Off-Field Action

Tuesday Night: Staring at the River won't change it...


Wednesday Night: Tavish was physically unwakeable until Steve put on his best mother's voice and said " Tavish, go to bed!"



Thursday Night: Trading Evening at the SA stand


Friday Night: Fines Meeting


Friday Night: Players Party


Rocking out


James has many faces but Johnny has only one warsign


Self portraits: surprising


War wounds: Martyn here had nothing on Steve, who was almost a walking roastie by Day 7



Steve trades his Aloha shirt to represent SA at the Finals


Packed out stands for the Mixed Finals: Japan - Canada


Saturday Night: Closing Party - Pinky sporting glowstick specs...

Out & About

Authentic Japanese dinner with our local guides Chisa & Andrea


Less authentic Irish pub for after-dinner drinks


Canadian beverage induced creativity


Tourist drive: Steve 'the Blogaholic' connects to the car's 3G internet, while I think Ankur is saying that Pinky smells...


Pinky Scores


Mike gets some lovin' too


SA Open team Totem pole posing


Vancouver Sunset

On-Field Action

Jit lays down the law, while Pete mixes the decks...


The SA D-Line Zone shuts down the Italians


Italia & South Africa


Ryan finds a gap in the Irish defence


This German guy looked scared to tap in the disc in fear of another monster Pete Rive huck...


Nederland & South Africa

Wrapping Up

So to say that too much happened on the last few days would be an understatement. I'm sorry I haven't been able to post the details of our last few games, of the last few nights, and all the great fun we had at the end. But the last few days flew by and I'm only now getting over my exhaustion. So I'll try to very quickly summarize the end of the tournament...

As mentioned, we were able to soundly defeat Mexico (although sometime ask Mike or Johnny about the game), which left us with games against Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Ireland was really pissed off about getting spanked by Venezuela and and Columbia and Germany for that matter, and decided to take it out on us. I think I already commented on that game, so I won't return to it. Thursday morning, we faced off against Germany. We were overwhelmed by their efficiency and plagued by our usually problems of poor fundamentals. After our defeat, we were able to watch Dominican Republic beat the Netherlands, and if we were able to beat the Netherlands would leave us with a Friday match against Domino. The DR guys had great spirit and were somewhat of a kindred spirit to us, so we really wanted to beat the Dutch.

Unfortunately, we matched up really poorly against the Dutch. Some injuries started to plague us and we also lost some of our players. James had an incredible game including totally d'ing a guy twice his height, but in the end, they just took too much advantage of the deep game and our mistakes proved too costly. We lost, but we had another chance against the Netherlands on the next day in the 15th/16th game.

By that time, we had lost a bunch of players to injuries, tiredness, and weddings, and we were down to a roster of 11. On Friday, we played a tough game against the Netherlands, but we just didn't have much left. Actually, we had nothing left, but we battled as best as we could.

After the game, we were done for the tournament. It was time to remember good (and bad) times and we held the team fines meeting on Friday night. That's the last I'll mention it, but we all had a great time, lots of laughing, and good times. The Friday night party was pretty fun and we definitely had a great time. It was held in a stadium/ice rink and I must admit, the band/dj/whatever sucked, but we still partied pretty hard. We found ourselves wandering back to the Pacific Spirit hostel late into the night.

On Saturday, we caught the finals. I'll just say that Mike, Chris, and Tavish have to work on their fantasy ultimate and they all still owe me a few beers. It was great seeing the Canadian mixed team win (Go Bridget! and our new friend Val), and the open finals was pretty amazing. Definitely a great game to watch. We finished up the day with the Saturday night party (plenty of flourescents, another somewhat crappy band, and all over way too quickly, but a good thing because I had an early bus to catch), and then it was over.

I think in the end, that was the worse part. It was definitely over way too quickly. One moment, we were meeting our new teammates, we were learning our zone, and we were figuring out where to get breakfast. Then next; it was the last points, the finals, and saying goodbye. I'll close up on the next few posts, but in the end, we definitely had a great time, played some great Ultimate, and starting to think about next time!

Some BIG Thank Yous

Sorry this post is coming so late. I realize that it's been a little over a week since we left Vancouver, but I hope you understand that life left little time for blogging toward the end of the tournament. However, I wanted to write a few special posts, and this is the first one. This one is to thank all the people who helped us out.

First, thanks to the South African Ultimate community. For me, it has been an awesome experience to be part of a great group of people and make so many friends. We definitely felt like we were representing South Africa and all of the great players and great friends that were back in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Peitermarzburg, Mozambique, and elsewhere around South Africa. I think we did well in representing the great spirit that the South African community has and I'm looking forward to playing in Rocktober, Nationals, and (I swear I'll make it if you do it again next year) Mozambique.

Second, a big thank you to our families and friends. The words of encouragement and good wishes were greatly appreciated. I know we played our hearts out and we definitely left everything we had on the fields. It really is an awesome feeling to know you have people supporting you and we really appreciate all of the love passed our way. Thank you to everyone who has read this blog and thanks for the great support.

James and Ryan L. will continue to get a big thanks for the great job they did on our kits. Our jersey's were definitely some of the hottest property at the tournament. And a big reason was the great design of James and high quality shirts from Ryan. Thanks guys!

A huge thank you to Chisa and Andrea. Some of you from South Africa might remember Chisa from Mozambique, and she and her friend Andrea went out of their way to make the South African team feel at home in Vancouver. Andrea was the best tour guide ever and Chisa even threw us a Braai! Thanks to the Chief and Chisa's friends, we had a fantastic, incredible team dinner that included barbeque meat and sushi! It was an awesome experience that no one on the team will forget. Chisa and Andrea are definitely the heads of the Vancouver chapter of the South African fan club, and they will always be welcome by anyone on the team where ever we might be. Thank you so much helping us have a great experience.

Finally, thank you to my incredible teammates. It was an awesome tournement. There were so many great moments, memorable nights, and great plays. I don't think any of us will forget this for a long time. I've still got one more post, but I think Mike called for Hill sprints for 2012 this friday...

Opening Ceremony II

Posers


Game Face

Spot The Misprint

Tech Shirt Features

Ultra Posers

Carboloading

Capoeira Display

Indian Dancers

Covered all the Time

Sorry for so few posts lately, but worlds has kept us pretty busy. Time literally disappears on you out here between the games, finding chow, and all the great people we've been meeting. I'll try to post some more game descriptions later, but as anyone can see, we've had a run of a few tough loses. Unfortunately, many of the games have just come down to a lack of fundamentals. We will string together a series of great passes and then drop the disc in the endzone. That's really been the story of our tournament. We definitely have played along with teams, but they then are able to take advantage of our mistakes.

Today, we are going to try to turn that around and try to get some revenge on the Netherlands. Our bench has been shorten considerable due to some injuries in the last few days along with a couple of people having to leave. So it will definitely be a tough game, but we're hoping to recover and play one last day of beautiful ultimate.

Otherwise, we've been super busy. I'm hoping that we'll upload some pictures soon and let them do the talking! We've had a great time at the athlete's village last night and the SA jerseys sold like hotcakes (once again, a big thanks to Ryan L. and James). Mike was actually late showing up with the jerseys and we actually were holding pre-sales they were so popular! Last night, we had quite a fun time showing off the jerseys we had traded for. Most of us at least got one jersey from the Dominican Republic ('Domino'). We've had a great time cheering on those guys and I just feel bad that we weren't able to beat the Netherlands yesterday as that would have led to another game against them. It was a really fun, high spirited game along with them being just a great group of guys. Johnny managed to trade for a Swedish jersey, which may have been the score of the night as they weren't trading jerseys. Although, South Africa really had their picks as everyone wanted one of our jerseys.

Okay hopefully I'll have some more stories later in the day. One game left to go! I can't believe it's already almost over.