Day 1 in the Books

After a day in NYC with the GF and an all night flight to Vancouver, I finally got here. I had to chill in the airport for a few hours before the rental car places opened up which gave me enough time to realize that every phone call I make is costing me 70 cents a minute and I cannot text. Yikes. Oh well, gotta role with the punches.

I get the dorms OK and manage to sleep for a few hours. I wake up around 1030am and begin to wander around. First off, I should say that the tournament itself is being held at UBC campus. This place is MASSIVE. It reminds me a lot of UCSD. One non-descript building after another nestled in a veritable maze of streets and cul-de-sacs. However, like UCSD the campus is very beautiful and I'm sure it is a great place to go to school.

I find frisbee central and there isn't a whole lot of organized frisbee going on. A few teams from varying countries practicing, merchandise and information booths getting setup. I try checking in but the Media badges aren't available so I go back to my dorm, get my truck (yeah they gave me a truck) and go venture off into Vancouver.

It's funny, every time I travel to one of these sorts of tournaments I try and take in the city as best I can. Because Yale isn't going to last forever, I need to start thinking about where else I could go. When I went to Centex, I really liked Austin. Great city filled with young liberal minds in a laid back atmosphere. It had the feel of the west coast without the price tags. Then I went to Boulder for Nationals and it wasn't for me. It had too much of a small town feel and I felt trapped between the rocky mountains and endless plains.

As for Vancouver, it is a brilliantly beautiful place. It carries the same sort of charm as Seattle, but on a smaller scale. Nestled in the mountains and inlets of the Northwest, it has a very crisp morning feel (even at noon) and it is so green and lush.

I cruised down Broadway looking for something to jump out at me and I saw a sign for a place called "Sushi Boy". I had been told that the asian food in Vancouver was very good, and judging by the number of Japanese restaurants, I am inclined to believe it. This place was as good as any and it had a hole in the wall sort of appeal. I had the lunch special and when I tried to pay with a debit card, I got frowns. Lucky for me, I had some left over Canadian money from Jazz Fest last year that I brought with me so I paid in cash.

After I left I looked for an ATM to get more green (or blue, depending on the bill) and in my wandering I stumbled into a 7-11 and got $100 and some coffee. I then headed back to the car and to my surprise (and I swear this is the truth) I had two GAIA vans parked on either side of my truck. I thought this a bit of a bizarre coincidence but when I looked up at the store I was parked in front of, sure enough "GAIA". WOW Match, you parked in front of THE GAIA store and you didn't even know it. Needless to say I had to take peak. To my delight, the place had a ton of Furious stuff, most of which I had never seen before. I took a look at everything they had and decided on two shirts.

It was starting to get into the afternoon so I decided to head back to the fields to catch the opening ceremonies and the showcase game between Canada and Great Britain (mixed). I parked the truck and started the 25 minute walk across campus and en route I ran into some Australian guys, one of which was Brett Matzuka, my Aussie buddy. Apparently he wasn't too pleased that I predicted Australia to finish 4th, but I think that despite their talents, a collection of all stars against 3 established teams (USA, Japan, and Canada), they'll have their hands full.

I make it to Thunderbird Stadium and I realize that you have to buy tickets for this thing. I was a bit hesitant and then I noticed a VIP table next to the entrance. Considering that I got shot down at check in, I thought I would try my luck and see if I qualified as a VIP. I walked up, gave them my name and sure enough, I had a name tag waiting for me...weird. I walked in, bought myself a Russell Beer (apparently they are a big sponsor) and took a seat in the VIP lounge. Now this was bizarre and for anyone that knows me, they can totally picture the look on my face after this next sentence. A 25 year old kid wearing a Lone Star Alum jersey and some raggedy UCSD ultimate shorts in a room with folks in shirt and ties.

Needless to say, despite the fact that I technically belonged there, I couldn't take it and after grabbing a free sandwich and another beer, I decided to head down to the field level. I got past security with my nifty name tag and took a seat at the back of one end zone underneath an unoccupied Ultivillage tent. From here I had a decent few of the game, as well as the entire crowd, and I was in the shade. Before I discuss the game, let me just say the Venezuela really stole the show. They brought the ruckus from the starting pull, till the last score. Every 20-30 seconds they started up their chant, each time in a different direction, aimed at a different set of bystanders. Folks were generally open minded and would get up and dance with them and despite one chorus after another, they never tired and won the crowd and the announcers over.

As for the game, it was actually a very good contest and I apologize in advance for not knowing much about Great Britain. Canada started out on O and from the very beginning it looked like each team had some jitters. Both teams traded turnovers but ultimately, Val Dion ripped a nice huck to Brendan Wong for the goal, which would be the trend for the first half.

Both GB and Canada had issues with their respective offenses, but they managed to stay on serve for the first few points, I think GB even went up a break early, receiving at 4s. However, Canada would switch to zone at this point and their D-line was very effective at getting the Brits to cough it up. GB generally had conservative disc movement in contrast to Canada's flare, but the constant pressure afforded by the white and red would often be too much and they would throw wide or toss up a poor hammer that was dropped, turfed or D'd.

However, despite their success at generating turnovers, Canada's D-line really struggled to score. They should have earned several more breaks in the first half than they did, but I suppose a 9-6 half time score isn't bad. My thoughts after the first half were 1) the Great Britain women did a fantastic job at scooping up loose discs. I think they saved 3-4 possessions for GB, not to mention catching a few macked scores. The second half would be more of the same. 2) Canada's O-line was superb. Blare Hole was great at the male handler slot and to his left and right were Kira Frew and Val Dion. Kira's vicious throws and decision making abilities kept the offense moving while Val had phenomenal puts that she rarely hesitated to let fly. She connected with Brendan Wong on more than one occasion and I suspected that despite GB's efforts, getting the breaks back to win this game would not be easy.

The first part of the second half seemed to be an extension of the first, with Canada's O-line succeeding at will, while GB's offense and Canada's D-line went back and forth with the disc. However, after 5-6 points, GB's D-line got a break back and a game that seemed out of reach was now close at 12-10. At one point I think the game was even 15-14 Canada.

However, Canada's O-line cleaned things up and was razor sharp down the stretch. Brendan seemed to be the major deep threat in the first half, but he hung out in the middle for most of the second and facilitated several intermediate strikes to cutters of both genders. Canada's D-line managed to even out whatever breaks Great Britain earned and in the end I think the score was 17-15.

After the game, I caught up with Rob and the Ultivillage crowd. They were on a fairly decent high given their success with the live video feed of this game. Despite some technical issues, things seemed to go fairly smoothly so look for more live video for the Finals in a week. I like seeing Rob delegate responsibility now, rather than just film, because it shows how far he has come. Despite the fact that we don't here his signature voice overs like "15-13", it is great to see that he is expanding with more videographers like Logan Braun and Skip Hobbie, not to mention hooking up with the Brits from Block Stack.

Once the game was over, I headed back to my dorm and on the way I caught Jody and BVH working with the USA Juniors team. Considering that I had written about these kids already (both for Juniors and for College) I was interested in their progress. They seemed to be working on set plays and despite their young age, they seemed to click very well and I can't imagine anything less than a gold medal finish for them. On a somewhat sad side note, I learned last week that Jeremy Norden of Whitman and Team USA was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease and was going through some pretty heavy duty chemotherapy leading up to Worlds. I only bring this up because in spite of his illness, he is still able to play, on a somewhat limited basis. His doctor has him on a time on/off schedule and even though his health could be better, he will still be in cleats and ready to do his part in earning his second gold medal.

After this detour, I finally got back to my dorm and went out to get some food. I wanted to get some non-perishables to keep in the room so I went to a local grocery store to stock up on things like bread and fruit. While in the grocery store, I figured I would get dinner and the one thing I couldn't turn down was a full chicken. You know, those full chickens in the plastic container near the deli? I've always walked past those thinking to myself, "man those look good, I could eat that right now." However, I had never actually eaten one.

Now was my time to shine and considering it was just me, I figured, what the hell? I got my full size chicken and man was it good. I don't think I'll be picking another one up anytime soon, but I am happy I popped my "ready to eat foul cherry". Yeah, thats a weird sentence.

As for tomorrow I think I am going to start the day off with Canada vs Italy (Open). I've never seen Furious play in real life so I figure the sooner I get that out of the way, the better. A friend of mine is also playing for Italy so it'll be a good way of killing 2 birds with 1 stone. After that I think I'll check out the USA Juniors (Boys) who are playing Great Britain followed by some lunch. Then I'll see how Australia does against Ireland and then USA (Women) against Switzerland. I figure this will be nice because Canada will play Switzerland in the open division on the same field afterwards which I can watch a little bit before I go over to the showcase game which will be Canada vs Japan (women). Hopefully after this I'll have enough energy to go get my cousin Alex from the Airport. He's coming off a two month bender in Europe so he'll probably be as tired as I am but who knows.

Stay tuned folks, things are just getting started.

just my thoughts

match diesel