantrum. We knew we could beat them (and should have on Saturday), but even moreso today as they looked much more afffected by the goings on of the previous night. The weather now was cool and cloudy with a light breeze – significantly improved from Saturday – so possession was more critical than scoring with the wind. The first point a huck went up to my check. I tracked it perfectly and went up for the D, only to find the disc firmly in the hand of my opponent. Skied! I resolved to play better D. We traded the next few points until Tantrum looked to score on a break. I saw the throw developing and poached into the lane, getting the layout block. I was feeling much better about my play now. A quick timeout of the turnover to refocus ourselves and then we worked the disc up methodically for the score to make it 4-3. From there we rolled… 8-4 at half and then 15-4 final. Tantrum was not quite the team we played Saturday, while we were looking a lot more focused. Next up for revenge would be Syndicate in the final.

We moved fields again to the location of the final, on the cricket pitch at Regina’s Douglas Park. Both A and B finals were scheduled to be played on opposite fields here, and the the B final was getting underway as we arrived. We surveyed the field we were to be playing on and quickly determined we had got the short end of the stick on this one. Neither field was in great shape, but this one was ugly – the far side was mud mixed with grass, and the near side was a thin layer of grass coving mud. Just walking a few steps, our cleats were caked. Hmm, well,at least the weather was decent…

After both teams had cleated and warmed up, the game got underway. We were looking a lot better than the previous matchup. Our cuts were getting open on their person-to-person offence, and our defence was getting breaks. We scored the first point, then added another on D. They got one back but we countered on O; this happened again and we were up 4-2. This was looking promising.

However around this time, Syndicate made an adjustment that would prove fatal for us – they switched to zone. It wasn;t that windy a day, and we’d seen zone before, but somehow it baffled us this time. our dump and swings seemed painfully difficult, and often lost ground. When we broke the cup, there was little further to go. And eventually after dozens of passes for not much gain, someone would try something just a little risky and pay for it. Soon they had tied, then taken the lead. We called a timeout to adjust, to no avail. They took half 8-4.

I wish there was more to say at this point, about how at half we just refocused, or made that critical adjustment that helped us battle back into the game, but it just wasn’t there this time. We put in a hard-fought but pitifully ineffective second half as we never did figure out that zone, and continually saw our meagre offensive gains dashed by a small error after many passes. Syndicate ran away with it, winning 15-5.

All told it was a sometimes frustrating weekend, but certainly accomplished the goal of letting the team start to gel on and off the field, and taught us a lot about our strengths and weaknesses (needless to say, a focus of the next practice would be on zone offence). Next several weeks we will have off from tournaments, so hopefully we have enough to go on to improve ourselves beforehand. Next up is the Minneapolis Ultimate Disc Invitational (MUDI), formerly Aquatennial, in mid-July. That will have several tougher teams than the ones we faced in Regina, so will be a good test. More on that later… perhaps I’ll actually blog on something non-ulti-related for a change. No promises.

Beat the Skeeters Recap

Just a short recap this time (by my standards anyway). Skeeters this year was again a small tourney and teams were exclusively local. With a large number of players interested in playing and a small number of other competitive teams, Chaos split into two squads and picked up a few other players to fill out the rosters. I was on team Slim Jim while the other squad was Hot Rods. The only other teams in competitive were Jeaners, essentially the same as their league team (one of the elite Wednesday A squads, formerly known as Nuts ‘n’ Gum); and Optimus, who were made up of a talented bunch of youngsters formerly on MOFO (but now ineligible for Juniors play). Saturday was 3 round robin games to determine seedings for Sunday’s semis.

First game was against Jeaners. We started a bit shaky; a few good passes followed by a drop or throwaway which was quickly capitalised on by Jeaners. We were down 5-1 pretty quickly. However we battled back to tie but never managed to take the initiative in scoring, and lost on double game point, 12-11.

Next up were Optimus. We continued with the same focus as the end of the previous game and blitzed them early, taking a 5-0 lead before they scored. The youngsters were mentally defeated by then, and never challenged for the rest of the game, going down 13-3.

The final game was against our teammates with team Hot Rod. As if we needed more motivation, the winning team would get to decide the fate of our captain’s cheesy ‘mustache’ (if the wispy growth on his upper lip truly warranted such a description). Unfortunately the game did not live up to the billing… a few travel calls early and the game turned into a call-fest, which put some of the Hot Rodders off their game. Slim Jim cruised to a relatively easy victory.

Saturday night there was the usual party of course, but not before a few of us took in one of our Trogdor teammate’s performances in a dance recital. I was prepared to be thoroughly bored through most of it, but it was quite entertaining. Highlights were our teammate’s performances, plus the father of a few prominent Winnipeg players doing some dance moves that no 60-something should, and a guest performance by a breakdance troupe with an absolutely unreal performance. Well worth going.

After that, off to the party. Due to the small size of the tourney (and lack of Reginians) the party was pretty tame, but I did get to take part in a boat race – and won it largely on the strength of my performance on the final drink, impressing seemingly everyone except my wife. Can’t please everybody I guess.

Sunday I was feeling pretty fresh despite the previous day of games and night of drinking. The weather, as it had been on Saturday, was gorgeous. We had finished first in our pool due to +/- among the 3 teams finishing 2-1 and matched up against Optimus, who went 0-3 on Saturday. Unlike our first game against them, we failed to build a big lead early and actually found ourselves trailing. By half we were down 8-5. Halftime was a head check and the decision was made to start calling lines. We battled back to tie, and again found ourselves in a double-game point situation with us pulling. A quick turn, we capitalised with a big looping huck, and were on to the final.

Hot Rods has also won their semi – easily defeating Jeaners, who evidently didn’t have the legs they did to start Saturday – and so we had effectively an all-Chaos final. Something of a victory in itself, bu the final was still to be played. After the chippy game Saturday, they were looking for revenge. Unlike Saturday though, the game was friendly yet intense, and hotly contested the whole way through. Hot Rods took a small lead early, we tied just before half, they took half and went on a small run just afterwards. We battled back to make it close again, but they pulled it out to win 15-13.

Somewhat disappointing for me to be on the losing team, but losing to a bunch of teammates definitely took the sting off. Our prizes (2 cases of beer for the winners, one for the runners up) were shared as the two squads met for some season planning. Nationals are a go, and Regina Riot – our first tourney as a single squad – is coming up this weekend. Looking forward to both…. Look for the Riot recap sometime next week.