Brown Huck-A-Hunk-'O-Burning-Pumpkin

This was some tournament. By god, it was some tournament.

We left campus at around 6 AM, which all things considered is not as early as it could have been. Thanks to Brown for the first round bye, which got us an extra hour and a half of sleep. Bmac, wonderful president that he is, made everyone homemade breakfast sandwiches and cereal bars to go with our directions. Some guy, that guy...

Our first game was against Brown's alumni (aka Hellfish). It was an interesting game, as they were all flaired out in clothes that would have made Dartmouth, the home of flair, proud. Some of the best players in the country played for them, although they were obviously difficult to distinguish, what with their wigs and dresses and all. Colin Mahoney, Josh Ziperstein, and Mike Vandenberg were some of the big names/faces I recognized, and although they obviously didn't play as hard as they could have, it was still pretty cool seeing some of the biggest stars in the game. Relative celebrities in our little isolated community, if you will. The game wasn't particularly close, they obviously played a little lazy, and although from what I vaguely remember, we didn't play all that badly either, we still lost 13-7.

Our second and third games were against Boston University and Brandeis, respectively. I also don't remember too much about these games... We won them 13-5 and 12-10 respectively, although I feel like we should also have won the second one by a larger margin. I think we just let Tron crawl back into it in the middle of the game.

These first three games had some pretty grim weather. As previously stated, the forecast didn't look promising at all, to say the least. The first game against Hellfish was actually decent. There was no rain, a comfortable temperature, not too much wind (compared to the other games this weekend). However, conditions got pretty shitty for the second and third. Much more windy, sporadic rain that came down pretty strong, all that nonsense.

The last game of the day was against Brown as the showcase game of the tournament. We had to drive to Brown's campus from the fields at Colt State Park in Bristol, RI during the round before the game, as we would be playing on a turf field at Brown under the lights. Getting some food along the way, we got there and warmed up, during which it began to pour. It rained like I'd never seen before. Ever. It came down in sheets, almost as if my frustration from the day materialized into the form of furious, angry rain. The wind also picked up to the 35 mph wind (or possibly more, I didn't know exactly at that point) previously promised. It was truly an experience in my ultimate career that I'll never forget. It really looked like something straight out of a movie (or an episode of Friday Night Lights), and we all felt the electricity and the excitement of the moment. I really thought that the conditions were absolutely unplayable, and that if it were almost any other sport played outdoors, the game would have been called. Even though the weather was that bad, and that we play a sport that involves throwing a thin, 175-gram piece of plastic through the air, the show went on.

The game was insane. It was pretty much impossible to throw upwind and precision ultimate was made pretty difficult, so we punted a bunch of times downwind to try to force a turn closer to the endzone. There were also more than a few plays where Ds would float back right into the cutter's outstretched hands, and one where a mac'd disc actually carried back about 45 yards back downfield. On defense, we blue-crushed too many discs, and although it was nobody's fault, it was shitty as hell.

We lost the game 11-6. Most of Brown Ultimate assembled for the game, and the sidelines had the whole extended family of Brownian Motion/Disco Inferno to cheer them on. They simply played better, moved the disc down the field effortlessly, threw I-O flick breaks at will, and we couldn't get many Ds.

Next day:

We left, got some breakfast, and got to the fields an hour early. Games started at 10:30 after the Brown guys decided to green light games after the beating that the fields took yesterday. In the parking lot, there were almost a dozen or more cars full of tired, sleepy ultimate players waiting, passed out just like we were. A pretty funny sight.

We played our games in a field in the outfield of a baseball field. The field wasn't actually too bad, but was pretty short. In addition, Mother Nature just wouldn't quit. New surprises of the day were a ten degree temperature drop from the day before and a consistent 30 mph crosswind.

Our games were against UMass and Northeastern. The game against UMass was the first round of bracket play for the championship. All UMass wanted to do all day was huck it deep, and judging by their team, you can't blame them. They definitely play to their strengths, and had the throwers and cutters to make it happen. We tried to take it away as well as we could, but they knocked us out in a heated game 15-8.

Our next (and very last game for the Pain Train until the spring) was against Northeastern, a small 13-player team that the Discomfort Trolley faced the weekend before at Yale Cup. The captains/coaches (by the way, Coaches Nate Raines '07 and Dan Yi '06 graced us with their presence this weekend) competitively subbed for the most part for the UMass game, most likely in an attempt to advance to the next round, but kept the rotation more open for the game against NUGC.

We won the game 14-11. The score looks a lot closer than it could have been, but all the tryouts played very well, and we won. Good note to finish the fall season on.

Yale Coffee Cup 2008: Sunday

(Also excerpted)

After a great night's sleep, breakfast, and a Dartmouth Ultimate a cappella rendition of 'You Are My Sunshine' to the Routhiers, we left for Yale. We got there a few minutes before 9, which was when we thought our first game would be.

There was a lot of confusion late yesterday and early this morning about our schedule, and to be frank, I don't think the TDs communicated very well with the teams (one of the TDs played with his team all day?). Apparently, yesterday afternoon was supposed to be the first round of bracket play, but we thought it was only pool play and went to watch the women for the rest of the day. The TDs changed the format late on Friday afternoon, and although we should have realized we had another game yesterday, the other team (Rutgers) took the forfeit only 5 minutes after we failed to show, although we easily could have been found. However, after some confusion, it apparently went the other way around, as they forfeited instead (our first win of the year!), and we played Northeastern in the semifinals of the chumpionship bracket at around 10 AM this morning in an abbreviated game. It's true that a decent amount of blame for what happened was confusion and lack of knowledge on our part, but a lack of communication is never a good thing.

EDIT: So it turns out that the TDs did send information about all this by email, but seeing as how it was all sent to the official account and no admins checked it Saturday night (they were all at CCC), we never got the memo. Ouch.

The weather was much better today (sunny and warmer) than yesterday (wet, raining and cold), but of course, a tournament can never have beautiful weather, it's just not possible. As a result, Murphy's Law brought us a strong 15 mph up/downwind to our fields all day, and Northeastern capitalized by using a zone defense on us for every point. To our credit, we only had 11 players (several of our players left Saturday afternoon). We came out strong to start, but still lost 8-0. We definitely had our chances to score a few points, but some late impatience after working the zone O efficiently cost us.

Apparently, after that game, we were scheduled to play Brown. Yep, you heard me. Brownian Motion, B-Mo, the team of the worst Raines brother itself (kidding. maybe least hairiest?). I guess it makes sense logistically according to the schedule and everything else, but the fact that B-Mo fell to the 11th place game, same as Dartmouth's B team, was pretty surprising to say the least. After some discussion and mutual agreement, we decided to scrimmage Brown-B instead, which was finally our first game against a fellow B team all weekend.

And boy oh boy, was it a good game. We traded points all game, a new feeling for the weekend (scoring points!). The game was marked by the intensity and momentum that we carried over from our game against Northeastern (perhaps the only time in history that a team has used momentum from an 0-8 shutout into their next game). There was great cutting, man and zone defense on our part, bids everywhere ('12s can layout already!).

The game ended in a 12-9 loss, although we decided to continue to play for fun afterwards because we just didn't want the fun to stop. Some of the highlights from that mini game were a beautiful full-field huck from Mothra to Enzyte, a really convincing tiger trap by Jam (I still can't help laughing thinking about it now), an upside-down point, etc.

After the game, we hit the road, got some lunch at Friendly's on the way, then got home to Hanover at around 5 PM. Overall, a great tournament experience.

CCC: A phone call to Bmac himself (hi Bmac!) revealed that the CCC guys beat both Alabama and UCF in bracket play of the C bracket, but lost a 'squeaker' to Texas in the finals. I'll learn more when I talk to the guys at practice today, I think they got in sometime this morning.

Yale Coffee Cup 2008: Saturday

(Excerpted from my own blog)

It’s currently Saturday night at the Routhiers, and it feels so much later than it actually is. It’s awesome to finish tournaments at a decent time, get an early dinner, and relax/rest early.

So last night, about ten of us decided to go down to Jam’s (hi Jam!) house instead of this morning, saving us about an hour of sleep in the morning. After much confusion and hurried planning, we got there at around 10 PM, and went to sleep at around midnight.

We woke up this morning at about 6 AM, got out of our beds (we all had either a bed, sofa, or futon, pretty unheard of for ultimate-team-crashing), had an awesome breakfast made by Jam’s mom, then hit the road for Yale. We got there a little early so as to be there for the captains’ meeting, letting the others leave a little later from Hanover. We actually started our first game of the day pretty much savage, but soon thereafter the rest of our team arrived.

We played three games today with no byes, against Cornell (seeded first overall), Connecticut, and Maryland. All solid A teams. As for the games, we lost each one 13-1. Yep. To our credit, we did learn a lot (cliché I know, but we really did), and it was also the first experience playing competitive ultimate for many of the ‘12s. Even so, many of us upperclassmen definitely could have played better. We weren’t playing to our full potential, playing down is something we can't do. It’s something we constantly have to keep in mind.

Last night, on the way to Jam’s house, our car decided to call Socks (i.e. beloved ’08) and ask him if he wanted to come to Yale and see us. After a pretty miserably ‘Deez nuts’ attempt, he agreed to come, and we kept it a secret from pretty much everyone until he arrived at around noon. It absolutely made my day (probably even my term) just to see him again. He even played a few points with us, and from what we saw, it looks like he's still got it.

As most of our games ended well before the end of their respective rounds, we spent a decent amount of time watching the women and bringing the spirit, which they did for us in turn for the beginning of our last game against Maryland. Most of the guys, who were pretty exhausted, cold and wet, decided to call it a day halfway through the womens’ last game (against Yale Ramona X for the chumpionship, which they won). I decided to stay and cheer the women on, and I also got to catch up with a high school friend who goes to Yale afterwards. It’s so much fun to watch the women play because they play with such precision, and so many of them were playing so well/much better than I'd last seen them last year. I'm such a big fan, and I just can’t help feeling so excited for the womens' team this year.

I also spent some time watching some of the other open teams play this weekend. I saw a great game between Maryland (I caught up with some of the Maryland players I got to know on SB last year) and Connecticut, as both teams were pretty evenly matched and played some pretty awesome ultimate. I also saw Tufts take on Rhode Island in a closely contested game that URI ended up winning. Some great college ultimate is being played already, and it's not even the spring yet. The Northeast could be highly contested this year (not if we can help it, obviously), but mark my words: it’s going to be way exciting with more teams emerging onto the scene this year, no matter what ends up happening with C1/NCUA.

By the way, short note on CCC: the guys in Georgia went 1-4 on the day with a sole win against Clemson. Not the best ultimate they've played, but it's early, and I'm sure everyone was relatively rusty. Nothing to worry about, but it definitely should also light a fire under this team to up it up this winter.

More to come tomorrow night.