Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Ultimate Frisbee

Northend Thunder @ Spring Reign 2010

Well Spring Reign has come and gone and it was super awesome and super fun. For those of you who don't follow Ultimate - Spring Reign is the largest youth Ultimate tournament in the world. They had a record 90 Elementary through High School teams this year and we played out at this super humongous park in Burlington. We were originally signed up for A division but upon further consideration decided we really wanted to win at least 1 game so got bumped down to B. We ended up going 3-3 and played some really good teams from WA, ID (almost), and Canada. It was a little frustrating for me because within the first 2 points of the first game on the first day I got hit in the face with the frisbee and had to sit the rest of the day due to possible concussion risk. I appreciated their reasoning but at the same time was very frustrated because after about an hour I felt just fine and the bruising and swelling had become much more reasonable and I really wanted to play.
I got to play Sunday, however, and definitely verbally supported the team 0n Saturday. Saturday night we also got to watch an exposition game that Seattle Riot/Sockeye played for our benefit. Seattle Riot is Washington's women's professional ultimate team and Sockeye is WA's men's team. They were hella crazy good and it was awesome watching their enthusiasm, mad hucks, and epic layouts. I also got to stop by Five Ultimate's tent and bought myself an awesome pair of Ultimate shorts (yes, Ultimate does have it's own brand of clothing and distinct style) and also got a cool ultimate charm and bumper sticker. And free pizza! How could I forget.
Sunday we played this one team from Canada and were schedule to play Del Monte from ID but they forfeited so they could make it back to ID before 2am. So we ended up just using the empty field to scrimmage and do some drills and generally chill. And our coach taught me some awesome trick throws that I need to work on but which are super awesome.
Basically I'm super glad I joined the team (even if I do only get to play one season) because it is so diametrically opposite from debate and I think that change of environment was really beneficial. I'd never been on a sports team of any sort before so the teamsmenship (not a word, I know) was really foreign yet so uplifting. In addition I've met some really neat people and learned how to play a wicked awesome sport.
So that's the message of the day, kids! Eat your vegetables, exercise three times a week, and learn how to play Ultimate Frisbee. It's a hell of a game!