Since arriving in Vancouver, outside of work I’ve been pretty busy taking in the West Coast ultimate scene. With mild temperatures and no snow on the ground, it’s possible to play all-year, from winter artificial turf and hat leagues, to spring try-outs and summer league, and competitive team practices. It’s about time to share some stories and shots from this year! The first shot is from my women’s team Zephyr at the Solstice tournament in Eugene, Oregon. It’s quite the drive, but the competition is great with Traffic, Riot and Fury attending. These are some of North America’s top women’s teams and heck, Fury even won World’s last year! So getting creamed 13-2 wasn’t too humiliating…although a few more points would have been nice :) So far the summer has been a ton of fun getting to know and playing with these athletic women. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll keep everyone until the end of the season, although people inevitably drop out due to injuries and pregnancies – yes, always a factor in women’s ultimate.
Anyways, the picture above shows what a lot of women's teams do before each game of a tournament to call the first 7 women onto the field (never seen an open, i.e. men’s team do it; someone usually barks out some names and the guys wander on). We ladies typically line up and form a sort of tunnel (or castle, or viaduct….we change its name all the time; let me know if you have any suggestions). The seven people called get to run through the tunnel which is what is happening in the photo and I’m pretty excited to get on the line; the photographer actually won a photo contest with this shot in the team-spirit category.
Here some other shots from the tournament, including Lee making a great grab, a traditional team photo, and a PG-13 version ;)
Going backwards in time now, in the winter I played with an easy-going team called the “Tree Huckers” (with an oh-so-Vancouver-eco-friendly name). In addition to the Tree Huckers I played Winter Hat league, where you register as an individual and get thrown get together with other people and a mix of skill levels. It’s the perfect way to meet people when you’re new in town and to get you out of the house on those rainy Vancouver weekends. I had the privilege of the captaining our rag-tag bunch and by the end I had a serious crush on my team; people seemed to have been somewhat modest in assessing their skill levels and we were pretty stacked with fun, skilled players and athletic, gung-ho beginners which is a great combination and we ended up going undefeated the entire season!
Each team got assigned a province as their team name, and we drew the home territory of BC. Most teams changed their names (among them “Last Saskatchewan Pirates” , “On-scario” and “PIMP (Party in My Pants)”, the team formerly known as Manitoba), but we were just too lazy and instead took a baking-bent to the name deciding that BC = Bring Cookies, which someone brought to every game. Making that name even more appropriate was a mistakenly-heard cheer from one teammate. One early morning I yelled “BC on three!” for our group-cheer, which someone mistakenly took as “Obesity”. So we were then Team Obesity, which was commemorated in our end-of-season team BBQ cake. For those ulti players out there, check out the sweet rabbit wall (the secret of our team success) done up in green gummy bears with full end-zone, brick and side-line cones. This was a work of ultimate art!
And here is a relaxed team BC after a win:
I’m smiling way too much to be playing any serious defence…I must have seen a turnover in the making and am happy about it.
The trendy Vancouver winter look: shorts with a tuque, also favoured by some downtown bike couriers in Calgary winters
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Sometimes league can get a little messy…..
But teammate Doug is in good form with no imminent collisions except with the ground.
I love Tom’s look of determination – he is running down that disc no matter what.
And to finish it off, I mined the VUL (Vancouver Ultimate League) sites for my favourite, wackiest and just groaner bad-pun summer league team names of 2011:
- WASABI
- Canhucks 2011
- Dream Big like a Dolphin
- Alarming Disc-colouration
- Screaming Beavers
- Love Handlers
- So Flicking Awesome
- Chronic Injury
- Butterfingers featuring Mauricio
- Rookie Monster (lower level div. 6 team)
- Ugly Hucklings
- Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go
