Tushar has posted the video from the 2010 Canadian Ultimate Championships Masters final between GLUM and Figjam on his site, iamultimate. Man, it was a slow, sloppy game for the most part. Doesn’t look anything like what we played in Florida, but fun to watch nonetheless…
Video: GLUM vs. Figjam, CUC 2010
Home again after missing yet another Canadian Thanksgiving. Massachusetts is beautiful in October, though, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Turkey: good; kicking Yankee tail at ultimate: better.
GLUM descended upon Devens this past weekend in its annual run to the UPA Championships, and didn’t miss a beat from 2009′s dominant performance. This year’s team is about 30% different from last, but the changes have been positive and the gelling has happened fast. There’s no doubt this team is deep, and it showed at the UPA Northeast Regional tournament. Pete Knowles was a late scratch on Thursday due to a minor (we hope) back issue, and 2010 addition from Mephisto, Mark “Shaggy” Zimmerl, is also nursing an injury, so we were running a still-crazy 27 strong on Saturday. Brett Taylor cleated up for his first GLUM tournament since last year’s No Borders, but spent the first half-hour babysitting before the cold wind sent he and the kids back to the hotel, so he didn’t play Saturday either. And was careful not to remove the tags from his jerseys. BT is never one to commit easily…
Despite missing 2 of our top O weapons and our D-line motivator, Saturday’s pool play came and went without much excitement. We opened with a 13-3 win against our compatriots from Quebec, Quantum, who were making their first foray into Fall Series. I think this is the same score we played to in Lennoxville at Nationals, although both teams had markedly different rosters in August. They’re quick and energetic, but lacked the handling skill and — this was a recurring theme — depth to stay with us. We started on D, and rolled 3 different D-lines at them to start, breaking each time. We played Mt. Crushmore next, and dispatched them by the same score. Our final game of the day was against our sometime rivals from NYNY, once Above & Beyond, now WSL All-Stars. Sort of expected this one to be tighter, but with a new team (Rumble) from the NE reportedly taking some talent from both DoG and NYC, they aren’t what they used to be. They gave us a run for a short time, but we pulled away without a lot of fuss to a 13-6 win.
Seton did some math at the end of the day based on Shaggy’s points spreadsheet, and figured the average number of points available to each of the 27 of us who had played was something like 4.2/game. I think I played about 10-12 points over the course of the 3 games, and I’m certainly in the bottom 25% of this year’s roster, so I was right on par, and never felt I was being slighted or should have got more PT. Instead of it being tougher to manage a roster of 29-deep, as it’s generally assumed, maybe it will be easier with this team. As long as everyone is playing their role to the best of their ability, we will win games AND everyone should play. Very exciting, and definitely makes for some good internal competition for field time. We also seem to have a really relaxed yet confident headspace on this year’s squad, from the captains all the way down to the ‘Black Aces’ end of the lineup. There will be a need for an increased sense of urgency at some points in Florida, and hopefully that will be there when needed, but the calmness under pressure is a positive thing.
Sunday morning for us meant semis — win and we go to Florida; lose and we have a tougher road. We faced the new team, Rumble, who definitely provided the closest match for us athletically and skillwise that we’d seen so far. The game was back-and-forth to start, and even at half, was closer than we felt it should be. The second half showed again how valuable our depth will be this fall; our level of play went up a little, and theirs started to drop. At some point, they may have decided to shut it down in anticipation of their 2nd-chance game-to-go (the region got 3 bids to Nationals this year instead of 2), but whatever the case, we dropped them 15-10-ish. And with that, we were back to Sarasota. No overt celebration, no sense of accomplishment. After beating DoG 3 straight times in 2009, we weren’t here to take the #2 seed to Florida.
We had been scheduled to play the 1-2 seeding game at 3:15. Nonsense. A 10-hour drive for most of us starting at 5:30pm is crazy talk. Cooler heads prevailed, and we agreed to start ASAP vs. DoG. They look mostly the same as last year, just one year older. Jim Parinella is back after offseason neck surgery, and Alex DeFrondeville is still chucking hammers. They definitely gave us more than wanted to start the game. I think they may have been up 2 breaks at one point. But our O line was steady and we managed to take half 8-6 despite having a lot of trouble finishing on defense. Tons of turns generated, but just couldn’t seem to keep a lid on the crap long enough to get to the endzone. The second half was much better for our D, but DoG continued to stay close until the closing points, when you could see their defensive energy draining while ours stayed level as we continued to roll guys through. Final score 13-10 (first game we played that got capped). #1 seed headed to Florida. We should have a solid seeding — top-3, I would expect, behind Beyondors and Surly.
With 2.5 weeks to go until the start of the tournament, my structure needs a little work. Leading up to this week, I had just started to get over an incredibly painful left heel injury that has dogged me all summer — or it got to a point where I could run through it without wincing, more accurately — and I was beginning to enjoy the fitness work rather than dreading it. Then I got stupid. Last Tuesday, 3 days before Devens, I played pickup basketball because I’d been sick for a few days and wanted a good sweat, and I pulled something in my hamstring on a full-court breakaway. Didn’t feel too bad, so I just quit immediately, skipped Wednesday’s practice, and hoped for the best. All day Saturday was no problem; never felt it, never thought about it. First strike of our first huck drill on Sunday morning, however — it popped again. Same thing as before — not a whole lot of pain, but enough that I knew I couldn’t generate a full sprint and therefore was of no value to the team on the field. It sucks to have not played at all in the semi and final, but I’d rather play in Florida than risk it in Devens. So now, it’s 2.5 weeks of yoga and the Ottawa High Performance Centre for physio. Hopefully Jay can figure out what it is and fix it pronto. If this is to be the end of my touring career, it would really suck to spend it in flip-flops on the sideline.
It’s pretty exciting to think about our chances this year. Last year, we thought we had the makings of a finals team, and I still believe we were very close. Tough (stifling hot) weather and maybe some strategic roster management mistakes early in the tournament cost us, though, and ending up in 5th is probably where we deserved to be. This year, especially without last year’s champion, Troubled Past, in attendance, we should be right there on Saturday, making our own destiny. I’m confident that there will not be a team as deep as GLUM down south, and we’re better built for handling the Gulf winds this year for sure. As long as we take care of our bodies, and clean up some of the minor dirt that we saw this weekend on our game, we’ll be fine and should be pushing for a finals berth. Can’t wait.
The beat goes on. GLUM returned once more to the Canadian Ultimate Championships after two years of gold medal dominance in 2008 and 2009. Not much changed in Sherbrooke in 2010.
Chowder and I arrived in lovely Lennoxville on Tuesday, two days prior to the start of tournament play, with the goal of reliving some old college glory from his Bishop’s days. I was lucky enough to experience an evening on the town — which consists of one street light and a single bar worth mentioning (the Golden Lion Brew Pub — go there and try their Amber) — with Chowder and two of his old buddies. Many stories ensued. Most very unsafe for work or family. It was a good way to ease into the environment and chill out in anticipation of the hard work to come.
Thursday morning came fast. Our first game was at 10:30 against Scotch from Halifax. These guys are perennial attendees at CUC, but are rarely ever looking to win. They’re a great group to play, and the post-game shot of their namesake liquor can be seen as a reason to stay under the radar as much as possible when playing against them. GLUM came out hard, but a little unfocused early, as can be expected in the first game of our 2nd tournament of the year. In addition, we were trying to re-incorporate some players who weren’t able to attend No Borders in July, so it was fortunate for us to get one of the weaker teams in the division first. We eventually worked out the kinks and took a 15-6 win into game 2.
Next up was Quantum, a team we were anticipating since hearing about their admirable performances against DoG at the spring Masters Invitational tournament in Boston (two close losses, including 15-11 in the final). All we really knew was that they were based in Quebec City and likely had some old Q players. We expected them to be small, quick, and aggressive, and we weren’t disappointed. However, with our superior size and some difficult wind in the stadium, Quantum never seemed to be able to mount much opposition. Maybe it was nerves, but we came away with a relatively painless and easy 15-3 win.
After a bye, we closed out the day against our hometown rivals, BDU. As at No Borders and countless mens’ league scrimmages, GLUM just had too much firepower for their Ottawa brothers. Final score 15-5.
Things seemed to click almost too easily on Day One. The long game was unstoppable, our O line was on fire, and the D line was tearing it up. On Day Two, however, we had a slate of the 3 Fs — Flood, Figjam, and Fuel — expected to be the top 3 contenders for our title. If anything, the day went better than our first.
Flood (Winnipeg) had basically the same team they had last year, with a few elite athletes who were unfortunately thrust into handler roles. This took away any threat they may have posed on the deep end, and we walked away with a 15-3 win.
Figjam. Ah, Figjam. This team seems to have made it’s life mission to beat GLUM (see their 2010 website here) after two unsuccessful attempts in 2008 and 2009. With a Worlds qualifier year coming up in 2011, and an initiation into the UPA Fall Series apparently in the plans for this fall, Figjam is hoping to be Canada’s Masters representative in Brazil in 2012. It’s clear they’ve stocked up on a few younger players from the Open scene, and have re-dedicated themselves to fitness and skills development, but so has GLUM. They sat a few key players in this pool play game, and GLUM took advantage with a 15-6 win.
Fuel is Ontario’s 2nd-ranked Masters team, but is still a few players away from competing with the depth of GLUM. Led by GaLUMni Derek Sigurdson, Fuel represents an improvement on the past few years’ Toronto Masters team, Fossil. They’ve got the makings of a competitive squad, and with the ability to draw on retiring Open players from the GOAT-Grand Trunk system, they should be formidable opponents in coming years if they can keep it together and recruit well. Nonetheless, they aren’t quite there yet, as evidenced by another relatively easy 15-6 win to end our second day of pool play.
An 8:30 start. An 8:30 start for MASTERS?!? Cruel and unusual punishment. Our last pool play game of the tournament was against NSOM from Montreal. Neither team seemed to eager to play frisbee. We didn’t need the win in any case, having solidified the #1 seed in semis. The Montreal boys graciously offered many sweeteners of the ‘young French female’ and ‘potent potables’ variety if only we would grant them a 15-6 default win that would catapult them into semis themselves, but the first option would only tire us out and get us in trouble with our wives and girlfriends, and the second, well, we already always have the second well covered on our own… so we played the game instead. And we made it very interesting, with the help of an opponent who had been growing stronger and gelling more as their tournament progressed. We traded points for much of the game before GLUM finally managed to pull away in the second half for a 15-11 win. The most points scored on us in 3 years of Nationals play, and a reminder call that we better wake the hell up before the semis…
Fuel pulled out 4th place after pool play, setting up a rematch. Things went pretty much to plan the second time around. We used our full depth and even managed to save a few key players some time before finals. We opened up our deep game, which had seen some difficulty in the earlier games. We locked down on defense, with manic pressure on the marks and bails that made it very difficult for Fuel to move the disc. A big difference from our morning go-round with NSOM. Final score was 15-6 again.
Which set up a 3rd straight final matchup against Figjam on the turf of Coulter Stadium. They had their shot at GLUM; now what would they do with it? Last year’s final in the muck and rain of Winnipeg had started slowly with both teams trading points in the early going. This year’s final would follow suit. We took half 8-5 in Winnipeg, and we did the same here. Last year, we followed the half with a closeout second half. I think the final score might have been 15-7. This year was different. We didn’t maintain focus out of the half very well at all. It almost seemed like we expected to cruise to the end. As a result, we quickly found ourselves in a tight game. Our O had a few uncharacteristic drops and throwaways that led to easy Figjam scores, and all of a sudden, the score was 12-12. A contested foul called by Owen as he made a bid on a floater from Seton down the line turned the crowd against GLUM (everyone loves the underdog, I guess), but the call was upheld by the observer and GLUM ended up converting the crucial point to go up 13-12. This seemed to be the backbreaker, as we went on to score the next two points and finish the game 15-12, picking up our 3rd straight CUC gold medal.
A special note to Eric Budgell, who collided head-to-head with a Figjam player early in the game and missed the rest of the final while awaiting stitches in the hospital emergency room. Ugly gash, could have been a lot worse for either player; fortunately both escaped with only their good looks damaged. Budge was in the midst of an awesome tournament after busting his ass all year with Taylor in his infamous noon-hour workouts/Bataan death marches, so it’s too bad he had to miss the big game.
It’s tough to say where this year’s team ranks among the last three champions, but I think GLUM gets stronger every year, along with the Masters division as a whole. We may not be pulling away from the pack as much any more, but we are maintaining the gap. An expected strong fall season of recruiting some major ex-Open talent should propel us further ahead going into next year’s crucial CUC season. We don’t normally concentrate on the summer season in Canada, choosing to focus on the more prestigious and more competitive UPA Fall Series, but 2011 will be different. I fully expect a battle royale for roster spots on that team, and I look forward to either playing with or watching the best GLUM squad to ever see the field.
Fall Series reports to come — if I make the team…..
ps– There should be video of our final available at some point, too. It streamed live on iamultimate.com, and Tushar promised to deliver a CD to Hillbert as soon as he’s finished editing it. If I can, I’ll post a link here.
pps– There are photos in various places, too. I’ll try to hunt them all down and do a post with all the links.