Author: patrick

New Spirit of the Game scoring system

UPDATE 22 October 2009: The 2008 version has now be replaced by the 2010 version. Please redirect your browser to www.beachultimate.org/blog/2009/10/spirit.html
BULA and the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) have launched a revolutionary new Spirit of the Game scoring system. The system is designed to quickly and accurately determine the SOTG winner while teaching what Spirit of the Game really means.

Maintaining the Spirit of the Game is key for us and having a system that correctly teaches this is very important. It allows for further growth of the sport while keeping the Spirit intact.
The new system got its foundation from the system that BULA launched in 2006. However the system was improved thanks to feedback from the community and the work of Chris Schneider, Christian Jennewein, Dan Engstrom, David Raflo, Kolja Sulimma, Momme Butenschön, Natalie Visser, Patrick van der Valk, Paul Bernier, and Rue Veitl.
Scoring is based on judging Respect, Fairness, Positive Attitude, Emotional Management, Rules Knowledge, and Physical Contact. Teams are also asked to reflect on their own Spirit as that is only fair. To make it easy to adopt we created 3 similar documents:

The system was tested at the European Championships Beach Ultimate last weekend and the feedback has been extremely positive. We encourage all tournament and league directors to use this system and get feedback from your players and see what they think about it. We would love to hear what players around the world think of this system. Let us know what you like or dislike!
UPDATE 8 May 2009 – German translation available

German – One SOTG scoring sheet on a page

UPDATE 28 April 2009 – French translation available

French – One SOTG scoring sheet on a page

UPDATE 23 January 2009 – Slovak translation available

Slovak – 2 SOTG + 1point scoring sheet

UPDATE 16 October 2008 – New language versions available:

African Beach Ultimate on a rise: Mozambique’s first tourney!

African Beach Ultimate is still in its infancy. South Africa is by far the most developed in this region. With the help of the Lifeskills organization and the Kaiser Foundation thousands of kids are starting to play (Beach) Ultimate. The rest of the continent is still almost untouched.
There is some Ultimate in Egypt, helped by Russians that host the Ultimutation tournament in Dahab, and there is some Ultimate in Morocco. However new on the horizon is Mozambique! Led by well known Dutch Ultimate veteran Stef Steven, the man who started the development of Ultimate in Vietnam, there is now a Beach Ultimate tournament on the island of Xefina just off the coast of Maputo.
Chapeau na Ilha da Xefina (translation: Hat on Xafina island) is the name of the tournament and it will take place 14-15 June. It will be beach disc like you’ve never experienced it before. Local fishermen will give players dhow rides to and from the island with a sundowner included. Caipirinha served in the boats. It should be just an amazing experience.
Party and play like Mozambicans. You know you want to! 🙂 Contact Sjoerd Brouwer, sjoerd_brouwer@hotmal.com for more information. I am sure they would love to get a couple of foreigners to visit.

Ultimate on Nintendo DS

Finally someone decided to put Ultimate on a game computer like the Nintendo DS. There have been some PC games about Ultimate out but this is the first one I heard about that worked on anything but a PC.

OFDS: Ultimate & Golf
Unfortunately, the reviews have been not very positive. One of the buyers on Amazon steers people away from buying it.
Why develop a game when it sucks? That is a waste of money. If you do something, do it well! Ultimate is a great game!

European Championships Update

The preparations for the European Championships Beach Ultimate are going real well. It is unfortunate that there will be no women’s division this year but it is their loss. The local organizing committee is doing an amazing job arranging everything. From full media meetings with cocktails, to getting celebrities at the award ceremony. This tournament is going to feel like a real European Championships while BULA guarantees fun and a relaxed atmosphere. I can’t wait to be there and play!

Are European female Ultimate players an endangered species?

I can’t but shake the feeling that European women’s Ultimate is not doing well. For years we had problems getting them to play, but they showed up anyway. However, this year there are 3 instances that make me think… hmmmm… are female Ultimate players becoming extinct?

The European Championships Beach Ultimate could not find 6 countries that could field 9 women to play in France this year
Wonderful Copenhagen Ultimate, spring’s biggest tournament, will not see any women participating this year
Bar do Peixe, one of the most female friendly tournaments in Portugal, had more than its fair share of women canceling this year.

Are European female (Beach) Ultimate players an endangered species? I hope not! Look at what the alternative is:

Blockstack TV coverage of Paganello

Steve and Tom have packed their bags, got theirlaptops primed for high speed editing, and are taking Blockstack.tv to Rimini Italy for Paganello.
They have exclusive backstage access to all the Paga action, interviews with the big names, and with Ultimate loving people having a good time. Most importantly they’ll be bringing back a flavour of one of the world’s most famous and exciting Ultimate tournaments.
Part 1 of Blockstack.tv in Paganello should be live late Friday night or early Saturday morning.
Check it out: www.blockstack.tv

Disc & Drinking Games

Games are more fun if there’s something on the line like a cup of beer. Gatorade can be substituted for beer. Boxed wine can be substituted for Gatorade but nothing can replace common sense.
Cups on Sticks – Secure two three-foot durable plastic sticks into the ground a disc-and-a-fist length apart with plastic cups overturned on top of them. Set up another pair directly across about 30 feet away. Two teams of two take turns throwing a disc to try to either knock the cups off the opponent’s sticks (1 point per cup) or get the disc through the sticks cleanly (2 points). If you knock a cup off an opponent’s stick but the cup is caught before it hits the ground you get no points. However, it must be caught one-handed, as the other hand must be holding a beer. Game to 11.
Beer Box – Played 2-on-2 or 3-on-3. A small square demarcated by cones or shoes forms the box. The object is to catch the disc inside the box. You have to reset about 20 yards outside of the box before attempting to score. There are cans or cups of beer as the reset markers. To reset and begin play you must first take a three-second sip of beer at the marker. If you finish the beer, your opponent has to run to the cooler to get another one while your team gets a 3-on-2 power play. You score by catching the disc inside the box.
With permission from Tony Leonardo’s book “Ultimate – The Greatest Sport Ever Invented By Man” (link to review)

Boracay Open Finals

I suppose it shouldn’t have been a total surprise the way the Boracay Dragons A (so-named for the dragon boat races on the island — a few of the players are dragon rowers) dominated the finals, winning, in effect, 16-5 over Manila’s league champion Sexual Chocolate. 16 points because the last goal was an end-zone to end-zone huck which, like Wildwood or those Florida tournaments, is worth 2 points.
The Dragons were fast, deep (roster of 17 i believe) and basically played smart. Their D caused SexChoc to make throwaways which the Dragons converted with efficiency. Game started out 4-0 or 5-0 and was never in doubt.
In semis, Dragons A (White) beat Dragons C (Blue/Yellow), while Dragons B (Silver) lost to Sex Choc 10-9 when the game ended on a one-pointer when the team needed a two-pointer to tie and prolong the game (alas, thrown by me)
In the Important Prizes at the crazy beach after-party, the Manila-based team called Dragon Katol, so named for the local spiral mosquito repellent incense, won the Spirit of the Game, the Party Award and one of their regular player Christian (who played with Boracay Dragons here and was MVP of WBUC in Brazil) won the MVP making it some sort of weird Katol sweep.
Party Details: this tournament was sponsored by a Filipino energy drink, 100 Plus, a number of fine establishments on the beach like the Hey Jude bar, Summer Place bar and grill and Smoke Restaurant, to name a few. Also a TV network/channel sponsored prizes for Spirit/Party and “Top 4 Players” awards which included a compass from the TV show “Lost.” Evidently Lost is coming on air here soon.
But the number one sponsor in terms of ubiquitousness was Colt 45, “America’s leading premium strong beer.” However, we don’t have “strong beer” in America, only the more apt designation “malt liquor” a category which Colt 45 probably created too, heck.
Colt 45 is a great and wonderful brew for smashing one’s head to mulch for the following day. But it was free.
The finals were pretty colorful: the usual loudspeaker setup, lots of local fans clapping and cheering, all of the teams here, tons of cameras with nice lenses, a TV station was here to do a segment on the tournament and the team (airing March 29th in Manila I was told — a sports show, nonetheless)
Once again the talk of the day from the Dragons was about how excited they were to bring their game to other tournaments around the world and how psyched they would be to host more traveling players and teams to this tournament. In fact, it appeared that besides a small Singapore team with none of the players from Freakshow, the only travelers here were Jane and I, Izzy and Pierre the French-Canadian handlebar-mustache brothers and two blokes from Regina, Saskatchewan. Truly that will change in the future because it is pretty good times here with lots of free food, free beer, tournament shirt and disc included, parties every night and good competition.
I’m trying to get some pictures up but otherwise go to the official tourney photographers websites:
http://ssshortzzz.multiply.com (not up yet)
http://ogong.multiply.com (not up yet)
More later
Tony

Saturday at Boracay

Saturday pool play was divided into two pools, an upper and a lower. The upper pool was six teams. Boracay, a, b, and c, manilla’s alabang, dragan kutong (insect repellenent for dragons), and sexual chocolate, also from manilla. The closest and best game of the day was sexual chocolate v. boracay silver (b). With two and three goal leads throughout, silver coudlnt finish it al the end and manilla escaped with a universe-point win at the end.
Boracay white (a) crushed sexual choc. two games later to take command of the pool and of the tournament. Tomorrow the semi-finals will likely be a rematch of sex. choc. and bora silver, while bora white should play bora blue (c, aka the young fast kids).
Truly the young kids here in Boracay have a bright future ahead. They are really receptive to the game and start pretty young — the 12-year olds were forehand hucking like champions. The deal is: Boracay takes ultimate seriously. They really have a good vibe for the fast action of beach ultimate.
Manila and PUA (Philippines Ultimate Association) also are very psyched with Ultimate here — several celebrities (Rima and Derrick) in Manila, known as TV and Radio hosts (seriously, random locals passing by the frisbee scene stopped and HAD to get a picture with Derrick on Friday night, and everytime he held up a disc in the pic — which is pretty rad if you think about it.)
Team Alabang Anonymous is know here for the good times, team Dragon Katon for also making things merry and who can forget the travelers, like Pierre and Israel from… Quebec. Viva Francais.
So you can be rest assured that we are drunk now because the saturday night food and party was swell and now we must get ready to play tomorrow
Pictures will be coming…
T&J

Friday at Boracay

Friday at Boracay
The sand here is quite nice, the beach is fantastic and the teams here feel a bit like they are in paradise.
The international presence is not felt, however. With an always crowded ultimate schedule a lot of Asian ultimate players are saving up their money for Korea or Bali, or still paying for Bangkok Hat and Vietnam Hat.
But the Dragons are psyched to get some love thrown their way and would absolutely love it for more teams and more players to come this way and make this tournament a prime destination tourney. There’s no reason why this can’t happen: the beach village and the beach itself here are definitely top-notch, the parties promise to be swell and in high style and generally speaking, it’s all good.
One drawback simply appears to be that the width of the beach from shorefront property to the sea is shrinking. Therefore, only 4-on-4 action (which i can totally dig coming from Wildwood) and not quite enough for a ton of fields or for 5-on-5. they are working on solutions.
But really it’s pretty nice here. The Dragons want to continue their international push after the WBUC in Brazil by going to Paga next year and maybe Oz or the States in the future if they can afford it. But meanwhile they’re hoping some kickass teams come this way to so the competition can continue to be amped up
Tony