IFDANewsletterVolume2Issue1 by Irish Flying Disc association

Irish Flying Disc Association Newsletter

Issue 1, Volume 2

February 2009

Note from the Editor

Welcome to the first issue of the second volume of the IFDA Newsletter. In it you‟ll find a variety of useful and interesting information, of photography and of bits and pieces concerning the sport we all play. To facilitate this variety the Newsletter will be in two sections: „Irish Ultimate‟ and „Further Afield‟. Before we start I‟d like to take this opportunity to thank Paul Cronin who edited the first two issues of this Newsletter. Paul has been the helping hand, and in some places the driving force, behind much of the innovative progress seen across Irish Ultimate over the last year or so. He worked hard with last year‟s IFDA Committee, has helped/is helping to develop a number of new university teams and has run a variety of tournaments from charity hat events to Irish Outdoor Intervarsities. Besides this Paul has developed the chance for the IFDA to communicate directly with its members through this simple and colourful medium. For all of this we are to him indebted. Great job Paul, take a bow. Finally, I hope you enjoy this newsletter as much as I did putting it together. It‟s been compiled over the last few months with the help of many and is the first of this type of work I‟ve published so please bare with it! If you have any thoughts, comments or queries, please email them to ifdanewsletter@gmail.com and they may appear in the next issue (Letters To the Editor anyone?).

Thanks very much for reading and see you on the pitch soon, Mark Earley Editor

Issue 1, Volume 2

February 2009 Contents

Title

Page No.

Section One: Irish Ultimate

News in Brief

4-6

IFDA News

Division & Multiplication: Belfast Ultimate 2008

8-9

Tournament Reports

10 - 16

Beginners Views

17 - 20

Club Profile: Jabba the Huck

21 - 23

Photos from around Irish Ultimate

24 - 29

A history of the Cork Open

30 - 34

Section Two: Further Afield

Ultimate Online

35 - 36

Irish Players Abroad

37 - 42

A look inside „The Huddle‟

43 - 46

Final Words

Issue 1, Volume 2

February 2009 Section One: Irish Ultimate

In this section you will find news about the excellent work being carried out by the IFDA Committee, tournament reports from both domestic and foreign tournaments as well as a club profile and an article written by a member of one of the most independent, progressive and fastest-growing Ultimate communities in the country. There will also be a section on the latest news from around Irish Ultimate, two articles written by new players from Dublin and a collection of photos from events in Irish Ultimate over the last 3 or 4 months.

News in brief! Mark Earley

Calling all Junior players! This summer will see Ireland take part in the European Youth Ultimate Championships in Vienna. The event will cater for players born later than December 31st 1989 and will have 4 divisions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2 Open and 2 Womens. More details can be found by emailing the Junior Teams Manager, Mark Earley, at juniors2009@irishultimate.com

GAIA are not bust! The latest rumours on the blogs (UltiTalk.com to name but one) suggest that the once must-have jersey designers from Canada have folded leaving VC, Lookfly, 5IVE Ultimate and Patagonia to battle it out is not true. Heiko Kissling had the following to say: I'm happy to tell everybody that GAIA is well up - especially in Europe! You can keep us on your list and I can promise you that we do everything in our hands to make every Irish team and every Irish player fully satisfied with our products and service!

DUB Tourney may yet happen this year. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for a fun, outdoor, mixed tournament so a few players are talking about running it again. Watch this space.

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The Summer League team „Friends‟ hosted an indoor tournament on Saturday January 31st that was enjoyed by many. PEN15 won all their pool games and the final to take the title with Jabba the Huck taking home the Spirit award.

Calling all Ladies! Are you interested in becoming a better player? Are you tired of matching up against guys week in week out at pickup? Well then keep an eye on the Irish Ladies Forum: http://irish-ladies.forumotion.net/index.htm to find out the latest on offer from the very active Irish Womens Ultimate scene. Alternatively, get in touch with Heather Barry (womens@irishultimate.com) for a direct response.

Gonzaga held its first tournament on February 4th in an effort to bring together the strongest school Open teams. The Gonzaga Invitational saw St.Kevins, St.Kilians, St.Marys and Gonzaga compete in an 8-team indoor event. St.Kilians 1 won with runners-up Gonzaga 1 winning the Spirit award.

This year will see Gonzaga host the inaugural All-Ireland Outdoor Schools Championships on Sunday the 26th of April.

All-Ireland Mixed Championships will take place the previous day in Dublin on Saturday April the 25th. At the moment is it scheduled to take place in St. Annes Park, Raheny.

Are you on the Irish Ultimate map?? Jim „Limerick Jim‟ Heneghan has put together a map of the teams in existence around the country. Check it out here

The Siege is over! The University of Limerick Ultimate Ninjas hosted one of the most eagerly awaited tournaments on the domestic calendar last weekend. Last year they ran an excellent event complete with plush hotel room accommodation and the smokiest indoor 5

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BBQ ever seen. This year saw them Limerick boys and girls come good on their promises of good weather, pristine pitches and the usual Limerick hostility, sorry, hospitality! The weekend ended with an excellent final followed by a stunning sunset, and in not dissimilar fashion to in Cork 2007, Johnny Chimpo played excellently to win 14-11 against a strong Accrington Stanley team who played co-ed for a lot of their matches. Rory „Pixie‟ Kavanagh won MVP of the Final after an assured display. Elsewhere, DUCS, lead by MVP Adam Keyes, finished their first ever tournament in 11 th place and won the Spirit Award. NUIG won the Plate and the Spoon went to UL 2, despite accusations of a home town fix. Well done UL for a great weekend. More on Limerick Ultimate in the next issue!

5 Irish teams are looking to go to xEUCF this summer with 3 of those registering in the Open division and 2 more looking for a spot in the Mixed division. Exciting times.

Lookfly have launched a brand new website at www.lookfly.com with details on all they sell including books, DVDs, custom made on-pitch and casual gear as well as discs and much more. Check it out.

Séamas Kinsella and Dónall McCann at the Bubblegum Club Hat tournament

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IFDA News Mark Earley & Dominick Smyth

The IFDA Committee is currently working on a host of projects, all of which are discussed and detailed at monthly meetings. These meetings take place in Dublin on the first Thursday of every month and are aimed at improving the sport as a whole for everyone involved on a nationwide level. The committee welcome the thoughts and ideas of every player in the country and yet get very little input or feedback. Please let them know what you‟re thinking – do you disagree with what‟s being done? Do you think alls well and the future looks bright? Let them know at secretary@irishultimate.com

The following are examples of current initiatives being worked on by the IFDA: o Expansion of the All-Ireland Championships to include an Open division o Organisation of Junior teams to the European Youth Ultimate Championships o The development and launch of an IFDA certified coaching course o The staging of a 'Disc Sports' tournament for events other than Ultimate o An Emergency Fund scheme to further safeguard players safety o An expansion of domestic womens events - from tournaments, through training sessions and on to social nights o Pick up clinics covering higher level topics and being brought to clubs outside Dublin o More schools tournaments along with open days for all juniors and continued work to train PE teachers so they can bring ultimate to their students o Continued high level, open communication between the committee and all of the IFDA's members

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Importantly, people are giving over time, effort and brains to further develop our sport for us. Please recognise this and try to get involved in whatever way you can. Irish Ultimate is growing at a rate of knots and open lines of communication are the easiest way to ensure we move forward together and in harmony.

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Division And Multiplication Belfast Ultimate, 2008 Season Peter Gaston

At the start of 2008, Belfast Ultimate took a courageous step. It was decided that the established team, Belfast Ultimate Giants or BUG, would split. Not just into two teams but into as many teams as could be established. The idea - to create as many opportunities to play as possible.

The reasoning is simple. When considering sporting success, there seems to be a correlation between the number of participants and success. The more players involved in a region, the better the team at the top. Brazil and soccer, for example. Or New Zealand and rugby. Or Kilkenny and hurling. All have large proportions playing a particular sport. All have unrivalled sporting success.

Taking this on board, it was decided that to develop Ultimate in and around Belfast at the top, participation at the bottom needed to increase. Everyone was encouraged to consider starting a new team. So far in 2008, there have been 10 teams in the North. Admittedly some of these teams will be here today and gone tomorrow. But this in and of itself is no bad thing. At the very least these flash-in-the-pan teams have involved new players and developed skills for already established players, such as handling and making on-pitch decisions.

Four of the teams have become more established. CHASE and The Swerve (from Comber, Co Down and Coleraine, Co Derry respectively) have developed the strongest identities but The Lion, The Disc And The Wardrobe (The LDW) and Deep Heat (both from Belfast) should continue for a number of seasons. With an increase in identity, comes broader horizons as teams begin to look at playing tournaments outside the region. CHASE are 8

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leading the way having competed in Stirling Tune Up in October and Deep Heat are due to play at Bristol Disco Inferno in February.

Along with the new teams, new regional tournaments have been created. There is now a tournament at Easter (5-a-side outdoors) and Christmas (indoors) and a Belfast summer league. The central premise for all these tournaments, to this point, has been to create competitive opportunities for new players in the region. As Ultimate develops, new tournaments for the larger teams (CHASE, The Swerve etc.) can be developed and teams from outside the region can be invited.

Of course, for many reading, you may well question the demise of BUG knowing of BUG's trip to Cork Open in November. BUG has never gone away. By establishing teams specifically for broadening access and development, BUG can focus on quality. BUG's aspirations can now be to compete at higher levels such as Cork Open (Ireland's premier Open tournament) and the UK Tour.

In conclusion, do we think ultimate can become to Belfast what soccer is to Brazil? Probably not. But the examples of Vancouver and Ontario where there are literally thousands of Ultimate players can reinforce our aspirations. Can we even get to thousands? Probably not. But a hundred players would be a start. And as the number of players at the base increases, the top is ever pushed higher and further. For those who are apart of it, Belfast is possibly the most exciting place for Ultimate in Ireland. By establishing an ethos and structure encouraging participation from the bottom up, Ultimate in Belfast improves and becomes increasingly sustainable. There may still be many seasons before Belfast Ultimate reaches any heady heights but the progress of 2008 gives any possible success solid foundations.

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Tournament Reports Savage Sevens (September 13th) Mark Earley

The second Saturday of September saw 7 teams and over 50 players converge on the lovely pitches of Santry for a day of Ultimate with a twist.

'September Savage 7s' was the brainchild of Dominick Smyth. He was looking to get a simple, no frills day of play organised to get people out running and having a laugh, and that's exactly what happened. Despite an early morning start of 9.30am, ridiculously hot weather and the lack of subs, all players (young and old) made it through the day in one piece. On top of that, all teams had a lot of fun with close results, tight battles, the odd landslide and a competitive final. Big congratulations to Johnny Chimpo who took home yet another domestic title, to 'Mostly Trinity' who won Spirit with one of the most friendly and competitive attitudes I've ever seen on a pitch and to David McAlester whose jokes kept many of us amused . A lesson in GUTS – the latest disc sport craze to sweep our small nation - was dealt out by David Misstear and Brian Begly and over the course of the day we even had a few spectators show up, with Simon Cocking (Irish Ultimate‟s oldest player) and his kids making it a real family day out!

Finally, without the work of Sam Mehigan, who provided us with pitches, and Dominick Smyth, who organised the schedule and got teams out on the day, we wouldn‟t have had the fun day we did. Thank you both very much.

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All-Ireland Indoor Schools Championships (November 21st) Dominick Smyth

11 teams, from 6 different schools, competed over a full day of ultimate leading to Scoil Uí Mhuirá winning the women's round robin and Gonzaga winning a sudden death open final in extra time. In addition, Gonzaga did the double winning Spirit of the Game along with Balbriggan in the women's division.

For some, this was a first taste of ultimate outside of PE class. For others this was a chance to put over two years of regular play into practise. Few could deny that everyone present made a noticeable improvement from each game to the next.

Scoil Uí Mhuirá proved themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the future as not only did their two women's teams taste success but both of their young open teams were highly spirited and enthusiastic throughout.

The game of the day saw Gonzaga 1 against St. Killian's in the open final. Having already won this match up in the group stages, St. Killian's went in with confidence high. Gonzaga, by contrast, had scraped through a tough semi-final over their own second team, having trailed for most of the game.

Despite only a short break before the final, Gonzaga came out strong on offence and with a goal line zone defence. This change in playing style disrupted St. Killian's as they were unable to use their speed advantage. The early exchanges saw points take anywhere up to 5 minutes of patient offence, resolute defence and goal line blocks (plus a few heart-breaking drops) before scores were finally caught.

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Then the flood gates opened! A succession of quick scores soon brought the game to 5-5 as time expired. Sudden death overtime saw both teams have a number of chances to win it all before, after 4 and a half minutes of additional play, Gonzaga caught a sliding score for a 6-5 victory.

Thus the final served as perfect example of the entire days play as all teams, in both divisions, gave their all. They took great pride in their achievements, showed exemplary spirit throughout and proved that the future of Irish ultimate is in safe hands.

Big thanks go out to Belgard Community Centre for hosting us for the day; Laura McGrath, Sinead O'Shiel-Flemming and Paul Cronin for their work in organising the event and most of all to the students and coaches who made the competition what it was. To the senior students, we wish them the best of luck as they move on to play for college and club teams. To the younger students, we look forward to seeing you again in the years to come.

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Cage Rage (December 5th/6th) David Perry

On the frosty morning of Saturday 6th December, players received a warm welcome at Cage Rage, a brand new beginners' tournament hosted by recently revived college club Tallaght Titans.

Ten teams played over a weekend packed with 5a-side, thirty minute games, each taking place on outdoor astroturf pitches entirely contained within their own cages. The matches provided beginners with the comfortable trappings of a small pitch and some shelter, but gave them the valuable experience of dealing in some way with the elements.

A large range of teams took part, from college staples like Trinity, DCU and DIT to school teams such as St. Mary's and St. Kevin's and even other clubs, like Circular Spectacular. Two particular standout teams were those from new college clubs, NCI and NUIM, who made their debut at the tournament. Despite the clubs having only been set up an extremely short time ago, each team showed an instinctive grasp of the game and performed admirably against some far more experienced sides. The enthusiasm, spirit and competitiveness on display by the two bode very well for their futures.

However, the school teams truly dominated the tournament. St. Mary's and St. Kevin's both fielded some very impressive sides who seemed just about unstoppable. Both ended up in the final, providing a fittingly epic close to the weekend. Some fluid cutting, intelligent dumping and intense defence were abundantly on display throughout. The score consistently remained close throughout the game, with both sides clearly giving up every last ounce of energy they had. But in the end, Mary's gained the upper hand through some tight marking, and secured their win. 13

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DCU earned the Spirit prize. The team consisted entirely of beginners who only occasionally managed to pick up an experienced player. Despite this obvious setback, they played with skill, intelligence and a huge amount of competitiveness. The team functioned very well, with each intuitively grasping their chosen roles. They showed a good knowledge of the rules and displayed fair-mindedness throughout their games, and very much deserved the prize.

Thanks to Tallaght Titans and Paul Cronin for all the work in making this tournament happen. It was a great success and a lot of fun. Here's hoping it becomes an annual fixture.

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The Bubblegum Club Hat (December 27th) Mark Earley & Paul Cronin

December 27th saw roughly 70 people turn up to play in the inaugural Bubble Gum Club Hat tournament in Herbert Park. The day was a brilliant success with good weather, a big turnout, lots of very tight matches and a fun final that went right to the wire. In the end it was Team Podge with Shimbo and Hag, that pipped Team Stacked, lead by Al Murray with Cian, Fi and Frenchy also on board. The match ended in controversy as the time ran out with the disc in mid air. The throw was caught to make the score 7-7, resulting in one last point being played. Team Stacked turned over, and subsequently lost, and were seen grumbling for the rest of the afternoon.

Prizes were given, mince pies were eaten and Podge spoke exceptionally eloquently on a wide range of topics leaving his audience, like he does his Blog readers, begging for more. Then we all moved on to McCloskeys where we were fed pints and chips before heading on into town where the Bernhard Shaw‟s Buckfast and the Village‟s music kept us all entertained well into the night. A special mention has to go to Rory „Pixie‟ Kavanagh whose 100% Hat Tourney record was spectacularly shattered. His team came 6th, of 6. Another first occurred as neither TD made the final, let alone won the tournament - a rarity of late. There are some people who deserve a big thank you – Neil Stewart for the quick turn around with the t-shirts, Herbert Park for waiving the cost of pitch rental, Dominick Smyth for all his support, McCloskeys pub in Donnybrook for their hospitality and many thanks to everybody 15

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for their generosity. The final figure raised was over â&#x201A;Ź950 which given the number of players present was around 70 shows how generous everyone was! We'll definitely be running this again next Christmas so pencil it into the diaries!

The two teams in a huddle after the highly entertaining final at the Bubblegum Club Hat 2009

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Trying a new sport in UCD Girl beginners look back at their introduction to Ultimate Yvonne, Aisling, Rachel & Claire

A question we ask ourselves a lot lately is why did we join the Ultimate Frisbee club in UCD? And to be honest we have no idea. We felt like a change, something different and for some reason Ultimate just called out to us…

Frisbee, as we now know it, is definitely not what we expected and in reality I think its better. With the Chilli-o team more than happy to have a few more girls to even out the ratio of boys to girls, I think the social life helped get things off to a great start. We never thought we‟d make so many friends on our team, on other teams and even from different countries – we really wouldn‟t have had this much fun on our first year of college if it wasn‟t for this friendly group of people.

So in the past four months we have come pretty far. From learning to actually catch and throw a disc to mastering different throws - I‟m sure we‟ll be laying out and all that in no time! I know people expected us to drop out of Ultimate after week one but just because we‟re girls does not mean we‟re afraid of a challenge.

Whacking Day was our first tournament and was so much fun. We were very surprised to find out that we way prefer playing with and against girls than boys! I don‟t know what came over us… It was there that we met so many new people and became so much closer with the other players on our team. After a whole day of playing Frisbee with each other our confidence grew and before we knew it we were in the final! Unfortunately we lost but that‟s beside the point…For our first tournament I think we did a damn good job! Cork Open was a little different but there‟s no denying it was a weekend to remember! At first, being really bad and playing against very experienced players was a bit daunting but everybody on the other teams was so nice and helped us out. After losing every single game our spirits were lifted when we won against Trinity2 in our last match of the weekend. We all got really involved and to win was all we could have hoped for really!

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All in all, joining Ultimate Frisbee was one of the best things that we could have done this year. Even if you‟re absolutely shocking and cannot catch a disc to save your life it really doesn‟t matter because it‟s just that fun!

Starting to play Ultimate is all it’s cracked up to be

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The Beginning of a Flying Life A Beginner‟s View Eamonn O’Neill

What began as mere enjoyment and something to do on a sunny day at the beach with your friends has recently turned into something much more for me. At first the very thought of it seemed crazy but after a while I realised this sport is something I‟ll enjoy for the rest of my life. It was only when friends and I were messing around with a frisbee during a break at college that I realised there was a sport called Ultimate Frisbee. Four months later I was setting up an Ultimate Frisbee club in my college in the hope of a new adventure. We weren‟t let down at all. We got in contact with an experienced player that lived in the area, asked would he be interested in helping us set up a team and put us in the right direction to make this happen. I saw our chances of success at the start as very slim. To think people would want to play this as a sport was crazy to me, but a few weeks later I couldn‟t believe why people don‟t play Ultimate. I had played Gaelic football before I‟d heard of Ultimate Frisbee and have since seen my interest sway towards frisbee. I have only been playing Ultimate Frisbee for 2-3 months now and already can see the great advantages it has over other sports that I have played. New things came to light and gave me a better understanding of what sport means to people who love it so much. The different aspects of this sport compared to others are hard to believe but when you‟re out there on the field running, catching and throwing you can see why this sport is unique from any other. The sportsmanship between teams is brilliant. The fact you call your own fouls, make your own calls with no referee gives you a great sense of competing fairly against one another and of gaining respect from your opposition. The tradition of teams talking to each other at the end of every game builds on the friendship of the sport. You go out compete against a team as hard as you can then 30 minutes or an hour later you‟re laughing together and bonding as a community. These are all great aspects of Ultimate not seem in any other sports.

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When talking to my family about this new sport I was playing (and spending most of my time at college practicing and helping to organise a team) they couldn‟t understand it. It was all a joke to them but no matter what they said or how long they went on joking about the sport I kept at it. I even got my family to come to a tournament just to see what they thought of it. They were soon able to share the excitement, see how it‟s more about sportsmanship and why it‟s so easy to get involved in. I‟ve had more in the past 2-3 months playing Ultimate Frisbee then I have over my whole life playing any other sport. My first tournament was a beginner‟s tournament in DCU, a college in Dublin. This was a great learning experience as were the 2 other tournaments I‟ve gone to in Trinity and Galway. To see players calling themselves out after the other team thought they had just scored a point was incredible. Playing other sports you see players doing the very opposite - trying anything to make sure they were on the better team.

Now that I am going to more and more tournaments, meeting new people from different parts of the Ireland and even from across the seas I get a great feeling of belonging to something a lot more then just a sport. It gives you a feeling of belonging to a community of people who enjoy a sport and want to make it one of the greatest sports in the world. Every time we go out and play you come back with more then just a victory or a loss, you come back with friendship, a greater sense of belonging and knowing that come the next tournament more and more people will be there to play and enjoy each and everyone‟s company. See you at the next tournament.

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Irish Ultimate Club Profile: Jabba the Huck Richard Buggy

The Beginning Jabba the Huck was founded in early 2007by DCU‟s Paddy Kelly, Sebastian Berkovich and Q.E.D. The original plan behind the team was to go to tournaments just to have fun and throw whatever they wanted - why throw a backhand when a scoober would do. Jabba‟s 1st tournament was Brighton Beyond 2007 and the team quickly grew so that a full squad could be fielded. The young and inexperienced team failed to find any on pitch success losing all their games but they managed to pick up the spirit award, a common but prestigious feat for Irish teams abroad.

The Comeback The months following Brighton were quiet for Jabba. The club lacked players and direction. That would soon change. Paddy was elected the clubs 1st captain and Jabba entered the UCD Winter League. Jabba recorded its 1st ever victory against Trinity 2 but better was to follow. On the 6th of February 2008 Jabba beat UCD1 11-9. This result put the club on the Irish Ultimate map - Jabba was now a force to be reckoned with. With further wins over UCD2 and DIT Jabba finished the winter league 5th out of 9.

In the middle of all this, the team travelled to Newcastle for the New Years Ultimate Resolution tournament. With the 1st team picking up the plate for 5th place and the 2nd team taking 8th place out of 10 teams it was a success. However, the club hadn‟t forgotten its roots with many a funky throw and we won the party prize. Jabba now had the player base and the competitiveness to move forward.

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All Ireland Mixed Championships In March Ian French was elected as the new club captain as we built towards the 1st All Ireland Mixed Championships. Without doubt, of all competing clubs, Jabba put in the greatest effort to train and prepare for this event - we were there to win games. Jabba finished 4th out of 6 teams and took home the spirit prize (the trophy for this was later stolen by a disgruntled Captain Drinking Binge and has not been returned).

All Ireland Mixed Championships was followed by a trip to The Windmill Windup in Amsterdam. The team was decimated by late drop outs and injuries. The team finished the tournament as a weary and patched together ironman mess. The common consensus within the club was that results at Windmill did not represent how far the club had come.

The summer finished with Jabba fielding 2 teams for The Savage 7‟s competition recording victories over UCD/Binge, Trinity and The Bears

The Club Ethos The ethos of Jabba the Huck is simple, you got to give it 100% on the pitch and on the dance floor. We are out there to win games but having fun is what it is all about. As for our funky throws, well why not, if it‟s on and you think you can throw it then do it. No one likes to turn over but everyone loves a funny throw and there is no better sight then watching Paddy unleash the Dying Giraffe on unsuspecting defences. The clubs player base has now expanded to nearly 40 players. Last year 4 of Jabba‟s players represented Ireland at the WUGC 2008 - Séamas “Shimbo” Kinsella, Heather Barry, Ian French and Finola Shannon. The average age of the Jabba squad is quite young and as such,

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us kids need a grown up in charge, which is why Kelly Mulholland was elected the clubs 3rd captain.

Newcastle Take 2 Jabba the Huck recently returned to Newcastle for another crack at Ultimate Resolution. This time the tournament had expanded to 18 teams but Jabba had a bigger and better squad going over. Jabba 2 finished a highly creditable 8th place. Jabba 1 had to settle for 3rd place after losing a closely fought semi final with The Brown. This was the club‟s best tournament result since its conception. Next year we‟re going back to win!

The Future The All Ireland Mixed Championship is Jabba‟s main target for 2009. The club will also be competing in many tournaments home and abroad and hoping to continue the success of 2008. Furthermore, the club has recently recruited a group of new players and the club now has great strength in depth as well as shiny new Lookfly Jerseys. Now we can beat people in style both with our throws and our clothes.

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Photographs from around Irish Ultimate

IFDA Award winners at the IFDA Ball

Elizabeth Manon Schaffalitzky de Muckadel with a low release at last years Cork Open

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Action from the Beer Bowl

Tight marking at the Beer Bowl

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TD Dominick Smyth at All-Ireland Schools Indoors

An ‘injured’ David Misstear skilfully catching a GUTS disc

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The ground at 10am on the morning of the Bubblegum Club Hat tournament

Roger â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Podgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Beatty getting into the Christmas spirit

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Sunset after a great days play in Herbert Park

‘Jet’ Lee at ‘Indoors with Friends’ 28

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Action from the finals between PEN15 and the Rubes

Gonzaga Invitational winner and MVP of the final Robbie of St.Kilians, Bray

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A History of the Cork Open From 7 teams to Ireland biggest tournament in 6 years! Robin Giller

November in Ireland: cold, wet, dark and windy. A month for collecting sticks for the winter ahead and moving your disc sports to a warm, dry indoor court. Or simply staying in the pub. A month when you really shouldn‟t go outside unless you absolutely have to, when the walk to the shop seems like a trek through the arctic and when the idea of going for a run makes you dive deep down into your duvet. Unless, of course, you happen to be heading down to Cark on the first weekend of November, where things are a little different. Because in Cork around this time every year, the sun shines for a couple of days and hundreds of Frisbee fanatics descend on the „real capital‟ for a weekend full of Ultimate, partying and pints of Murphys. It‟s 5 years since the first Cork Open and as good a time as any to look back at the past tournaments and at what the Open has achieved. We ran the first one in November 2004 – Dave Rosenfeld, Rose Clancy and I - on the rugby pitch at the Mardyke sports centre. There were 9 Irish teams, just over a hundred people, 3 pitches and Johnny Chimpo walked the final against Trinity. Small scale stuff but a decent weekend nonetheless: anyone remember Sumo wrestling in the Western Star on the Friday night? We only decided to run the tournament about a month before it happened. After Mark Canning had run Intervarsities around the same time the previous year, no one looked like organising it in 2004, and so we saw a gap in the Ultimate calendar and went for it. It didn‟t take much effort back then - a few phone calls, butter some bread and put ham in the middle, bring the cones down to the Mardyke and make the schedule up when each game was finished - but it was fun and felt different to other frisbee events going on. It was laid back but with a good standard of games, and a great sense of community around the whole thing. I think we were lucky in a way that around that time, a lot of today‟s more established players 30

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in Ireland were in their first or second years of playing, and were enthusiastic and looking for a good open tournament. They all made their contribution and since it worked out so well that first year we decided to run it again the next.

2005 saw the first foreign teams entering, with Frasba dal Lac opening our now strong Italian connection, Stirling making the trip and BUG there too (I like to think of them as a foreign team because of the funny accents). We moved to the better facilities of the Farm, which has been brilliant so far. The games were better contested, we partied in the sweat box of the Bodega on the Saturday night and people generally went home feeling good about themselves. It was the first all club team final - with Chimpo edging an iron man Broccoli team out of the grand prize - and it was also the last time rain was seen at the Open but, to be honest, the sight of DCU in wet tshirts would be enough to scare anything off. The rest of the playing contingent was made up of our ever presents: UCD, Trinity, and DIT. They‟ve supported us right the way through, which has been great.

In 2006 we had 16 teams and the rare absence of JC in the final – in fact it‟s the only year they haven‟t taken home the main prize. As things turned out they even lost to UCC that year in the 3rd 4th playoff. It was the strongest ever finish by the home team, who also took the scalp of Cota Rica, the eventual winners. Limerick and Galway made their first independent appearances that year, which was great for the Irish scene. Trinity, with perhaps their strongest ever team, made the final with a massive 20 man squad but just lost out. We also had a team from Ghent (who are now regular attendees) and a team from the UK with a guy with pink hair (can‟t remember who they were). Word was spreading quickly throughout Europe about the Open, with travelling Irish teams singing songs about building houses and how Beamish is the only drink better than Murphys. Mark „Langer‟ Canning‟s video (the birth of a song) was fuelling rumours about the abundance of dancing girls and Dave „Super‟ McAlester‟s bouncing hair. Our foreign visitors were also putting in good words for us wherever they went, which was nice of them  31

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With all the extra teams, the logistics were becoming more complicated and many more people were roped into organising. I TD‟ed with Tadhg in 2006 and 2007 but many others were helping out behind the scenes: Kieran, Dee, Peter, Aine, Brian, Sinead - I can‟t list them all here. We had hostel beds for everyone, pasta at the fields, loads of prizes, two great parties (complete with an appearance by Borat) and even beer for the final. The weather that year was amazing and, in the end, it won tournament of the year for us – our first one! It was great to be acknowledged for the high standard of our tournament, and the award spurred us on to do better the following year…

The final of 2007 was, in my opinion, the best game that has ever been played on Irish soil. Chimpo were back on form and out for vengeance after the shameful finish of the previous year. Their opponents were FuF (which translated to English means … – well, just ask a Belgian to get their FuF out and you‟ll find out), who were similarly full of talent and running. There were so many great plays in that final, with teams neck and neck right up to the end, that, played in the floodlights of pitch 1, it was ultimate nirvana for the 200 or so spectators. Cian and Hag were awesome in this game, both putting in winning performances for the Chimps. It was our first year running a peer pool system, rather than an open draw, and it made for much more intense games all weekend. This improved format definitely contributed to the quality of the final.

LMD played their first ever tournament here, with half of their team flying over from North America for the weekend. We ended up 4th, thanks mostly to Conor Maloney. Tadhg shunned the invitation of the Cork club team in favour of a spot with the Brocs, who we trounced on Saturday morning! New teams came from Luxembourg and Italy and we even had a male 32

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Australian nurse on the pick up team. Most of my best Cork Open memories come from 2007: the party in the Old Oak, the sun, the final, Darron‟s video. Everything just seemed to click in one shining moment, but of course it wasn‟t a coincidence: the lads in Cork really put a huge amount of ground work into this one – as Tadhg and I were organising from Dublin.

It was the same story this year, minus a Tadhg. Aine took charge in Cork and did an amazing job: organising entertainment, food and accommodation for 22 teams – over 300 people: the largest tournament that has been held in Ireland to date. The UCC team thought of everything, even making sure that the rain stayed off by putting a massive tent half way up on Sunday. We had hot food, music (of sometimes questionable quality), a new Italian team and the tournament basically ran itself once everyone was there. It was a lot different from the old days of getting someone with a clock on their phone to run around the pitches calling time. I think our experience at running the tournament so many times and finding out what works and what doesn‟t has enabled us to fine tune everything so that now it‟s almost automatic. In fact, one of my only jobs this year was to make sure the Brocs had an easy run through to the final, which worked out quite well in the end, although we somehow contrived to concede four without reply at the start of the game and couldn‟t get back from there. Still, we had a great weekend, taking out FuF in the semis and suicide bombing the party in our Durkhastani costumes. Honourable mention goes to the Essex girls and the bobsledders, though. They should get together more often. As the tournament has grown year on year, I‟ve seen less and less of each team playing, but I‟ve heard great things. Seeing the depth of talent on the annual All-star team always amazes me. What‟s even better is the standard of people who don‟t make the all-stars – a lot of whom are internationals and varsity winners. Best of all though, is watching how the Cork Open has transformed from a small get together of people who like to play ultimate, to a full scale peer pooled tournament: big enough that you don‟t see everyone at the pitches but friendly enough that you see them at the party! I can only hope it grows from here: maybe 24 teams in 2009, 33

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maybe more? Handing over the TD badge for the first time in five years though, I feel confident that Cork will put on a good show. And I hope to see you all there.

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February 2009 Section Two: Further Afield

The idea behind the second part of the Newsletter is to have a look at Ultimate outside our small community. This month we‟ve an interview with Fergus Weldon, a DCU graduate who‟s played for Ireland and is currently playing with Clapham in London. There‟s a quick rundown on some interesting and useful sites available online as well as an interview with the writers of the excellent „The Huddle‟, a blog devoted to sharing the thoughts, experiences and strategies of elite players across the U.S. with the wider Ultimate community.

Ultimate Online The simple aim of this section is to share sites from the web that will be of benefit and general interest to Ultimate players around the country.

BLOG Name: The Huddle Address: http://www.the-huddle.org/ Details: An excellent website full of advice, strategies, discussion and much more. Arguably the best website available for Ultimate players today.

NATIONAL WEBSITE Name: Australian Flying Disc Association Address: http://www.afda.com/ Details: A well-maintained, pretty and well fleshed out website with everything from monthly photography competitions to details on drills and coaching.

VIDEO Name: Blockstack TV Address: http://www.blockstack.tv/ Details: Described by themselves as „the hottest sofa based Ultimate Frisbee TV show‟, Tom Styles and Steve Giguere have produced some excellent pod casts. Their tournament coverage is fun and interesting and there are a lot of Irish players popping up of late. Great entertainment. 35

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Name: Ultivillage Address: http://www.ultivillage.com/ Details: Pioneers of the Ultimate DVD and constantly providing more impressive footage (including live action!), these guys are, without doubt, the best video stuff out there.

PHOTOGRAPHY Name: Jose Pires Photography Address: http://joez.smugmug.com/ Details: Jose is a French player and photographer with an exceptional eye. His site is full of photos from all sorts of European tournaments.

Name: Matt Lane Photography Address: http://www.mattlanephotos.com/ Details: Top class Ultimate photography from one of the best photographers in the U.S.

TOURNAMENTS Name: FFindr â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Find Frisbee Anywhere Address: http://ffindr.com/ Details: Ever since the disappearance of Ultilinks the Ultimate community has been looking for another site to be developed to help us map our travelling plans around where we can play Ultimate. FFindr not only achieves this but provides a blog, allows teams register contact details and tournament information as well as providing a map of world Ultimate. THE resource for tournament-finding!

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Irish Players abroad Interview with Fergus Weldon Mark Earley

The idea behind this section of the newsletter is to interview a player who began heir Ultimate career in Ireland but now lives/studies/plays abroad. This month we are talking to Fergus Weldon who's played at the top level of Open Ultimate in America and in the UK as well as representing Ireland at Worlds 2004, World Beach 2004, 2007 and EUC 2007. Last season he coached Thundering Herd, a mixed team based in London, to the UK Mixed Tour title and picked up two MVP awards in finals along the way.

Congratulations on a great season. It's been nice to see you do so well over the water. For now, I guess we'll start at the beginning...how did you get into Ultimate? I started playing during my first year in University at DCU. One of the guys in my course joined the club and started to get the whole class involved. On the sunny days almost everyone on my course would bump off a lecture or two to go out and play. Then the next year I joined the club and started playing with DCU at tournaments.

What did you think about the scene here in Ireland? I find that the more experience and exposure you have of the different levels of Ultimate the more you form an opinion of organizations within a country. Obviously when I had just started out I had little exposure to what went on in the rest of Ireland, especially within the IFDA.

Now that I am more experienced I would say that Ireland Ultimate scene is definitely growing in numbers and that the IFDA seem to have the future of the sport under control. It will take time before it grows into what other countries like the UK and France have but it seems that Ireland is on the right path.

You made your debut for Ireland in Finland at Worlds 2004, tell us about that year from your perspective. That year was very exciting for me. It was my first year playing Ultimate regularly and it would be my first year playing at tournaments abroad.

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Between the fitness programs, the endless amount of tournaments and the new aspects of Ultimate that I had never even considered, the whole year was a big wake up call. Not to mention playing the USA in our second game at worlds and getting our asses handed to us.

Attending Worlds and seeing what other teams could do was possibly the single biggest step of my Ultimate career. If I hadn't of gone to Worlds then and experienced it first hand I may still be ignorant to what else is out there.

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Following Worlds you moved to the US and played in the UPA. Was that the main reason behind your move stateside? Did you find it took you a while to adjust to North American Ultimate? What was it like over that side of the pond? After Worlds I was hungry for more. The main drive to go stateside was to play and improve.

It was a while before I got used to the American style of Ultimate. As you could imagine the scene over there is much bigger than in Ireland and there is a lot more Ultimate to be played. There were times during the summer months when I would play at least 3 hours everyday.

Because of the huge numbers there are enough leagues and teams to please everyone. A summer league night would involve anywhere from 15-30 teams playing at once. Elite level Ultimate is very different to what there is in Ireland. Obviously this is helped by more players, but games are more aggressive and much faster paced. Teams are organized much like professional sport teams and weekend trainings at 8am are a common thing.

The biggest adjustment for me was the style of tournaments. At any 2 day tournament you will play between 8-10 games and there are usually no breaks in between so you would end up playing for 6-7 hours straight. Combine that style of tournament with 40 degree heat and you can be sure to be in bed by 7pm that night.

More recently you've been playing with Clapham, which I believe has been an ambition for some time. What are the highlights of playing with such a strong outfit? Playing with Clapham is the highlight of my career to date. It's a constant challenge at practice and I have never been a better Ultimate player. To play for Clapham is a lot of hard work. It's like having a second job but I love every minute of it. All of the guys are there to be their best, training after training. This promotes a healthy competitiveness that aids the development of players.

Playing with Clapham has given you a chance to match up against some strong players and teams, which match up sticks in your mind the most? In the UK the most notable is the Chevron offence. I play on the D-line and it is possibly (next to Skogs) the hardest O-line to shut down. Their use of handler movement is very good 39

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and you really have to work hard to get blocks. In Europe, the toughest match up I faced would have to be Lorenz of Flying Angels Bern, in this past EUCF in Paris. Trying to deny him any throws is near impossible and it's very hard to force him into throwing an errant pass.

In 2007 you were part of the Ireland set up for the second time but this time with a vast improvement on results. How did you see the season spent with Paddy and Ireland? I thought everyone had learnt from WUGC 2004 in Finland what it was going to take to have an impact at such a high profile tournament. The team was organized very professionally and every part of the training and preparation was detailed and run very well.

I think another part of the reason that we did so well is because we retained almost all of the players that had played in Finland, something that I would have loved to have seen in Vancouver but you can't avoid the natural progression of life.

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What would you like to see happen next in terms of Ireland's progression as an international force?

I would like to see the Irish teams travel to Europe more to play in the more competitive tournaments like Wonderful Copenhagen, Windmill and to content for a place at EUCF. Also, I think attending the UK tour series is a fundamental building block in exposing players to a higher level of Ultimate and help developing teams to get better.

I think if these were to happen, the Irish teams at the next Euros and Worlds would be much better and Ultimate would progress faster as a whole in Ireland.

The season just gone has to rank as one of your most progressive on a personal level. Which part of it was the most satisfying? And, what's the aim for the new season?

After my first season in the UK I was very disappointed at my personal performance at Euros with Ireland and with my performance with Clapham. This gave me the energy and drive I needed to improve and I set off to become a better player. The most satisfying moments were the Tour 2 and Nationals wins with Clapham and winning Mixed tour 2 with the Herd. I knew I had worked hard and it was very pleasing to get some results back. You can't beat the feeling of getting a goal-line D on the first pass and then go on to score.

My aim is to become a cutter on the Clapham defence. This is new to me as I have usually always been a handler but I do like to challenge myself. Of course qualifying for Worlds in 2010 is a must and is an aim that every Clapham player has.

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Finally, if you had one piece of advice for the young, ambitious players coming through what would it be? Get out and play at tournaments outside of Ireland and bring what you have learnt back. It will make you a better player and it will help develop the sport.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Ferg and look forward to seeing you soon.

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A word from inside â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Huddleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; An interview with Ben Wiggins and Andy Lovseth Mark Earley

What made you want to start 'The Huddle'? When we were learning to play, finding a good resource on the internet was very, very difficult. We recently found ourselves in a position, with the combination of our skills, to do something about that...and it has been really fun to pursue. We think there are young developing players out there that are looking for a perspective outside of their normal team mates and opponents, and we hope we can help them find that.

How much time do you spend on it every day? The Huddle is published weekly. But that doesn't mean we are putting together an issue in seven days. For all of our issues we have a long period of lead time. At a minimum we send out topics to our roster of authors two months in advance, and like to receive final responses three to four weeks before publication. In the days before we go live with any issue or feature, we are spending time copyediting each article and posting them to the web. All told, each issue could take up fifteen hours to produce. And with many issues in the works, and other balls in the air, we may spend up to ten ours a week between the both of us working on The Huddle.

If you had any advice for people starting out a Blog, what would it be? For anyone out there who wants to write about Ultimate, the one bit of advice we'd give is to write about what you know and what you see. Anyone can speculate about how great a team is, or muse about how impressive a player is, or theorize about what the best offence is, but writers that go into depth and detail about their playing experience, or the tournaments they have competed in are worth reading.

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You've covered tournaments, spoken to the top players, focused on certain skills, and even dissected video footage. What's the next step for you guys? Hopefully, the next step is more--and better. There is such a range of topics and questions to cover from a strategic standpoint that we can be choosy about what we present. We want to publish issues about topics that players are dying to learn more about, like how best to lay out. We also want to explore concepts that we care about too, like what makes a great team mate. In 2009 our readers can look forward to more audio and video content, exploration of rules questions, further coverage of the UPA, and much more.

Andy (right) rejects another of Benâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impossible ideas

Do you cover any of the big tournaments in Europe? What do you think of the teams here? We don't cover any of the tournaments in Europe, or at least, not yet. We are a small operation so far, but we will keep trying to expand. One thing we have found, though, is that our strength is not in current-events-reporting...there is a reason that people pay for a newspaper, and doing that kind of reporting is difficult! For the near future, we probably won't be travelling to Europe to report. However, we do hope to bring more European authors into our team, so that we can give a better international viewpoint: this is definitely a priority! 44

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Which team impressed you most at Worlds? The state of the youth game is very impressive. The battles between the top 4 girlâ&#x20AC;&#x;s teams were extremely hard-fought and skilled, and it is obvious where the next generation of talent is coming from. The Team USA Boys were as good as many top club teams. Many of the young players, from many countries, will be on the senior sides very soon, and we have seen in the States that this translates very well to higher levels of play.

Things at the top of the UPA seem to be more open than ever before this season. Why do you think that is? We're not sure if things at the top of the Open Club division are in fact more open than past years. The only difference is that someone different won. Since 1989, only five teams (New York, DoG, Condors, Furious George, and Sockeye) had won the championship, and with Jam winning in 2008, that makes six. But there have always been strong teams contending. Between Johnny Bravo, Furious, Ironside, Chain, GOAT, Revolver, Ring, DoubleWide, and Sub Zero, there is a depth of great teams all poised to make a run one of these seasons. We think that it is likely that we have seen the end of the 'dynasty' teams, and a more level playing field will probably be the norm in years to come, which is great for the game!

Developing Junior Ultimate is the next big step for Ireland to take this year. What advice might you have for any coaches/organisers about coaching junior teams? Coming from Seattle, site of one of the larger and more organized Youth scenes in the country, we have found that it is impossible for one school or one coach to do everything. You need a group of teachers and coaches and organizers willing to collaborate to make it work. The one sure thing that young players love to do is to compete, and giving primary and secondary age kids the opportunity to play against rival schools every weekend is key to ensuring high levels of participation and an even higher level of enjoyment. If everyone is having fun, that is the most important thing.

The difference between the North American and European styles of play is often mentioned by players on this side of the Atlantic. Is it as talked about on your side? What do you make of it? It probably isn't. In years past, North American teams routinely pilfered O and D strategies from European teams that were successful at Worlds and this definitely helped the game here. 45

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The last two Worlds have not been extremely strong for European teams, probably due in no small part to the distance (both were very far from Europe, which we know is difficult for a non-pro sport to overcome). We think that North American teams likely think more about the styles of different countries in Europe, rather than a single European 'style'. As teams like Clapham continue to attend the strongest US tournaments, we should see more information passing between continents.

What is your best on-field memory? Andy: My best on-field memory is of any and all of the four years playing at Western Washington University, and the three years of coaching in the seasons that have followed. Go Dirt! Ben: Pretty hard to disagree with that. Who do you think is the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;best player in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; at the moment? John Hassell. Being the absolute best player in the game (besides being so subjective) is probably just as dependent on form/fitness as anything else, with so many great players around. Hassell has been very near the top for many years, but had excellent tournaments both at Worlds and UPA Nationals which we think puts him over the top. There are a number of names which might be there on any given Sunday, but we doubt anyone will vociferously disagree.

If you could play on any team, other than the one you currently play for, who would it be? Andy: If I were fifteen years younger, I'd want to be playing at a primary school in Amherst, Massachusetts, or Atlanta, Georgia, or Seattle, Washington. With so many opportunities to learn and compete for Junior's nowadays, an individual could develop into a top notch Ultimate player, with truly reachable goals of playing in National and World Championships.

Ben: Having just met many of the Colombian players, I think it would be a truly special experience to play with, or even coach, the Colombian national side. Similarly, it would be a dream weekend to lace 'em up with the Buzz Bullets. I guess I'll have to wait until I can create a player for EA Sports Ultimate Frisbee 2020.

Thanks a lot for your time guys and best of luck with the website in 2009! 46

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Final Words

Obviously this newsletter would not have happened without the contributions of many people and the guidance of a few others. A big thank you to all who submitted articles, photos, ideas and to the various interviewees as well. Thanks to Dominick Smyth who painstakingly reading through the entire Newsletter correcting my typos! Finally, thanks to Paul Cronin again for his help and to the IFDA Committee whose support was most appreciated. The next issue will be due out just before the summer. If thereâ&#x20AC;&#x;s anything (other than Sudoku, Andrea) that you think is missing please email ifdanewsletter@gmail.com and I will endeavour to include. Until then, take care.

Mark Earley, Editor, IFDA Newsletter

Special thanks to all the photographers: Paul Cronin, Mark Dolan, Peter Gaston, Graham Bailey, Tom Styles and Mark Earley.

Until next time