Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories (Canada), is not the most obvious place to find Beach Ultimate. However, in Ultimate loving Canada, local players are not deterred by geographic constraints and the following email was sent to local players:
“Hi everybody,
Denis/Aaron and Jenny/Simon are having a party on the 8th (Saturday). That is awesome, and you should all attend. During the day though, is there interest in having a beach ultimate tourney? We had one last year with 4 teams of 5 or so per team if I recall, and it was a lot of fun.
So, if you will be in town and are interested in playing, reply to this email and I will see what we’ve got in terms of numbers.”
I wonder if they managed to get enough players. If so, it would qualify as the most northern Beach Ultimate tournament in the word.
For more information about Yellowknife Ultimate, visit www.ykultimate.com

Most of the beaches in Hawaii are not very conducive to playing disc but a local group have made some strong relationships in Waimanalo over the last several years. A few years ago they had a summer beach league that lasted about 8 Saturdays.
They are also holding the 5th official Tweedle Beetle Beach Battle August 8 & 9 a Waimanalo Bay Beach Park (a.k.a. Sherwoods or Waimanalo Bay State Recreation Area) map
It’s always been pretty low-key and not highly advertised; mostly just local players. One year they did get an entire team of women from Japan and now they want to see if there are more travelers around.
Travelling? Wanna play beach ultimate in Hawaii? Sounds and looks like fun to me 🙂

This blog entry is the last thing I am doing before I turn of my computer and head over to 6 days of pure fun on the beach. I will be in Meco (Portugal) where there is a bar and a beach and 144 Beach Ultimate players from 17 countries. No contact with the outside world. The world as I normally know it will no longer exist… In its place is that special spot called Bar do Peixe and with temperatures of 35 C (~94 F) it is going to be a hot one!
See you on the beach!

Disc magazines come and go. UltyLife magazine had a fairly short lifespan, and I know I have seen (and forgotten) others over the last 30 years.
Has finally the time come for one to survive? The Flying Disc Magazine is aimed at all disc sports so there is a larger audience. Multimedia and social networks can boost viewership.It has an online version (www.flyingdiscmagazine.com) as well as a print version.
I bought a copy of the print version (probably only available in the US) and really liked it. I am a 100% Beach Ultimate player, but it was great to read other stories. One story, about some great disc golf holes in Santa Cruz, made me want to huck that disc!
Give it a try. They have an RSS feed too.

4-on-4 Beach Ultimate sometimes seems like an illegitimate child. It was started by Tim Finan in Florida with the hope that it would get mainstream TV interested. Shorter fields, a 6-second stall count, and a two-point score when the disc is thrown from endzone-to-endzone were to make this sport more spectacular. Jose Cuervo (a tequila brand) put some money into it, but it never took off.
It is still played in the US, mainly at one of the largest Beach Ultimate tournament in the world: WildWood. However it never really took off anywhere else. Traditional grass Ultimate players preferred larger fields, ‘normal’ stall-counts, and more a strategic game.
However, slowly but surely 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate it is taking root. There is now a 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate league (LBU44) in France. 11 teams played in this winter’s phase with 3/4 of French Mediterranean players participating. LBU44 isn’t only French: this summer two Spanish teams will participate too.
LBU44 in France became an association in April and they have been trying to get more cities to help and to get sponsoring and an assurance. They have contacted Beach Soccer and Beach Volley in France in the hope to do demonstrations during their competitions this summer in Marseille. Lastly on 4-5 July, they are organizing the 1st French Cup of Beach Ultimate 4-4 in Valence… So they are not sitting still 🙂
Will 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate ever be a TV favorite? I don’t know. I think it doesn’t matter what format we play this game in, TV only sells to the masses and the masses we are not. We don’t have referees and that is something that many people don’t understand. Too bad, but that is reality. In the meantime, we just smile and think that people are missing out on something amazing that can be played by everyone: Beach Ultimate

My mother-in-law has given the F-word a new meaning: Frisbee!
According to her it is bad for our kids (My wife and I have an 11-year old and an 8-year old). We go to too many tournaments and they should be doing other things with them. True, sometimes we take the kids. Sometimes we don’t (and then they frequently stay with her :-).
However she seems to forget that we only play Beach Ultimate. So we take the kids to the beach. Most of the time the weather is great. What better place for kids to be than on the beach? It is better than being behind the Nintendo, TV, and the Internet all the time. They are not always looking forward to it, but once they are on the beach they have fun and run around.
I like my mother-in-law, but she should realize that the F-word is not a bad thing.

A college team from Oregon was removed from competition after five players shed their pants and underwear on April 11 during sectional play at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
Sandie Hammerly, executive director of the sport’s governing body in the United States, the Ultimate Players Association in Boulder, Colo., said she and the association’s championship director, Will Deaver, support the punishment. “You have to wear clothing — it’s in the rules,” Hammerly said.
(See full article)

For years we have been thinking about creating a European Beach Ultimate League. However that is not as easy as it seems. There are lots of tournaments in Europe but that is one of the reasons it is hard to organize. Beach Ultimate is still relatively small and players usually only travel to places 1-2 times year. There is a core of players that go to many hat tournaments but ‘traveling teams’ are few and far between. In addition, adding a series of tournaments will take away from other tournaments as well as dig into the finances of the players.
One interesting thought it to create a ladder league like there is in the UK (www.regionalultimate.co.uk) with one final tournament.
How would that work? I’d love to hear from Beach Ultimate lovers what they think…

It is interesting to see the differences in how people feel about using Observers. As far as I know no observers have ever been used in Beach Ultimate and, as a founding principle, BULA approved tournaments and Championships will never allow for observers.
Is this logical? Not always. There are definitely situations where an observer could have made the a better call than the players. In the situation below the defensive team (SeXXXpensive with whom I play) was sure the offensive player caught the disc out of bounds. However the player called himself in. Correct? Who knows? We contested, the player maintained the call and a point was awarded.
I believe the onus is on the player. It has to do with honesty and respect. If the catcher has doubts he should send the disc back to the thrower and play on. If he truly believed that his foot was in then so be it. He/she has to make the right call.
I am glad that the WFDF took the Observers out of the rules a number of years ago. Players should be capable of having a great game, that is fun to watch, hard to play, and make their own (and the right) calls. Observers might assist in a certain part of the game, but they also take away from something that is unique. Let’s be honest… in case of doubt, back to the thrower and play on! This is something unique we should work to maintain. I know it is not always easy in the heat of the game but it can be done, learned and taught!

Best wishes for 2009 to all of you! I started with a donation to Ultimate Peace and I hope more players will follow. Peace is good. Ultimate is good. Donating is good.