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.

No Four Leaf clover for us

The second game of the day was against the Irish team. They had come out of a very tough pool that saw them go 0-5 with Columbia and Venezuela advancing to the upper bracket and shaking up the standings. They started the day with beating Netherlands and were very fired up to show that they were better than their record. We were very eager to play some good ultimate and establish our position in the lower bracket.

The game started out by trading points. The D-line was able to get a turn or two, but unable to convert into any points. The O-line was able to match the Irish for the first few points and we quickly found the game at 3-3. The D-line was able to get a turn and moved the disc down the field. James made a huge catch down the line and got slammed by an Irish player. Unfortunately, the Irish were able to reset their defense and able to shut down the dump to Ankur. After that, the Irish quickly started to take a few points advantaged and ran up the score.

Unfortunately, South Africa wasn’t able to recover. The Irish were able to take half at 9-4. The D-line went back out, but wasn’t able to get the disc back. The O-line was able to make some great movement of the field, but once again, the end zone remained elusive. The Irish threw on a junk defense that seemed to frustrate our offense and we then found ourselves down 13-4.


The O-line came back on and rediscovered a little of their magic. Pete ended up throwing a big huck up to Finn who skied an Irish player to come down with it, hit the ground on the way down, to have the disc pop up into the air, flipped around, and complete the catch with the disc landing on his chest. It was a pretty great circus catch.

The D-line was back on the field and Jit, with our 60 seconds between pulls, decided to teach us a clam. Tavish, Ankur, and myself took the handlers, Chris, Jit, and James took the clam, and Mike took the deep. Ankur trapped a handler in the back corner of the end zone, and on stall 9, they managed to hammer out and Mike crashed in to D it. But he wasn’t able to get it, and the Irish were heading to the endzone. But for running a defense that we learned about 15 seconds before the pull, we did a pretty damn good job. Other than not getting the D.

Well, the score tells the rest of the story. After the game, we circled up and gave credit where it was due. The Irish simple outplayed us. We would have loved to play better, but sometimes a bad game just happens. Tomorrow, we are looking to get back to some good, beautiful Ultimate against Germany and the Netherlands. Sorry for the short blog tonight, but we ended up having a great time tonight with the whole team. We'll post about it tomorrow and also about the awesome game we had against Mexico! Just a short post tonight (a little bit tired at the moment), but definitely more to come.

Shut the blog up!

Selected quotes from the past few days, both on field and off.

“Steve, that is such a shit throw. We are fucking better than that.”--A very supportive and positive Ryan. On the other hand, I couldn’t argue with that. My up-wind forehand didn’t even qualify for a swilly throw.

“He’s fuckin’ huge!”--James on marking the Canadians

“There’s something poking into my back”--Jit
“My hands are right here”--Johnny

“She must have a good forehand”--anonymous

"Push Harder"--Chris to Mike

La Dolce Vita

So I’m going to get through the bad news right off the bat: We lost. It was pretty disappointing, but I can honestly say that we left everything on the field and played our hearts out. The O-line played fantastically. They attacked the disc, they made huge throws, and amazing catches. This was definitely their game, and it was a beautiful thing to watch.

The D-line started the game off, but the Italians were able to break through our zone. We’ve been playing a very basic 3-3-1, but always pushing to one side and trying to trap on the side line. The cup was composed of Steve (pushing or trying to stop the dump), Chris or Brent playing banana, and Ankur or Tavesh playing upline. Jit usually played hammer stopper with James on one of the wings. The other wing was taken by whoever in the cup needed a break. Mike covered us all and played deep.

The O-line came out and immediately showed us how it was done. They moved the disc down the field with sharp, short, precise passing to about half way and then Pinky broke free and Andre put up a big pass. I have to admit, I thought it was going to be a turn. But Pinky pulled off a twisting, turning layout leaping into the endzone to match the Italians.

The D-line went back out for a fairly monumental point that involved about three turns. It would have been much shorter if Ankur was able to grab the disk as he was flying down the field for a Callahan. He was so damn close. Unfortunately though, we just could not find the endzone. And I have all the grass burns to prove how hard we tried. Unfortunately, after this, the Italians wet on a little bit of a run before Coach Johnny called a timeout with RSA down 5-1. This gave the O-line time to regroup and focus on the job that you had to do. With a quick connection from Pete to Andre, South Africa was back on the board!

There was no luck on the next point for the D-line as Italy found their way to the endzone again, but the O-line came right back with Pete connecting with Andre again (Get use to it, it will be a common theme--Andre was putting up some great passes and pulling down throws all over the place. Pete showed us all why he was a great player with huge throws from anywhere on the field). Pete stayed on for a D-line point. We managed to get the first turn when Italy threw it away but we ended up turning it over in the endzone. We set the zone again and Pete came up with a big D and a quick push pass leading to the first D-line score and pulling us back a little bit closer. Italy called a timeout, regrouped, and then took half at 9-5.

The O-line started the second half, but wasn’t able to initially find the endzone. A timeout by Coach Johnny allowed everyone to focus on playing great, fun, sexy ultimate. The O-line took the coaches words to heart and played an amazing point. Finn and Andre were cutting like mad in the middle, catching passes underneath constantly. Michael Weston and Pinky made great catches with Italians climbing on their backs. Pete and Ryan and Martin were in complete control in the back. The O-line just eased the disc up the field and Pete snuck it in the endzone with a break force to Pinky.

The D-line definitely came back out the next point to play. Italy was able to move it up, but eventually threw it away. We were definitely ready to take advantage of it and we emulated the O-line with some super smooth Ultimate and move it up the field. Plenty of open cuts and straight passes led to a quick score by Mike H from Jit. We stayed on for another point, but we weren’t able to turn the Italians back. The Italians then went on another run to find us down 12-7. But we weren’t finished yet!

The O-line rediscovered their magic and Andre found Finn on a great scoring play just pass a diving Italian player. Johnny kept the O-line on for another one and they were able to get a turn with some great D by Andre. They moved the disc slowly down the field and then stalled out near the endzone. And then the play of the game happened.

Martin Whiting managed to reach into his bag of trips and sneak away from his defender into the back of the endzone. He is a wily, old player and he definitely fooled his younger defender by slipping away and settling into the far back corner. Pete Rive through up a huge, bending blade just beyond the reach of Martin’s defender and Martin made the catch look easy like a Sunday morning. Martin is actually our new deep receiver.

The D-line was so fired up by Martin’s catch that we ran down there and threw on a super hot cup. Jit followed a crasher into the cup and picked the disk out of the air. A super short pass led to another SA score and brought us to 12-10 and scared the Italians enough to call another time out.

Italy roared back and scored the next two points, which was followed by another great O point. We traded points again with another hot O-line point and then came up to game point and our backs against the wall. The D-line was able to squeeze in one more point with Ankur and Jit starting to click. Overheard from the field from Ankur, “Oh, now I know how you are going to cut.” It only took five days.

But Italy was able to score the final point and take the game. They definitely deserved the game, and it was a hard, physical game. There were a lot of foul calls on both side, but many of them were non-contested. The circle at the end was great; and although we were definitely disappointed with the loss, we were very happy with how we played.

Images from Day 3

Strategy Session

Darren 'Pinky' Rennie stands his ground against the Swedes

Captain Andre

Mike Weston

After a strenuous game against the Swedes, Coach John refused to move for the line marking guys, forcing them to draw around him

Finn tackles the Layout Slippery Slide

Swedish Fish

Tomorrow, we have a really important game against Italy.

Seriously though, we had some really positive things happen in the Sweden game. We were able to move the disc a lot, make great cuts, throw a lot of breaks, and we layed out all over the pitch. Sweden just made us pay for any small mistake we made. They had some amazing points (highlighted by Finn and a Swedish player both making a huge, huge ten meter long layouts for the disc which was just inches out of Finn's reach). It was a good game to have, we are still learning constantly, and I think we will be ready to take on Italy. I'm looking forward to a really, really good game against Italy. I have no doubt that everyone is going to give it there all and play the best they can.

We're going to take it easy tonight, hang out as a team, and just enjoy the great group of guys that are here. Tomorrow, we have a big game against Italy.

Don't taco the disc

After Ryan taco a disc, Tavish tried to fix (aka 'steal') the disc on the sideline.

Ryan and Andre, impatient for a game disc, asked "Tavish, why are you standing there, where is the disc?"

Tavish's reply "I'm not a fucking official."

And all of Canada burst out laughing.

Oh Canada

I'm blaming the jet lag. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Because despite some great offense, some wonderful passing, we just couldn't find the endzone. The important lesson we learned in the first half though was that despite the score, we could definitely run with Canada. We could get open, we could make break passes, and our hozo offense was working. So the first half blanking was a little embarrassing, but it was filled with missed opportunites. Pinky had an amazing layout that he just missed by inches. Finn through an awesome break that was fumbled in the endzone. And I almost slipped a break around that my marker just got a finger on and Mike was able to pick up. Too many missed opportunities, but still a promising start to the day.

But we were able to regroup at halftime. We slowed down and took some deep breaths. And we decided to keep playing as hard as we could. We still gave up a few more to Canada before we finally broke through. The O-line did an amazing job of working it down the field with great swings and tight cuts from the stack. Finally, Pete found Andre in the endzone to open up the floodgates. It may habe been 12-1, but we were finally on the board and new we could play against them. The D-line couldn't turn back Canada on the next point, but the O-line came right back out firing on all cylanders. Jit through up a nice hammer to Pete and Canada had a massive D on it, but Pinky was in the perfect place to pick it up off the ground. Canada had two quick points and then it was the D lines turn to get on the board. Ryan made a great break throw to Mike who then led an open side cutting Tavish for another South African score. Canada scored again and we put out a hot line of Andre, Pete, Ryan, James, Finn, Mike H., and myself. This was an intense point with several turns on both sides. Harbor had some awesome D's against some of the top Canadian players and then we were able to finally move it down the field. Pete found James in the endzone for the fourth South African score.

Canada closed out the game on the next point, but we definitely played a great second half against them. We definitely had some great D's and awesome O. The team is coming together well with some beautiful O and lots of intense D. Next up, is another tough game against Sweden, and then the big day tomorrow!

But a big up to Bridget (Sweat Chilli) and the Canadian mixed team. They came back against Japan from 15-11 down to win 17-16 ! How aboot that, eh?

Team Photo II: The White Jerseys

They definitely ended up with a bit more green after the game against DR!

Playing Domino's with DR

How many South African's can you fit in a car?

(Warning: This may be a trick question)

Sunday bloody Sunday

For the South African Open team, the start of worlds could have been a little bit better. For some of us, we were meeting for the first time. For others, it was our first big international tournament. For me, it might have been the 8:30 start time. However, we were all fired up to play our first game against the Swiss. The Swiss took an early lead, but after an initially 3-0 run, Mike Harber pulled down the first points for South Africa from a great pass from Ryan Males. We kept up the pressure and intensity, and after a quick Swiss score, we came right back. From a huge huck from Pete Rive, Michael Westin made a full superman layout in the back of the endzone to pull down a tremendous score. It was spectacular! The game was now at 4-2 and we were right in it. The Swiss turned up the intensity and after some very tightly contested points, they took the half. The score may have been 8-2, but the game was much closer than that. We had a number of great D's and some sweet offense, but we just didn't end up converting. You can see how the rest of the game went, but I'm not sure if I'd advise that. Instead, I'll just say it was a great learning experience. I think we all learned that we had to step up our games to compete at worlds, but it was also a lot of fun playing with our team.

Our next game wasn't until 4:30, so this gave us plenty of time to check out a lot of other Ultimate. A few of us occupied our time with a game of fantasy ultimate while watching the Finland-Switzerland Woman's game. We caught a game between two of the teams in our pool, Sweden and Dominican Republic. Sweden seemed disinterested in the match, but the Dominican Republic played very well against them, which boded poorly for our match with them later in the day. We were fairly impressed with the teams from the US and Japan and looking forward to when they might play each other. We watched a great finish to the USA-Columbia junior women's teams and the shear joy of the Columbia team when they won was amazing. Columbia has actually shown up with teams in every division and a huge amount of spirit. The South and Latin American teams have certainly added a lot of fun to the tournament. They just have amazing spirit and are always up for a party!

Around three o'clock, the team started to gather. We decided to meet early to discuss some formations and review some plays. Andre, Ryan, Jit, and newly appointed coach Johnny (who would be playing if it wasn't for an unfortunate wrist injury) had come up with some great strategy for our game against DR. The wind had been steadily picking up all day, so we were going to employ a zone defense for most of the time. The offense was mainly going to run horozontal and taking advantage of our awesome cutters.

We started off on D and ran pretty hot. A tenacious cup of Ankur, Tavish, and Steve ran constantly pestored their handlers as we trapped them along the sideline. As they struggled upwind, we were able to turn the disc over a number of times before we were able to finally find the endzone and take our first lead at worlds! Shortly after that, Jit and Mike connected for an upwind point, but that was matched by DR for their first points of the game. However, once South Africa started scoring, we decided not to stop with several more quick points. The first half was highlighted with lots of great hucks and lots of great D's. But we were pretty fired up to take half at 8-4! DR definitely frustrated our defense with great, quick passing around our cup and one awesome, crossfield, upwind hammer. I'm just glad they didn't try to do that more often! The second half was filled with some awesome plays from all over the team as we pulled further away and ended up with a great 17-8 win! Although, I give the guys from DR a lot of credit for playing a tough, energetic, at times crazy game but with great spirit. A highlight of the game was definitely watching the DR domino's fall!

The whole team contributed to the game. We slowly started to settle into an O and D lines as we became more familiar with our places on the team. The O-line had some great, beautiful Ultimate. No one could keep Andre and Finn out of the end zone as they grabbed plenty of big hucks from Pete and Ryan. Martin played some awesome chilly offense and kept the disc moving. Brent tied everything together with always being in the right spot. Pinky scored his first points at Worlds by pulling down the game winning score.

But this game belonged to the D-line and the great job they did running the zone. Huge props to my two cup mates, Ankur and Tavish, in running around and keeping up with the disc as it moved about and generally frustrating the DR handlers. Mike H. had some amazing D's throughout the game. He's definitely stepped up his game and we're definitely expecting more things from him. Chris was deadly after a turn. Westin and James were so strong on the wings that they never even attempted to throw up the sides. But the D was definitely held together by our anchor in Jit. He kept us all in the right places and kept us running hard. And his precision after a turn led to many of our scores.

I'll just end on two highlights from the game because I'm pretty tired and have to get some sleep in before Canada. When Tavish yells run through, you sure as hell better. Mike H learned that lesson well today as Tavish practically tackled him when he tried to pick up the disc after one of his D's. On the other hand, you better watch out when Tavish throws the disk. Chris made an incredibly sick grab for a score when Tavish though he was going long, but he was really cutting in. It was caught on film, so I can't wait to see that picture.

So despite a slow start to the today, it was an all around fantastic day at Worlds. The ultimate is amazing to watch and all the different teams here playing is incredible. It's definitely be a lot of fun today and we are totally looking forward to tomorrow!

Team Photo I

Johnny, Ankur, Martin, Michael W., Ryan, Mike H., Steve, Finn, Brent, Chris, Pinky
with James and Tavish in front row.

Opening Ceremony Pictures

Practice pictures

Look at those sweet hoodies! Great work James!

At this point, surrounded on all three sides, Brent has to ask himself:
"What would Chuck Norris do?"