Boston 2012?

Cuz its not gonna happen in 2008.

So there has been this new thing in ultimate up here in the northeast this spring, the fusion of DoG and Twisted Metal (and anyone else who is good enough in the area). So folks are calling this team Death Meal or Twisted Glory, I for one am a big fan of "or (space)"...wait for it......got it. Apparently, the powers that be have decided to make a new bad ass disc squad this spring and summer to challenge Sockeye for the title of best ultimate team in the US. Such an honor carries with it the UPA 2007 club title and the oppurtunity to represent the US at the world ultimate games in Vancover, Canada in august of 2008. Boston DoG won the gold 2000 after winning the club title in San Diego in 1999. The Condors got the chance to represent the US after finishing 2nd to furious (being the #1 USA team) in 2003 and got silver in 2004. So its 4 years later and its time for the US to pick another squad and boston wants to lay their hand down and see what happens. I for one think that this is a horrible idea and I hope this boston squad goes down in flames. Now let me tell you why.

First, I realize that all these guys are better than me, as can be seen with their -A guys tooling us at White Mountain Open in the semis. Second, I am a huge jack ass that loves the west coast and despises the east.

Now for some real discussion. I suppose my main criticism goes out to twisted metal. After learning the legacy that was this squad, I was very disappointed to learn that they were fusing with DoG. To my understanding, Jeff Graham, a great Umass player, was not a fan of the DoG squad so he started his own team and developed a stellar, albeit bottom 1/2 of club nationals, team of ultimate players to challenge the NE power house. This team has only been inexistence for ~5 years and has already shown to be a legit squad that deserves a spot at nationals, even if they don't make it into quarters. Coming from San Diego, just making nationals is a big deal and if you get to the play-in game, you have done well. It might not be bracket play, but you did well, and there is always next year, after all, a lot of these other teams have been around 2-3x longer. So I guess you could say I am a Twisted fan. Not unlike Revolver, they challenged the evil empire of their region and despite the fact that they haven't taken down DoG yet, they still are contenders. Maybe Revolver took down Justice League or Dragon or JAM now, but then again, JAM isn't as good as DoG and Revolver only had one more important game over Twisted and Twisted went 3-0 in weaker (not power) pool play. So what is my point? Twisted is good, they have a reason to exist, they are not chumps. So why join the evil empire? Why dissolve your team just cuz DoG wants to? Maybe it was Twisted's idea to combine, which is even worse. It'd be like if the boston red sox and the new your yankees fused to become one team just to topple the st. louis cardinals. I believe twisted totally sold themselves out and showed that being a part of general boston team and playing with regional rivals is better than being your own legit squad. Sham on Metal, they are better than this.

Secondly, this sucks because it just shows how much of a strong hold DoG has on ultimate in New England. Now I know they won 6 national titles in a row and will go down in history as one of the best programs ever, but so what. They won their last national title in 1999, can anyone even tell me who won the world series, superbowl, nba finals, or stanley cup in 1999? Respect they deserve, leadership, I dunno. Parinella is a great innovater of the game and so are a lot of the other players on DoG, but these guys are fucking snobs. They think they know everything about this game just cuz they won 6 titles. Now that sounds like a retared sentence, but let me follow with, just because you win, doesn't give you the right to think you are above the game, above your competition, above your competitors. Any real champion will congratulate their opponent in a game well played before touting themselves and any real champion will humble themselves before the game and thank their talent, timing, and team mates over telling the world why they are better. After reading some of Parinella's writings and playing against him, I can say that he is a really nice guy, but he thinks he is god and its fucking ridiculous. Its a game and just because you USED to win doesn't make you the end all be all. I mean parinella talking shit about us (col 45) after we beat his team at WMO on his blog was absured and the guy should've just said, "we looked past them they were a good team" instead of "It was disheartening to lose the quarterfinals after being up 12-9 and 14-12 in a game to 15, and against a team that is probably about an 8th-10th place at Regionals quality. No doubt about that feeling. " Sometimes other teams win, not you lose. Ok, so off parinella back to DoG. I hate seeing a team with so much clout totally take over/absorb a younger team just cuz of a reputation. I mean the hope is to be able to challenge the NW (not to mention Bravo and Chain) for the #1 US team, and DoG got beat by every NW team (thats 4 loses). So many people here in New England kiss ass to DoG, Forch, and Parinella and it is soo fucking annoying. Maybe their wouldn't be ultimate in Connecticut with out Mr Mueller, but come on, he's not god. And the same goes for other phenoms in the area. I have been wanting to say this for months and its my blog so yeah, Eric Pitt, you're a fucking homo who needs to get out of Teddy's ass. Guy is a great player and a nice guy, but stop sucking his cock you brown nose cock knocker. Get a freaking life. Ok a little rant, my apologies. So yeah DoG shouldn't get this much clout. Respect yes, admiration yes, but this much power? they don't deserve it and its kinda sad to see this happen. You would never see Revolver and JAM fuse (fingers crossed that this doesn't happen). I would hope that Nick Handler and the rest of the Stanford guys would tell Watson and Eastham to go to hell. Metal should have done the same.

Now lets look at the logic of this move. There are 2 essential things you need to win in this game. Talent and chemistry. Take a look at sockeye in 2005. Basically the same team as 2006 but hey lost 13-15 instead of won 15-13. Why? Well in 2004 they reloaded and boy did they reload. Their squad got Nord and soon after Ray Illian, Idaho, etc... However, you gotta play with your guys for awhile first. You have an all-star squad, yes, but your guys have to know the ins and outs of eachother (no homo). Fast forward a year, you have sockeye 2006 and they dominated, first team to ever sweep nationals since the power pool format. Good for them. How the hell is Boston going to compete with that? And what about Bravo, Chain, JAM, or anyother veteran squad of flatballers? You can't just throw some guys together anymore and think you can win natties. Its not gonna happen. Now, I would think that these 30+ year old players with their 20+ years of experience would know this and even the younger guys should, begging the question, why would you dissolve your break away kick ass team to play with guys you wanted to not play with just to try to win something you have no shot at? (at least not in 2008) Metal and DoG should think about 2 things, 1) why aren't we winning? and 2) lets be patient and develop the tools, the recruiting and the strategy to realistically win it all. Now maybe DoG has changed, maybe the rivalry isn't what it used to be, maybe their isn't bad blood anymore and DoG and Metal have come to a common understanding. That is still no excuse. A true team stands on its own and wins games, not gold medals. This is steinbrenner disc and it sucks. I hope they don't even make power pools.

Now lets take a look at their competition. First, DoG lost one of the most dominate players in the history of college disc and a very very good club player in Josh Zipperstein. Rumor has it that he is now trying out for, guess who, Sockeye. And not only is this a low blow but I have also heard that Sockeye is picking up Seth Wiggins, Kubalanza, and the worst of all, Tim Gehret. Yikes, I thought Sockeye was good last year. Now this specualtion comes from a source that was at Cal States this weekend, so I am going with what was told to me, but all this looks like pretty scary odds against Boston. With that in mind, how is it that Metal guys can think to themselves, well we can try and beat the NW by playing with our rivals or beat them with our team mates. Maybe in an ID4, bill pullman pump up speech, this is a pretty story that pits the underdog NE against the evil NW. But the NE are a bunch of arrogant douches and the NW are a class act of good players who respect their competition and the game they play above their own accomplishments, so fuck New England. So thats the NW/NE debate situation. But what about the rest of the club national squads. Sorry but Chain and Bravo are 2 teams that made it out of quarters and were better than DoG this past year. Neither one of these squads is losing anyone big and they are only getting better with the the maturation of the Hodag influence into the SW club scene (ie valdavia and tripoli) and chain just being good, I mean who saw simpson in the show case game? So yeah, even if "or (space)" is a legit, well polished, team, they have to go through sooo many better teams to get the golden disc.

Also, lets look at this world title for a second as well. Its a world title in Ultimate. Now, does that even mean anything? Ok, you get a gold medal if you win, you get to play against other countries, but is it really a world title? Is the winner of this world title the best in the world? And is the 2nd or 3rd place or 8th place, really that rank in the world? No fucking way. take a look at the 3 world championships currently. First there was the one in 2005 which will be in Asia in 2009. A co-ed ultimate tournament where the US sent a team based not on pure talent but via political reasons. I mean come on, Namkung and Willy D on the team over Nord? Where was Sammy CK? Damien Scott? Maybe some of the best had other plans, fine. But if we can send a team that arguably isn't the best, not unlike the olympic team USA basketball of 2004, and still win the gold, is the gold medal really worth that much? I know that this tournament only happens every 4 years, but I mean, we could have sent an entirely different squad of men and women (maybe hold on to miranda roth) and we could still could have won. This implies that USA is the best, ok, but not the team we sent. So world championship #1 is not so stellar

Now lets look at the latest one in Perth, Australia. Yes Japan won, but are they really the best in the world? I mean the two US open team there were Sub-Zero and Double Wide. Both very good US teams that have done well in nationals in the past but sub-zero didn't even make quarters and Double Wide didn't even qualify for nationals. So my point is, how good was the competition at this WORLD tournament.

Now, lets take a look at the best world tournament, the one coming up in 2008, which, in my opinion will crown the deserving #1 team and #2 in the world but thats about it. Furious and whatever US team will probably finish 1 and 2 just like 2004 but the rest of the pack will be forgettable. I mean team USA and Canada basically rolled over the rest of the world. The closest anyone got to team USA was finland 17-15 (ok close I'll give you that) but the next was the UK at 15-12. Team canada was even worse. Team USA fought them 14-12 in the finals but aside from that, Sweeden lost 17-12. So really, is this tournament really a test of the best in the world? My opinion is NO.

So why all this discussion? My overall point here is that a world title is more of a personal achievement in ultimate. The game is not big enough where the rest of the world can really contest the US or Canada and so a gold medal is great, but its like furious winning the Canadian ultimate championships, its just no biggy, I mean they don't even go to the tourney anymore. I suppose my argument is that dissovling a strong team that was made for a strong reason for a weak attempt at a weak title is pretty, well, weak. I think going to world's would be a lot of fun and you get to do the whole trade jersey thing and paly with other people from around the world and all that sappy crap, but realistically, there is more than 1 us team that could potentially make at least the finals at such a tournament, so what makes you think you are truly the best in the world? In my opinion being the best means beating the best. While it maybe nice to tell the guys at work you are going to british columbia to compete at World's for a sport that currently commands little outside respect, the ones truly in the know, understand that the world champion is crowned every October. Worlds is just a fancy/expensive tournament to tell the world something that, for those who care, they already know.

So why am I so critical, why so agains this merger. These guys just want to the chance to say they won gold, whats wrong with that? They sold out. They (metal) quit on the most elmental part of their game (their team) for a tangible piece of medal. They (metal) quit on their team, they (DoG) asserted undeserved power, and I hope they (or space) go down in flames. They won't and don't deserve to be the best in the world.

Go sockeye, go Bravo, go Chain, go Revovler, Rhino, JAM, Double Wide, VC, BAT, go anyone but Boston. These great and talented players that will become Twisted Bitch or Rusted Glory, or whatever, will go down in flames and hopefully I will be in sarasota this halloween to be drunk and tearful in my joy.

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