Irish Flying Disc Association Newsletter
Issue 3, Volume 2
November 2009
Note from the Editor
Welcome to issue number three of the second volume of the IFDA Newsletter. This installment is the final of 2009 and as with the last two, arrives a couple of weeks later than originally planned. It retains the format of previous issues with a split between articles regarding Irish ultimate and those taking a look at ultimate further afield.
Over the past month or two there has been a lot of enthusiasm from many different players in the Irish community to help with this Newsletter. It is great to see so many people volunteering and getting involved with the writing of the various articles (makes my job easier too!) so thanks to all who contributed. Over the course of the following pages you ‘ll find an interview with one of the Irish Junior team captains, an article on the birth and growth of Ultimate in Limerick, the thoughts of Oisín Flanagan on how a lack of referees may be holding our sport back, and even a report from the famous Potlatch tournament amongst other bits and pieces. The IFDA Newsletter & Lookfly Photo Competition is back too.
Finally, 2010 will see the Newsletter become a quarterly affair allowing it be both shorter and more topical. As always, suggestions, advice, complaints, corrections and praise are all welcome. Drop me an email at ifdanewsletter@gmail.com if you‘v e so m ething to say!
Take care and see you on the pitch soon!
Mark Earley Editor
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November 2009 Contents
Title
Page No.
Section One: Irish Ultimate
-
News in Brief
4-5
-
IFDA Committee Work
5-6
-
Lookfly Photo Competition
7 -8
-
The Laws of Attraction in Irish Ultimate
9 - 11
-
Frisbee in Limerick: How it all began
12 - 14
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Talking Ultimate: Interview with Dominick Smyth
15 - 16
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Juniors to EYUC: Interview with Conor Hogan
17 - 19
-
Jabba the Huck go to xEUCF
20 - 23
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Self-refereeing in the competitive arena – is it still fair?
24 - 26
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Photos from around Irish Ultimate
27 - 34
Section Two: Further Afield
-
Ultimate Online
35
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Irish Players Abroad: C ian Ó ‘M óráin
36 - 38
-
FFound! : The story of FFindr.org
39 - 42
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Tournament Watch: Potlatch
43 - 45
Wrap Up -
Final Words
46
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Section One: Irish Ultimate News in brief Mark Earley o The World Ultimate Club Championships takes place in Prague next July (3-10) and the website is now online: http://www.wucc2010.com/. It has recently been announced that Ireland has received a bid in both the Open and the Mixed Divisions but not in the Women‘s Division. o The consistently excellent Cork Open 2009 took place last weekend and saw Broccoli win the coveted title for their first time. They beat the Belgians FüF in a tight final under floodlights. UCC 2 took the Spirit award. For more details visit: http://corkopen.uccultimate.com o Best Game in Town (BGIT) is looking to rear its head again to keep people playing in Dublin over the winter months. Keep your eyes on the Pookas mailing list for more information over the next few weeks. o The UPA Club Championships took place last weekend in Saratosa, Florida. In the Open Division Chain Lightning beat Revolver 15-11 and in the Women‘s D ivision B rute S quad (featurin g ‗our very ow n‘ L u cy B arn es!) cam e second to F ury. P h otos, videos, reports etc. from all divisions are online here: http://club2009.upa.org/ o xEUCF took place in September and saw UK-based teams dominate the event with Chevron Action Flash winning the Open division, Iceni winning the Women‘s division, Brighton winning the Mixed division and Age Against the Machine finishing second in the Masters Division. Ireland‘s sole representativ e was Jabba the Huck who came 19th in the Mixed Division. Full details on the excellent website: http://www.xeucf2009.org/ o F or the first tim e in our young sport‘s history, Ireland sent teams to a Youth Championships. The tournament in question was EYUC in Vienna in August. Full reports of all the matches involving the teams can be seen on the Juniors blog: http://irelandjuniors2009.blogspot.com/ The tournament website has full results, pictures and a trailer to the DVD: http://www.eoefc.at/typo3/index.php?id=home
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o Little Miss Sunshine has arrived! The ever-enthusiastic Laura McGrath has founded a new club aimed at committed women players of all experience looking to raise their game and build towards the new season. Long-term goals hope to include nex t sum m er‘s W U C C 2010. F or m ore information get in touch with Laura via the Ladies Forum: http://irish-ladies.forumotion.net/ o The WFDF have released a new Spirit score sheet. The previous 8 categories have been reduced to 5 and ranking within each category has been expanded from 3 options to 5. More information, including links to the score sheets in 25 languages, is available at: http://www.wfdf.org/index.php?page=rules/spirit.htm o Finally, all results from recent tournaments featuring Irish teams can be seen here: http://www.irishultimate.com/players/results.php If you want your teams results added, ask your team captain to email the Tournament Co-ordinator: tournaments@irishultimate.com === IFDA News The IFDA Committee As detailed in previous issues, the IFDA Committee meet on a monthly basis. The aim of these meetings is to bring Irish Ultimate forward. We work hard to make this happen but can always use extra knowledge, ideas and suggestions. If you have any of these, please let us know at secretary@irishultimate.com Over the past 4 months we have been working on/have completed the following: July: Becoming a Garda vetting operative Creating an Irish version of The Huddle.org Publishing a press release re: Junior Teams Providing a Wexford County Council summer program August: Sending two Junior teams to European Youth Ultimate Championships Producing an IFDA Tournament Bag 5
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Electing a new schools coordinator before the school year Setting up permanent irishultimate.com email address in order to store all communications Putting a media archive online September: Running an All-Ireland Open Championship Launching new teams in o St. Pats o IT Blanchardstown o Waterford IT October: Holding a disc sports tournament to promote: DDC, guts, accuracy, golf, MTA and RTC Presenting the annual IFDA Awards at the IFDA Awards Ball Presenting a lifetime achievement award for Dave Rosenfeld at IFDA Awards Ball Ammending the constitution to allow mid-term election & ‗Island of Ireland‘ Selecting an "IFDA Team of the Year"
Ireland Women at Eight Nations 2008, Girona 6
Issue 3, Volume 2
November 2009 Lookfly IFDA Newsletter Photo Competition
Lookfly (www.lookfly.com) have kindly agreed to sponsor a second Photo Competition in this months IFDA Newsletter. Up for grabs this time around are:
1st Prize: Lookfly Baselayer (brand new design!) 2nd Prize: Lookfly disc & Lookfly gloves 3rd Prize: Lookfly gloves & Lookfly wristbands
NB: This competition will take place again for the February 2010 issue so make sure to take lots of photos and email them to: ifdanewsletter@gmail.com
Rules: -
The subject of the photo must be an Irish team/an Irish player in action (on the pitch!)
-
The photo must be taken since the last Newsletter (July 1st 2009) and before next one (November 1st 2009)
-
There is a maximum of three entries (and one prize!) per photographer
The winners are: 1st Place: Laura ‗S houlders‘ McGrath
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2nd Place: Robin Giller
3rd Place: John ‗O J‘ R edm ond
All photos submitted can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/earley.mark/PhotoCompetitionEntries
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The laws of Attraction in Irish Ultimate Oisín Flanagan Money and status have always b een a problem for Irish ultim ate team s. O ften team s can‘t go to tournam ents because their players or club can‘t afford it. O ften team s can‘t train because they are not established enough to get university pitch or hall time. Irish ultimate clubs and representative teams have struggled for sponsorship as long as I can remember. This limits player and club development. Many sports clubs with less commitment from players and less athleticism seem to get money and status more easily. Why? Why? Why?
Ireland is not like Canada or the USA, we are an older nation and less open to new ideas. Just look at how difficult governments find it to change anything (this is not directed at any political group). We value more traditional, established and most importantly conservative ideas. W e have all heard ―C all that a sport‖ som ew here alon g the line. W e m ust realize that have to play ball w ith the Irish m entality. W e need to present an image of being competitive athletes, which not surprisingly, we really are.
Other Irish sports are well used to fighting for their players. Secondary schools that play GAA, soccer and rugby have had huge disagreements over teachers and pupils choosing which sport. This continues at senior intercounty GAA and professional rugby and soccer. We must create a product to attract the good players.
Representative Ultimate Frisbee is a physically grueling sport requiring enormous skill, team commitment and understanding of the game. It is a level of sport that many people would never be able to compete at. This needs to be shown off to the public. For example, clubs with extremely alternative names involving puns or references to food, drink and even genitalia can mask the true sporting prowess of the team and make potential sponsors, players and sporting authorities immediately disinterested. Also, post match games involving grown adults playing street fighter, mix and mingle and various other games are often very incongruous to the competitive nature of the match just finished. It can leave prospective athletes and sponsors thinking that despite enjoying and being impressed by the skill and physicality of the game, that it is just not for them. 9
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F or ex am ple, ―W ould you like to see N orth D ublin V s O ld U C D in the league final this S aturday?‖ sounds m ore appealin g to the lay p erson than ―W ould you like to see Johnn y C him po V s B ro ccoli‖ w hich sounds too alternative to the average Irish p erson. A nother ex am ple; ―W e‘re looking for sponsorship for the Old UCD team to compete in this representative tournament. We are a team of predom inantly U C D graduates w ho m aintain ties w ith the university in coachin g and recruitm ent.‖ T his w ill get the necessary sp onsorship to play tourn am ents faster than ―w ould you like to sponsor our team ?‖ ―W hat‘s your team called?‖ ―B roccoli‖ ―W h y are you called B roccoli?‖ ―It‘s a lon g story‖ ―I‘m sure it is, good luck in the tourn am ent but no thank you ‖
My first experience of Ultimate was seeing a 3-minute clip of Canada Vs Sweden on Euorosport around 1996. It was in a stadium full of cheering spectators. I was simply amazed at how skilful and fast they were and I loved it immediately. I saw there was a club in UCD in 1999 and joined. I love the throwing, catching, marking and sheer skill of it. I love the way you can play it at a high level and any injuries you get are either accidents or from trying too hard, not somebody trying to injure you. I really wanted to travel as UCD and Ireland and compete abroad like our rugby and soccer teams have. In Ireland there are large numbers of youn g people like this w ho w ould do the sam e if they had the sam e ―C anad a V s S w eden‖ ex posure, or so m ething sim ilar.
There is nothing wrong with Irish
Ultimate
at
present.
Thankfully, there are more teams than ever and largely thanks to vast amounts of commitment
by
voluntary
organizers. The sport is enjoyed by all involved and is growing steadily.
However
when
it
comes to attracting sponsors, players and sporting authorities in Ireland it pays a very heavy and unnecessary price for the alternative image and will continue to do so. My question is, is it worth the price?
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The Japanese team was my favourite team at worlds. Their kit looked great and was heavily sponsored. It was clear that as a result they could afford coaches, administrators, equipment etc. They played with pride and passion. The Irish captain Tadhg Healy said the night before our opening match in WUGC 2008, ―T here is a lot of fight in this Irish team ‖. H e w as right; there is. A nd I just feel that if w e change the image to attract resources, then we can be that team that grabs others attention in Ireland and abroad as a model national team. Fortunately or unfortunately, we must take ourselves more seriously before our fellow Irish men and women will. Finally, we have in recent years seen both sch oolchildren and th e first of our ―second gen eration‖ ultimate players getting involved. Therefore the time to make the image of the sport presentable, polished and inviting to all generations and to both parents and coaches of school teams is definitely now . It‘s just easier that way.
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Frisbee in Limerick: How it all began Jim Heneghan
I guess any story about the origins of Limerick Ultimate would have to start with the story of the person who founded Limerick Ultimate: me (Limerick Jim). I first was introduced to Ultimate one evening when I was playing at the pitches down the road for my house, which was the field of Columbia High School, the birthplace of Ultimate. I ended up meeting the captain of CHS at the time Ben Haim. That evening, Ben taught me the rules of Ultimate. The main thing, however that Ben imparted to me was his passion and love for Ultimate, something I still feel to this day.
So after the next week of dragging all my friends to my middle school ultimate training I started my career as an ultimate player. This lasted until I was 13 and moved to Ireland. At the time there was only Pookas up in Dublin and I didn‘t have the balls to set up m y ow n club. When I was in 3rd year of college I was on work experience down in Cork. My first week there I was tremendously bored so I went online and scanned the UCC clubs and Socs page. Something made me decide to look for Ultimate and low and behold there was UCC Ultimate and a list of training times. I went home got my gear and went on down to training that night. By the end of the session I was in love again.
After I went back to Limerick that summer I spent the whole time pleading with my friends to play with m e. E very w eek I‘d try to arran ge a S unday picku p w ith a grand m ax im um o f 5 players. Come September I persisted, getting permission from the sports folk in UL to set up the club and have training in our old sports hall every Wednesday. However at this point I was losing hope. No one ever came to any of my carefully planned training sessions despite the fact that I had taught a good few players how to throw that summer. I decided to have one last shot at trying to start up UL Ultimate and out of nowhere it all clicked. On Monday Johnny Flahavan gave me the number of his sister, who had started college in Mary I that year, w ho said she‘d com e and brin g a friend. A nother friend w ho I random ly m et on T uesday said he‘d com e and bring som e friends. S o com e W ednesday I sh ow ed up and m y T uesd ay friend Mike, who had already made his excuses to leave early, showed up with two friends of his own. Thus with 11 people on the night UL Ultimate was born. Mike and friends loved the game so much that 12
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not only did he stay but when we went for pints afterwards everyone agreed to come up to whacking day the next weekend. The rest is History. Ultimate in Limerick is now equated with the annual tournament – the Siege of Limerick. The story of the siege begins with the story of Intervarsities 2007. We were asked in our first year to host IVs. At the time we thought this was some great honour. I now know this is something that everyone tries to pawn off on som eone else every year… A n yw ay, w e bo oked the pitches, found a venue for th e party and managed to get every team coming a place to crash on a floor for free. We even had a spare house after UCC decided to get a hotel.
After running IVs that year I realized that, even with the IFDA calling many of the shots, hosting a good tournament was very achievable. And after going to the Cork Open I realised that not only could we do a tournament we could do one far better than IVs and could even rival Cork. The following summer we were granted permission to hold the Siege and I set about making it the best I could. I got a lot of advice from all corners. I advertised on Brit and Euro Disc. I stalked every college forum inviting them all to the event. I plagued every team in Ireland until I was sure all of them would come. T he biggest hurdle w e h ad to over com e w as acco m m odation. W e realised w e w ouldn‘t be able to host everyone on floors as there w asn ‘t enou gh of us and there w ere so m an y team s com ing. S o w e got a contact off of the Students Union and e-m ailed Jury‘s w ho gave us the fantastic €20 pp rate w hich gave The Siege the breath of life it needed.
With the two most important things for any tournament sorted (accommodation and the playing fields) we had enough to run a tournament. However, on the ground, just enough was never going to be good enough for us. We wanted The Siege to be the best tournament run in Ireland. After the previous tour 3 I 13
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had spent in Cardiff I realized that available shelter would be needed if it were to piss rain so we got onto a marquee company (Party Time Ltd.) and arranged one of them. (A quick note on marquees - don‘t cheap out on your marquee. The tent we rent for the Siege every year costs around a grand every year. D on‘t m ake the m istake of bu yin g on e that w on‘t be of the sam e qu ality. A lso know that as tournam ents gro w you m ight outgrow yo ur m arquee… ) A t S ligo the year b efore everyone loved the music being blasted so we thought we could arrange that as well. After some cold pasta in Cork we realised that it w ouldn‘t be too hard to h ave a B B Q to have w arm food on offer. A fter piecing to gether all the vario us different components we went about organising the tournament and now it is the second biggest tournament in the country and attended by Irish, English, and many other teams.
As the Siege grows, so does Ultimate across Limerick. One of the mission goals stated by our constitution is: ―T o prom ote the grow th of ultim ate in U L and the greater L im erick area‖. T his is som ething w e‘ve tried to do w ith lim ited success last year but intend to tak e seriously in the nex t few years.
By chance last summer we showed up at the UL pitches for a training session to see a group of people playin g ultim ate. W e introduced ourselv es and tho ugh they w eren‘t interested in playin g w ith us at the time we managed to get two of them to come fairly regularly from then on. Those two happened to be the president and vice president of the Limerick School of Art and Design. These two led a mildly successful campaign to get an art college team started. Though the team eventually stopped training we did manage to get a few regular players coming to UL training (including Tom Matthews who went on to be a successful member of the Irish Junior team). In UL w e‘d alread y h ad T ob y M organ of L it playin g w ith us who also went on to represent Ireland at Junior level. T hese tw o w e‘re hop ing w ill go on to set up L IT ultim ate this year and w e‘re hopin g to do everything to support them . T hin gs planned for the future include a L im erick C lub team a L im erick youth team and a few L im erick S chools. A n y advice I‘d give to anyone trying to set up new clubs in Ireland is to think big and don‘t be afraid to ask for som e help.
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Talking Ultimate Interview with Dominick Smyth, Editor of Talking Ultimate Mark Earley When did you start Talking Ultimate? The first topic went live in the middle of July but I'd had the idea for about a year before that. I wanted some way for people to share their thoughts on ultimate and maybe start other people thinking as well. What are the main aims of Talking Ultimate? To share knowledge. We've had a huge growth in player numbers in the last year or so and I want to make sure that everybody has access to any information or knowledge they wish. There aren't as many opportunities for national team players to train with beginners but Talking Ultimate gives everybody a chance to pick someone else's brains. Who are the writers? I've tried to ask international ultimate players as much as possible. I felt they would have the most experience and probably the best understanding of the game. That's not to say there haven't been other writers, just look at the recent All-Ireland Open preview. How does one get involved? Anybody can suggest a topic (although I might change it a little bit to get more variety in the articles). As more topics have been published, more people have started to make suggestions, which is great. It's tough to keep coming up with them and there is always the risk that it will only be things I want to talk about.
Also, and I'm not sure people realise this, everybody can comment on an article. Simply log in to the site (Anonymous mud slinging wouldn't be much use) and go to Talking Ultimate to see the comment box. I
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had always planned that if someone put forward a series of good comments I'd get them in to write on the next topic, regardless of their experience. What are the future topics? I hope that's up to the readers. I have some thoughts but I'd much rather other people requested things. That would make it much more interesting. One thing I will say is that the next topic (due out in early October) will hopefully get a lot of people talking and thinking. It should be the most controversial one yet. Where do you see the project going in the future? To be honest, I have no idea. As long as people keep reading the articles, I'll continue to ask authors for topics. Unfortunately the whole thing is very much at the mercy of those authors. If they don't write anything, I have nothing to publish (as happened recently when I had to cancel a topic).
It's probably going to slow down over the winter (new topic every three to four weeks) but as ultimate continues to grow all around Ireland who knows what the demand for this will be.
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EYUC – a journey into the unknown An interview with Conor Hogan, captain, Ireland A Mark Earley
2009 saw Irish Ultimate take a massive step forward as 32 players made the journey to the European Youth Ultimate Championships in Vienna. The two teams were chosen after a lengthy trial process and were trained over a three month period by 5 of Irish Ultimate's coaches and national team players. In this interview I talk to Ireland A's captain, Conor Hogan (recently voted Junior Player of the Year), about the build up, the tournament and all that took place in between. How did you first get involved in Ultimate, Conor? Podge and Sam put up posters in the school to say if anyone would like to play a bit of Ultimate Frisbee, to be at the Mary's pitches at 11:30 on Sunday. Well, we turned up and threw a little, played a little and liked it a lot!
When you heard about the chance to represent Ireland, what was your first thought? Ha, this could be some craic! I couldn't have been more excited but at the time but I had no idea if any of us (Mary's lads) were good enough to make it. So naturally we were pleasantly surprised to have five on the squad! The trial process took place relatively late in the season. How did you find it? Intense. Nerves were flying about and on the first day there were about 60 people there, I had no idea who most of them were and I reckoned some would be really good and that there was going to be strong competition for places. I loved it though - it was nicely timed for me as rugby was coming to a close for the season but I think had we started training sooner we might have gelled faster and made a bigger impact on Europe. When you were chosen for the final squad were you excited? Absolutely. Seventeen and playing for Ireland? Yes please. 17
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The training and the fitness were a bid step up from indoors schools Ultimate. How did you adapt to it? Was it as tough as you expected? I was somewhat fit from playing rugby all year but the level of fitness needed for Vienna was in another league! I reckoned I could have coped well but I would have died out in Vienna without doing the fitness. In the weeks leading up to Vienna there was a palpable excitement in the squad. Can you describe it to us? No... I don't say that trying to be funny, I say it sincerely because the anticipation and excitement was unbearable and I can't put it into words! All we wanted to do was to get that green (and white) jersey on and play Ultimate. How did the week go from your own, personal point of view? I was happy with how I played and I feel my game improved so much against all the best players in Europe. We all have some great memories and moments that will be brought up time and again in the coming years, especially Sterile losing his voice and still shouting the length of the pitch "Hogi! They're Offside!" or my outrageously dodgy hammer into the middle of 4 Czech players only for Toby to catch for the score and Sam to shout onto the pitch "Hogi! Nice hammer... but don't do it again". What was your best memory of EYUC? Ireland 1 vs Ireland 2 = EPIC! Or Game 1 against Germany. We thought they could have gone all the way this year and knew it would be our toughest group match. We almost got off to the perfect start as Beaner (Myles) got a Callaghan but the disc was brought back to the thrower after a contested strip. We ended up losing 15-6 but it was our first taste of international Ultimate and for some it was their first tournament outside Dublin! I loved every second of that match.
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And the bus home from the nightclub on our last night. There must have been around 100-150 people on the bus all from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Austria and Sweden. We spent the bus home banging the walls, the windows, the roof and singing songs till our voices went. How we all fit on and managed to get away without paying I do not know! And, the other side of it, what was the most disappointing moment over there? Not winning against GB2 the second time around. We played some of our best ultimate, but after 3 days of intense play we had injuries and were absolutely shattered and they managed to claw victory out of our hands. Grudge match 2010? If there was anything you could do differently/ change about the experience what would it be? Do the fitness trainings as a group rather than individually. I have a feeling that some people didn't take it seriously when left to do it themselves and as a result some of them let themselves down on the pitch at times. But everything went so well (other than Junior leaving his bag on the train on day 1), I kind of wish that everyone had stayed the extra day, that‘s a m ust for nex t year! WJUC 2010 - interested? When does the plane leave? Thanks a lot for your time, and congratulations on an impressive first season.
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Jabba the Huck represent Irish Ultimate at xEUCF Richard Buggy
After months of preparation and training, Jabba The Huck had finally arrived at the most important tournament we have ever competed in. Only a couple of years earlier the very notion of Jabba taking part in the European Club Championships was laughable. But we had arrived, at what is probably the most confusingly named tournament ever: The eXtended European Ultim ate C lu b F inals. B ut let‘s just say xEUCF like everyone else.
Our squad of 9 guys and 8 girls were among a strong 20-team Mixed division. Game one would be against Brighton Ultimate (the team that would go on to dominate the competition and take the Mixed Title with apparent ease). However as Jabba arrived on the first morning we were to discover that for some reason Brighton had switched groups with Blue Arse Flies. BAF were still a highly competitive team and eventually finished the tournament in 6th place. The match was close throughout but BAF always held the upper hand and put away their opportunities (unlike Jabba). The final score of 15-3 to BAF was kind on them, but Jabba had learned very quickly that we would have to work hard for every point in this tournament. Afterwards we found ourselves with a gigantic 5 hour break so it was off to the Lookfly tent, which immediately became home of the Jabba squad for the weekend. With comfy couches, German phrase books, connect 4 and on one occasion a box of fresh donuts, where else would you want to be? Thanks Lookfly.
Game 2 was against Spirit on Lemon from Poland. This game was highlighted as our best opportunity of winning a group game, and so it proved. The game was marred by extremely poor Spirit from the Poles and it quickly turned into a scrappy and sloppy game with some bizarre and outrageous calls. However the Lemons stuck to their game plan and never gave away their early lead. They came out 15-9 winners in a game that most would like to forget. 20
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F riday m ornin g presented no respite w ith a gam e against the group‘s top seed S ugar M ix from S tuttgart. The team that would eventually finish the tournament 4th completely out-classed Jabba in the early exchanges and heads soon began to drop. Half was called at 8-0 and some serious talking was needed. An improvement in the 2nd half resulted in a final score line of 15-2. Game 4. UFO from Finland. Another Strong team who finished 8th overall (showing the strength of the group Jabba was faced with). But Jabba came out fighting and took an early 3-2 lead. But the mistakes at the back crept in with a number of self-inflicted turnovers in front of our endzone and UFO were soon running away with the match. Thoughts had already begun to turn to our impending cross-over and the game finished 15-4 to UFO.
LOL from Hungary were our cross-over opposition. Victory would seal a top 16 place. A loss would put us in the bottom 4. Another slow start cost Jabba dearly with LOL taking an early commanding lead. But a mid-game fight back from Jabba gave us both hope and excitement. However like the game against Spirit on Lemon Jabba were never able to fully recover and conceded the last 3 points to lose 15-8. A trip to the bottom 4 meant just one game on Saturday and one on Sunday.
After 09.10 games on Thursday, Friday and one waiting us on Sunday morning, we made full use of our only game on Saturday being at 14.40. No need to set any alarms. The opponents were EMU from the East Midlands in the UK makes sense. A really enjoyable game for everyone involved, EMU came out with simple tactics: girls cut under, guys go deep and exploit the comparative shortness of Jabba. Simple but effective, sadly. EMU came out 14-8 winners, and the wooden spoon match awaited us on Sunday morning. But hey, 21
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first, we had a party to go to. Saturday night saw Blockstack TV host a bowling alley party. The only w ay to sum up the night w as the announ cem ent directed at Jabba over the intercom ―C ould people p lease stop abusing the bow lin g lanes‖.
Sunday morning and the opposition were Tallinn Ultimate from Estonia, who had already managed to beat EMU 14-13 and lose 15-13 to Spirit on Lemon. Jabba would have a hard fight to not finish last. And fight we did. For the first time all weekend Jabba took the first point and eventually took half at 8-6. But Tallinn came back to lead 12-10. The tension was clear with both teams desperate to avoid the dreaded last place. The game was poised at 14-14 with time still remaining and confusion reigned over what the teams had to do exactly to win. The score keeper was unsure and was forced to radio back to base. A 1614 score line for either team would do it. Failing that it was game to 17. But it never came to that. Jabba ran out 16-14 winners, becoming the first Irish Team to record a victory in the European Club Championship Mixed Division, and ensuring that we came home with our heads held high.
This was a truly remarkable tournament. Excellently run and for the most part the games were very spirited. Jabba recorded an average spirit score of 15.14 out of 20 and this was only good enough for 9th place - showing the level of spirit in the mixed division. Jabba the Huck would like to thank everyone who assisted us in our Euros campaign by attending our training sessions and for all of the money that we raised by supplying the people of Irish Ultimate with many cakes and burgers. Thank You everyone!
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Jabba the Huck xEUCF 2009 Back Row: A m y M o ffat, R ichard B u gg y, E m ily V ereker, S inead O ‘S hiel F lem m ing, F inton ―F ag‖ D ‘A rcy, C ian Q uinn, Ian F ren ch, H eather B arry, K eith C olem an, F inola S hannon Front Row: C ourtney H o sp, S eam us ―S him bo‖ K insella, A dam W yse, M ark L o y, O w len ―O lly‖ M u rph y, Kelly Mulholland, Fiona Mernagh
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Self-refereeing in the competitive arena – is it still fair? Oisín Flanagan
The Irish open team played extremely close matches against Venezuela and Colombia in the World Ultimate and Guts Championship in Vancouver, August 2008. The South American teams won both matches. There was an undeniably different opinion on the rules and their application and many in Ireland w ould feel this w as a ―sw ing factor‖ in th ese very close gam es. F o r ex am ple, a C olom bian team member on the sideline even claimed that they had the right to block any attempted throws by slapping the arm before disc release. This is not true.
The situation was very difficult to reason. Having trained very hard for six months, I have to say it was disappointing that games on this stage had distractions like this preventing players from simply immersing themselves in world cup games of this beautiful sport.
There are faults with self-refereeing: 1. Players and teams lose concentration. Teams often have players who make a lot of calls. These players can occupy much of the game time with laboured discussions that other players politely allow continue
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while actually being quite distracted from their game. Younger players in particular are more prone to lose concentration following these situations. 2. Calls exclude other players on the field and sp ectators w ho often don‘t kn ow w hat‘s goin g on and w h y.
3. Calls change the momentum of a game. A dubious call can upset a team and change a game. This is not necessarily different to refereed sports except that the players have the power to enact it.
4. Teams who are more brazen in making calls can use this to their advantage without any loss other than losing spirit votes. 5. Competitive games make being objective nearly impossible – you want the disc to be up so you may call it so and think you are 100% correct. This was clearly shown to be so in the 2007 UPA Nationals final, Sockeye Vs Johnny Bravo, when a player claimed a disc was up while video footage showed it to be undeniably and obviously down (The observer was consulted who correctly called it down and a turnover occurred when it would otherwise have gone back to thrower).
6. It would be nice to simply turn up and play while not having to referee at the same time.
There are strengths of self-refereeing. 1. Familiarity. We all know how it works. This is less important with regard to players who have not yet taken up the sport.
2. Playing by these rules allows us to play in international tournaments. We must compete by the same rules on paper as other countries.
3. Self refereeing is a fundamental to the sport. This is after all the sport we signed up for. A refereed tourn am ent took place in E n gland recently and an Irish team com peted. A s I w asn‘t there I wont speculate on it.
I am not necessarily saying that the game needs referees. Having never played a game with observers or referees I cannot say if I would prefer it. However I think Irish Ultimate could be pro-active and
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experiment with observers, referees in matches organized specially for this. It would provide players with experience of the two systems and develop their opinion. At the very least it would be interesting.
Observers talk over a play
In summary no refereeing system is ideal. However the current self-refereed game allows for match swinging advantage to be gained by a team who apply the rules and make calls in a significantly different way to their opponents. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the training and preparation (although it tested me to the absolute limit) for WUGC 2008 and I left the tournament thinking two things. Firstly, I wanted to go back in four years to try and finish in the top 10 teams in the world but secondly that I would not try out for the Irish team if the refereeing situation did not change. I could not face making that big a commitment and being that disappointed with the sport again.
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Photos from around Irish Ultimate
Ireland Open & Venezuela/Colombia at 8 Nations 2009
Fiona Mernagh on D for Ireland Women at 8 Nations 2009
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Pat Hayden leads the cheers for Ireland at the EYUC Opening Ceremony, Vienna
A contemplative Mike Ryan at EYUC 2009
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Ireland A ’s D onal O ’D o nohoe in action vs. G erm any at E Y U C 2009
Brothers Adam and Stephen Wyse compete at the inaugural All-Ireland Open Championships
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K illian ‘Spew y’ B la ke lets one fly
Juice’s Jim H en eghan gets his throw off against B roccoli’s D avid Sm yth
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‘B elles of the B all’ – the ladies dress up for the annual IFDA Awards Ball
St. Marys team mates Finian Flood and Conor Hogan playing DDC during the IFDA Disc Sports Day
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R oger ‘P odge’ B eatty sh ow s perfect ‘split-knuckle’ technique in G U T S at the IFDA Disc Sports Day
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D eadly B uzz’s Sparky B o oker on O against runners-up Flying Bisch in Bologna
Kevin Timoney vs. Trinity at Cork Open 2009
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Mark Earley throws to D avid ‘Super’ M cA lester in the sem i-final vs. Johnny Chimpo
F üF ’s classy F ive U ltim ate gear
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Section Two: Further Afield 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: Ultimate Frisbee and I Address: http://ultimatefrisbeeandi.blogspot.com/ Details: A blog run by a UK-based player that covers everything from Stateside Ultimate, the best gear to wear, musings on UK Ultimate and even warm down/warm up ideas.
NATIONAL WEBSITE Name: South African Flying Disc Association Address: http://www.safda.org.za/ Details: First played in SA in 1983, Ultimate has a strong foothold there now as seen by the SAFDA‘s simple but interesting website.
PHOTOGRAPHY Name: Tom Styles Address: http://tom-styles.co.uk/ Details: One half of the Blockstack duo, Tom Styles is also an excellent photographer and has been shooting Ultimate since 2001. He uses a Canon 40D.
SKILLS Name: Ultimate Video Papers Address: http://ultimate.lcs.mit.edu/ Details: A very thorough examination of every part of throwing, handling and even on-pitch strategies. Fascinating watching.
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Irish Players Abroad Cian Ó’M óráin
This August I was part of a Clapham team that went to Seattle to take part in the ECC invitational tournament. At this tournament we faced up against the best teams in the world; teams like Seattle Sockeye, Furious George from Vancouver and current UPA champions Jam from San Francisco. Marko asked me to write a piece with some reflections about it, so here goes:
One aspect of the tournament that stood out was how small the margins are between the top teams in the US. There are about 20 teams at the top who could legitimately claim to be aiming to be UPA champions, and when these teams play each other the margin of victory is rarely more than 2 or 3 points. There is very little difference among these teams in terms of athleticism and technical ability. The teams who come out on top consistently are those that are able to minimise dips in their level of performance. At this top level a team can play well for a whole game but lose its concentration for two points, and lose it 15-13. Mistakes are punished and 1 or 2 of them are enough to lose you a game. When teams are evenly matched in terms of all the measurables, those that minimise unnecessary errors will invariably come out on top.
The tournament itself was pretty non-stop. We played either two or three games a day. The difference being that these games were generally played back to back. On the Saturday, for instance, we played three back to back games. This meant that we had about 15 minutes between each game. Although it m eant that w e w ere effectively playin g 5 hours in a row , it did m ean that w e didn‘t have to spend fo rty minutes warming up and down either side of each game. I w ouldn‘t say that this form at is m ore gru elling physically than tournaments with breaks between games. It is however tougher mentally, with little time to regroup between games.
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Unfortunately, we had a pretty tough time at ECC. We won just 2 of our 10 games (the first and last, against Kie from Colombia and Jam). A lthough w e w eren‘t lackin g in term s of athleticism and talen t w e sim ply couldn‘t m aintain our high est level of perform ance for full gam es. We got to 8 or 9 all in most games but would invariably give up a few easy breaks and lose by a few scores. We lost four games 1512. There are a few reasons behind this. First of all we only had 17 players for the tournament. This is not enough players to be able to compete at this level. Also, our lack of practise at this level factored against us. While US teams will play 5 or 6 tournaments a year at this level, Clapham will be lucky to play 3 games a year at this same level. We played against battle hardened teams who knew what to do in the latter stages of tight games. While they were adapting to nullify our threats we kept bashing away without changing. Personally, I had a good experience at ECC. I played offence and although I had to do a lot of hard running had no problem getting free and throwing my throws.
There were a few things that I saw that really impressed me at ECC. The team that impressed me most were Boston Ironside. W e didn‘t get the ch ance to play them but I did w atch them play twice. While they ran hard and played some nice transitions on defence, they played with a simple stack on offence. The precision and speed of their throws in conjunction with the intensity, speed and discipline of their cutting was really great to watch. It was nice to see a team not automatically playing 3-4 offence. They were playing the offence that suited them best. Generally, what impressed me most about the ultimate at ECC was the control handlers exerted over games. All the best teams had handlers that broke the mark and reset the disc with ease. Their handlers controlled games by using these tools. They were awesome
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to watch. Another thing that impressed me was the discipline with which cutters cut. Rarely did cutters get in each others‘ way. They were able to use the full pitch to isolate cutters and make it almost impossible to defend against them.
I suppose I should say a few words about how the spirit was at the tournament. There is a common perception that there is a higher level of spirit at tournaments in Europe than those in the US. After playing in ECC I would be inclined to think that the opposite may actually be true. Although the game is undoubtedly more physical in the US (there is a lot more physical contact) everybody is playing on the same page. The pernickety travel calls, or foul calls when there are 10 people under the disc that are a com m on occurren ce in E uropean tournam ents don‘t happen so m uch over there. We also played one game with observers. I found it quite novel. On the practical side they enforced a time limit between points strictly which was great to speed up the game. They also made all the line calls which made it easier to just play the game. These were great. We also had one call referred to an observer (a contested force out foul). The observer ruled against us but it was a good way to resolve a situation where both players viewed the same situation differently.
Finally, I was asked how an Irish team would fare if it went over. Sadly Irish teams are a fair bit off this standard right now. For the time being I would say we should concentrate on trying to get to the top of the UK before we tackle the US. For the record, Revolver (also of San Francisco) beat Boston 15-14 in a thrilling final. It looks like these two will be the teams to beat this year. While both teams were very strong, at this point I would have to say that Revolver are my favourites to win UPA this year.
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Ffound! – The story of ffindr.com Interview with ffindr.org founder, Christian Jennewein Mark Earley Hi Christian, thanks for taking time out to talk to me. So, recently FFindr celebrated it's birthday. Two years already! It seems like it had been around for a longer time. What made you start the site? Since the very beginning a fair part of FFindr's users come from Ireland, so I happily take my time to give back the Irishs' confidence. Yeah, the start in 2007 really is a long time ago, especially in the fast life of the Internet. Look at Facebook who started in 2004, and getting really popular around 2006. Initial thoughts about a global Frisbee tournament website started in 2007, triggered by many different factors:
- Above all the downfall of excellent Ultilinks.com in 2006, - The new power of the mass-Web 2.0 (user generated content), - The need of a useful tournament tool since I played more and more Ultimate, - A specification analysis I wrote for a WFDF website task force that never caught on, - The technical know-how to build big websites by myself, - The motivation to devote time to a big project that would create some impact.
As you can see there were quite some "requirements" to be met to get this thing called FFindr started. Information about Frisbee events existed plentiful, the problem was that you had to visit many websites to get what you wanted. Many local, incomplete Frisbee tournament calendars have been around, but you could never be sure that they were up to date. In addition, to promote your own Frisbee tourney, you had to be subscribed to a bunch of mailing lists to get the word out. Many inconveniences that should not exist in times where everybody is part of this big cloud called Internet.
What has been the most difficult part of the project? There are two major axis of development, the first is technical work the second concerns marketing efforts. To tackle the first, many years of work experience in the world of web development, frontend engineering and interface design helped to quickly choose and understand a powerful php framework: 39
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symfony (which was quite young at the time, but continue to prosper and still proves to be the right choice). During the last two years, symfony in conjunction with FFindr has heavily broadened my understanding and knowledge of web development, also leading to the daytime job I'm currently doing.
The second point was very new to me. Making a service known, taking advantage of networking and learning how to channel input from users is a big task, eating up much more time than expected. I definitely underestimated the effort it takes to handle the latter, which in total represents half of the work I do on FFindr.
Christian taking time off designing FFindr! Finally, a still critical part of the project is getting people to share content. I thought it would be much easier to convince people to promote their teams and tournaments on one single spot rather than on multiple platforms (mailinglists, own websites, different manually administered calendars). This still is a major issue since I still spend a lot of time on completing FFindr's calendars by searching mailing lists and other websites. Ideally there should be one or two persons per country doing the job, but this is unfortunately not (yet) the case. Has everything worked as planned, or has the size and popularity of it surprised you? Actually I thought that the service will be accepted much faster. But it turned out that the Frisbee world has shown to be less favourable of such a new service than expected (like every other community too I guess). This is probably a common error of "technical people" like myself, overestimating the will of people to adopt something new. Now, two years after the launch, audience is where I expected it to be
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after 6-12 months. I just hope that growth continues and that in 1-2 years time FFindr really gets adopted and integrated into the Frisbee life. What are the latest features that you're excited about on the site? I like this question, just because I'm very excited about the site and its possibilities. Since the launch there's feature after feature that excites me and pushes me to spend time on it. Next to my daytime job it is not always fun to spend hours on weekends and during the nights, but their usefulness and the feedback from the community totally endorses me.
To answer the question, there is actually a bunch of exciting features that recently launched. For instance the tournament registration. The tournament director/administrator (the person who can edit the tournament's event page on FFindr) can set up a fully automated online registration within minutes including everything one could expect. Actually it is much too complicated to describe all the process here, better you just test it (either by setting up an online registration on FFindr, or by submitting a bid to a FFindr-powered online registration). While using FFindr please keep in mind that anything can be done, so don't hesitate to report problems, usability issues or things that might be missing in your opinion. I also recommend to follow the FFindr blog to learn about all the frequent updates and new features, that's also the place where new features can be asked and discussed — allowing you to participate in the decision process about FFindr's future. What’s the next step for you and FFindr? This is a good question, and I could write tons of lines about that. I am currently working on custom team calendars (e.g. events that a team attended or plans to attend), allowing everybody to "shop for tournaments" and save them in custom calendars. These custom calendars can be exported to Google Calendar, iPhone, Outlook or whatever else time management software you are using or simply integrated into a website via RSS. 41
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In the long run I have far too many ideas to list them here. I definitely should go full-time for FFindr, which for now remains only an ambitious dream. Among others I think for instance to: - create a basic and location-based iPhone website, - integrate team roster management, - integrate score reporting (with live reporting), - integrate an algorithm to randomly (and fairly) create teams for hattournaments.
And this is only what I can think of, so imagine many more great ideas of FFindr users. By the way, the current shape of FFindr is mainly a result of numerous demands and ideas of users. Thanks for now, I hope that I could give some interesting insights into FFindr. As usual, please don't hesitate to ask back. Feedback is more than welcome. Thanks a lot Christian, and best of luck in the future!
Have a nice day, Christian
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Tournament Watch: Around Europe, and indeed further afield, there are tournaments that carry a certain weight, tournaments that you‘v e heard are goo d before you even get there. In this section w e‘re going to look at one of these tournaments in each Newsletter. This time we (well, Natalie Sisson!) travel to North America for Potlatch! P is for Potlatch – the biggest party of the year Natalie Sisson (both photos & words!) S ince I started playin g U ltim ate I‘ve alw ays had th ree `m ust play‘ tourn am ents on m y list. They have becom e m y top priorities thanks to countless players ex tolling w h y th ey‘re am azing, crazy and fantastic and that I absolutely must go. These are Paganello, Italy (need I say more), Kaimana, Hawaii and Potlatch, USA.
In July of 2009 I finally achieved my goal when I made it to the last tournament on my list - Potlatch. According to their website `Held every July in Redmond, Washington, Potlatch is one of the largest coed ultimate tournaments in the world. Now in its 20th year, the event draws teams from across North America (and a few from even farther away) with its potent blend of sun, fun, and ultimate. The tournament always showcases Ultimate's unique spirit and some of the sport's most amazing athletes.‘ I‘d say all in all that‘s a fairly b rilliant sum m ary. I did have four o f the best days o f m y life, m ade all the better b y m y aw esom e team `M ile H igh C lub‘ – no guesses what theme we had, the incredible weather
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and one of the most amazing settings for Ultimate. Picture brooding mountains in the background and lush green grass spreading for miles with over plus teams playing at the same venue! Bliss.
Outrageous costumes, drinking all day, partying all night and top quality ultim ate to boot. I‘m not sure how in the 30D Celsius heat people managed to play such intense games whilst drunk and wearing fetish gear, ballerina outfits, full Police Cop regalia or lingerie. But they did and I loved them for it.
The only people being all serious were Team USA who defeated Team Canada in the finals, 13-7. I actually missed all but one point of the final as I was too busy drinking and catching up with wonderful friends from around the world, wrestling, singing and dancing. I miss these people already.
At the end of the day one, hundreds turned out to watch the showcase game between these two teams. As pilots and stewardesses we were lucky enough to watch it from the comfort of a huge sofa I managed to snag from the Five Ultimate tent. Sitting in the sun, with beer in hand, watching the top two teams in North America slug it out was just plain stylish.
With at least three games a day we somehow got to play all the hard teams like Drop Cop (bunch of hot superstars) who promptly gave us fines after like `drink a shot‘, be spank ed ... you get the picture. W e only started winning on day two after we got our wings to fly in unison and drank a little less – frequently.
A great majority of people camp at the Potlatch fields and this leads to some hilarious antics at night including nude cycling dares and a moving party that just kept picking up more people as it made its way around the perimeter. I missed that party as we were too busy enjoying the pool and hot tub at our hotel. 44
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November 2009 But we camped the final night and got to the party late only to see a mile long line up for fresh salmon and food. Luckily w e‘d eaten at the classy D enn y‘s – the only place open in Redwood during the long weekend. Dancing at the venue for some reason finished way too early so back to the campsite it was for more dancing under the stars and a dodgy sound system that kept cutting out.
P eople don‘t seem to care about such glitches during celebrations because P otlatch is just one giant ball of fun and people make the most of any situation. The tournament gets its name from this festival or ceremony practiced among Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Different events take place during a potlatch, like singing and dancing, sometimes with masks or regalia, such as Chilkat blankets, the barter of wealth through gifts, such as dried foods, sugar, flour, or other material things, and som etim es m oney. I‘m p retty sure m ost of that w as goin g on in one w ay or another and I hope it continues to do so because this is one tournam ent I‘ll be sure n ot to miss again next year. Come join me!
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Final Words O bviously, this new sletter w asn‘t a on e m an show . I‘d like to say a big thank you to all the contributors, the interviewees, the photographers and to Dominick Smyth, who helped out with the editing, proof reading and layout. A s I m entioned at the beginning, I‘d love to hear m ore from people about w h at could be included in future Newsletters and about what you think of the articles in the current issue.
Any ideas, opinions, criticisms etc. - please email ifdanewsletter@gmail.com
Thanks for reading, Mark Earley, Editor, IFDA Newsletter Special thanks to all the contributors: Oisin Flanagan, Dominick Smyth, Christian Jennewein, Natalie Sisson, Richard Buggy, Conor Hogan, Jim Heneghan, C ian Ó ‘M óráin and the ever-generous Lookfly. And to all the photographers: Mark Dolan, Mark Earley, Laura McGrath, John Redmond, Natalie Sisson, Alan Breathnach, Robin Giller and David Perry. (A nd C ian‘s photographers!) Until next time
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