Boston Invite and Peaking

So this past weekend was Boston Invite. This was definitely an interesting weekend filled with ups and downs, cheers and jeers, and, best of all, stories.

You Can skip down cuz this next bit is all my club team

I guess I should start off with the level of play that we, Colt .45, exhibited this past weekend. First off, I really thought that we were over seeded and I was right. I was afraid we would go 0-3 in a really tough pool and we did. First game was alright. Came out hard against New Noise. Seemed like the beginning and end of the game were good, just the middle had some not great play. Ended up losing 12-15. Changed fields, and wind direction and a cross wind went straight into an upwind/downwind game which was not good for us considering we are a young team with young throwers and cutters and wind just fucks that all up. Seems like every team I have ever played for struggles in the wind. I suppose that either means that I suck, or I just play for young (grip and rip) squads, maybe a bit of both. In any event Mephisto had their way with us. Great team, kinda call heavy, but then again so am I. Couldn't get our zone O to work and everything down wind just kept going out the back. Red Tide followed, same story, different verse. I really get chills up my spine when I hear "Yeah TIDE!!" but they were a good team. Their #2 is a great player. So after going 0-3, we as a team decided to get drunk and bring the rucus to Outback steak house. Good times that involve eye poking, pieces of flare, 2 year old daughters, and fat jokes. Sunday was a bit better. I made some adjustments to my game, cut my turnovers in half, and we played better. Couldn't get our heads in on D against Gun Slingers and dug a hole we couldn't get out of. Then finally we got a game we could win. We played Q and didn't have much trouble. Our zone O worked great and our man D was fantastic. Club Team X followed in the semis of the "(insert letter thats not A, here) bracket" and they were pretty good. A lot of Umass/ARHS guys that have played a lot together. Played ehh in the first half and then went 7-7 in the second. All in all, it was an alright weekend, we still have a long way to go. Hopefully we'll hit our stride. Montreal this weekend.

Ok, no more Colt business

As far as the rest of the tourney goes, there was a lot of interesting things that happened. First and foremost, GOAT is having a great month. Win arguably the toughest tournament on the east coast after winning flower bowl, good for them. Secondly, eshk, looks like Boston is gonna have some trouble even getting out of the region. As much as I trounced on Boston's new ultimate scheme, I really don't wish failure on people. I don't want them to fail, I just think that the rationale behind all of this is a little suspect. Most obviously, and this is not a new point, the chemistry between players at the club level, I think, needs to be very high and well established to compete. At this level athleticism, throws, ups, etc.. are all pretty constant among really good teams and how they mix it up between them is more important and I think throwing together a new all star squad is gonna be a tough sell. As scary as an all boston team sounds, I think twisted alone or DoG alone could beat this team just because they have their respective systems worked out, and guys can focus on improving their team game as opposed to establishing it. I wonder if "not-choking" and "clutch play" and basic focus under pressue falls under this category of chemistry. I think it does because trust and good isolation on the field only comes with time together and getting just the right line out their at the right time could make or break you. Plus you have guys that know eachother and how to get eachother pumped so your sidelines are your good friends helping you out, not just fellow mercinaries looking for a gold medal. However, I have never, nor will I ever, play at such a level, so I can only make observations. In any event, I wish the boston squad good luck, you are gonna need it.

Another thing that came up, at least in my head, after this weekend is the concept of peaking. Now I know that this involves well organized training and conditioning to get in the best shape of one's ability at just the right time. However I think there is also something to be said for a team peaking as a single unit. Working in new guys, establishing your O and D lines, figuring out who plays well with one another, getting the kinks worked out of your offense, and developing whatever new scheme you want for the next year's campaign. Now because of World's in 2008 canadian nationals is now one of the biggest tournaments of the summer. This august, Furious and GOAT (and whatever other Canadian team) are gonna duke it out to see who gets to represent Canada at world's (2004's gold medalist). Now I don't believe furious even goes to Canadian natties on a regular basis because its an obstacle that they don't really need to prove themselves in, they just work to peak for club nationals. However, this year, they have to go and they have to beat a ramped up, fired up, we've already beat 1/2 your team twice, tournament winning, GOAT squad. I have no idea what sort of game plan furious has, but I will bet dollars to donuts that they've got one. It appears that furious is one of the more crafty teams out there. Just take a look at Chase's interview at the end of the 2006 club ultivillage disc. To sumarize, Furious basically phones in the regular season, playing less than stellar just about everywhere. They got creamed, at least on the score reporter, at solstice and they lost to GOAT in the finals at flower bowl. However, they do the same thing every year. Tournaments like Santa Cruz or ECC they do alright, nothing to brag about, while Sockeye demolishes everyone. However, I think Furious doesn't work to win during the regular season, because its not really a regular season. The only tournaments that matter are sectionals and regionals and they are gonna do every thing they can to get their entire squad top to bottom playing time and experience in their offense/defense to run the table at nationals (or at least try). This is basically what happens every year and furious goes from losing to sockeye 15-6 (check out the NACS games last year) to beating them 15-13 at regionals and who knows at nationals.

So what am I talking about? I guess the bottom line is early season tournament results are an interesting thing. You have a team like GOAT which is riding the gravy train now, but can it last. Will Furious get their game in gear and show why they won Gold in 2004 and take GOAT down? Same with Boston, will they get better once their team gets some practices under their belt? Is this something that can be done in the time frame they have to work with? First a few things. 1) Developing team chemistry takes a long time. I don't think you can do it in a year. Not only do you need experience and time with team mates, you need major tournament tests (ie nationals) to give your players the confidence not only in themselves but with eachother to play at the toughest level there is, especially if it is as windy as folks say Sarasota is. Take Sockeye 2005 for example. Not to take anything away from their 2004 championship, but a lot of people think that Furious had some trouble peaking twice, having to battle through the Condors to win worlds ~3 months before club nationals. Someone coined it the world's hangover and I think that has some merit. However, you have more or less the same sockeye team in 2005 (which still has a lot of pickups, nord, illian, idaho, wiggins, jimmy chu, etc...) going head to head with a focused Furious team and Furious wins 15-13. However, fast forward a year, the seattle guys have been playing together for another year, their offense/defense set is pretty well established, you have a squad thats basically untouchable, my pick to win at least this years nationals if not world's and next years UPA club championship. it just takes time and in this case ~2 years or so. 2) Peaking twice. Now this is something that is gonna be tough for Furious. Do they put all they have into Canadian nationals and do what they can at UPA club natties. I think you have to. In order for furious to represent canada they have to win and I think they'll leave it all on the field in August. Hopefully this current funk they are in will subside, and historically it does, but you never know. But if they do put in the hours to be ready for Canadian nationals, what about 2007 club natties? They managed to win both in 2003, which is kinda funny cuz the Condors got the USA representation without winning the UPA club championships. Who knows if they can get past GOAT and sockeye in a 3 month period? Then again, maybe I am over estimating GOAT's chances. They did beat Furious (a split squad) 16-14 at Flowerbowl, can they beat the real deal? Is this is even a concern for Furious? Being a big monkey fan, I hope furious roles through canadian natties and goes for the North american club championship sweep, but I don't know.

So I suppose this shows the ups and downs of early tournament success. My team had a similar pit fall. we get an 8-2 record at 2 tournaments that don't matter and we get confidence that may or may not be valid and then we get rolled. I think there is a lot of season left and I am optimistic, but this goes for other teams as well. GOAT is bad ass right now (and I can tell you, their jerseys are fucking SICK. Well, except for the numbers on the shoulder. The placement of the logo on the lower left (?) is bad ass, i want something like that. Probably the coolest jerseys I saw at BI). But can GOAT keep it up. Will they have anything new to bring to the table in August or is this the best they have? I don't know anything about them but I think Furious has got some tricks up their sleeve and I wonder if GOAT knows whats up. I also wonder if John Hassell will jump ship again if Furious beats GOAT. In any event, good luck to GOAT but if I know Club disc, its about winning the last tournament not the first, so while this win is huge, I wonder if its indicative to what we will see come late summer.

This peaking question also came up in Mixed. After ommegang I made some friends on Slow White and some undergrad buddies of mine are on Mischief so I made my way to the 1v2 game at the end of the day on Sunday. First off, the whole round robin, lets play everyone at BI strategy was kinda cool and I liked that. Very progressive thinking and shows that teams are concerned with knowing their competition and beating them in October not june. In any event, it appears that Shazaam is the team to beat. However, a friend on Mischief told me that he thought they were good but it would not be long before other teams figured them out. We discussed how perhaps they had shown all their weapns now and maybe wouldn't have anything to beat a peaked mishief or slow white or brass monkey come october. For Shazaam's sake, I hope they get Jimmy Chu back or something of that magnitude to stay in it.

Also, I wanted to dine on some of my own words. After spending some time with fun/good co-ed players, i think it'd be a fun experience. Some of the people I know on Mischief and Slow would approach me and be like "how can you hate co-ed?" and I guess at first I can't. All mischief does, it appears, is jack it, which is always nice. It also looks like at the co-ed level you can have more specialized/role players as opposed to all around studs. It also looks like it isn't as tough, with the training and conditioning and challenges of open. So by all means, maybe I am wrong about co-ed. however, after talking with some co-ed players long enough I managed to induce a few wrinkled eyebrows/frowns, so maybe I could play, but only if I was in a cage with some duct tape over my mouth ~50% of the time. In any event, I enjoyed both playing good co-ed at ommegang and watching it at BI. I don't think I am talented enough to make such squads and I will say from some light experience that playing on a less than stellar co-ed squad is probably hell on earth, so odds are I'll stay in open.

The only other thing that I wanted to say about BI was that seeing Jeff Graham on the segway was hilarious. Nothing is funnier than a segway. The thought that kept racing threw my mind was that I wanted to "terry tate: office linebacker" jeff off the contraption. Some team mates were offering 50 bucks to do it and another 50 if I managed to escape using the thing.

Tourney was fun. Needs to have a party though. Unless the fields are really expensive, $350(?) for a tourney fee without at least some festivities is kinda bogus.


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