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Ultimate Happenings: Issue 55 - July 13 1998

OCUA Web site: http://www.cyberus.ca/ocua/


"Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings,
they did it by killing all those who opposed them."

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CONTENTS:

- Important OCUA Notes
- Nationals Update (From Deb Murphy)
- No Borders Is This Weekend
- Contact Info For Ultimate in Calgary
- Masters Needed For Worlds
- Montreal Jazz Fest Tournament -- Lost And Found
- Looking For Players
- Looking For An Apartment
- For Sale
- Spirit And Rules Article

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IMPORTANT OCUA NOTES:

Sod Farm:
- Drive down the laneway when going in and when going out.
Please do not cut through to the grass on the right as soon
as you go in. We are really trashing the grass and this isn't
helping. Do not drive through a barricade to get there. If
there is something put up in your way it is there for a
reason. We are trying to get some gravel dumped on the
laneway to make it more even and better in wet weather.

- Do not park on the road.

St. Paul's:
- This goes for all fields but mainly for St. Paul's and
Immaculatta. If the fields are wet and you will be damaging
them if you play on them then DON'T PLAY. Postpone your game.
There was some pickup games on the St. Paul's fields on Canada
day in the rain and the people at St. Paul's did not think
that was a good use of the wet fields.

- Parking at St. Pauls is in the big parking lot directly off
of Main Street near the university type building. Do not
drive down the main St. Paul's entrance and around to the
back as we are using reserved parking spots. Again the people
at St. Paul's were not too happy about this.

All Sites:
- Clean up after yourselves. Do not leave anything behind you
at the fields. Take your garbage home. Pack it in, pack it out.

Time Cap:
- The reason for a time cap for games every week is because
of the danger of playing when it gets too dark. Generally the
rule for time cap is - when the time cap is reached finish
that point and then add two points to the highest score. The
game is now played to that score or 15 whichever is lower.
Now some games take a long time to complete those two points
so it gets too dark to play. We would like to add a new rule
to time cap. The game is over 10 minutes after the time cap.
No finishing the point. Game over. The idea behind the whole
thing is to not play in the dark when it is dangerous.

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NATIONALS UPDATE (from Deb Murphy):

An update on the situation for Nationals for the Eastern
Ontario (EO) Region. As most of you are aware, there are more
teams than spots for EO region. EO has 2 open, 2 women, 1
masters and 1 juniors spot.

Below is information originally sent by Lorne Beckman
regarding allocation of spots at Nationals:

Be advised that CUPA has updated its policy for assigning
spots at Nationals. Essentially, all teams/regions that would
otherwise have spots reserved under the original policy will
forfeit those spots ***unless the team fee is paid before
July 22***.

On JULY 22, 1998, all registered teams will be given
consideration for a spot in the tournament. If a region has
registered fewer teams than their allotment, then the extra
spots will go to a wild card pool. In the above numbers, the
first 8 open and first 2 women's wild card spots have already
been awarded.

Therefore, the "next" wild cards will go to: SK(open),
BC(womens), GV(juniors), GV(masters).

If a division is over full on July 22, then those regions
that have too many teams will have to determine which teams
get in and which don't. Please refer to the CUPA Policy
Statement #10 on Regional Qualifying.

It has not yet been determined how spots remaining after July
22 will be allocated. They may be first come, first served,
but maybe not. If you want to play, please send your team fee
($600, if late) to ARRIVE before July 22. Details are
available on the nationals web page: www.nationals98.com.

Deb again:

For Eastern Ontario, no regionals are scheduled. Attempts
were made to find an appropriate weekend, but it didn't work
out. As per the CUPA policy statement #10 there is
considerable flexibility to determine allocation of spots.
There may be no need for play-offs, depending on the number
of spots claimed on July 22. CUPA has decided that the
Director of the EO region (that's me) will keep a running
ranking of teams from the EO region to determine allocation
of spots.

As of June 27th the following men's teams have registered for
Nationals (this is not a ranking). Note that EO has been given
2 spots, and a total of 18 teams had registered as of June
27th for 24 open spots:

1. Wax
2. Voodoo
3. North Bay Nads
4. Rush (is this Mothra?)
5. Gloucester (does anyone have a contact name?)

Are all of these teams going to be at No Borders? - if so, I
can rank teams according to results at No Borders. If not, if
after July 22nd there are not enough spots for all interested
EO teams - there will have to be a play-off of some type
(which will be determined by number of spots for EO teams at
Nationals and results from No Borders and any other previously
played games. - If any of these teams have played each other,
please send me the score).


The following EO women's teams are registered for Nationals
as of June 27th (10 teams were registered as of June 27 for
16 spots - 2 spots for EO):

1. Stella
2. Kali

I have heard that North Bay and Women with Lives (Ottawa)
also are interested in playing in Nationals. All of these
teams will be at No Borders and rankings can be drawn up
based on results from No Borders.

The following Masters team is registered: Smell My Mule.

There is 1 EO spot for Masters (a total of five teams had
registered for 10 spots as of June 27th). I have heard that
Steve Ott and WasWax are interested in spots also. Does
anyone know of any other teams? Again if there are not enough
spots after the 27th some type of play-off will have to take
place.

There are no juniors teams from EO registered. Is anyone
aware of any interested juniors teams?

Teams interested in playing in Nationals that have not
registered (Women with Lives, North Bay women, Steve Ott) -
do so before July 22nd or you will not be considered for a
spot. The team fee of $500 was due on June 5th (a month ago).
Team fees are now $600. If you have not registered and paid
your $600 you will not get a spot. If you register and not
enough spots are available the $600 will be refunded in full.
Please note that player fees with roster are due on July 22nd
($30 per player and $15 CUPA fee per player).

I ask that each team designate a contact person that I will
communicate with to determine allocation of EO spots (if
needed). Here's what I have now - get back to me to confirm
and please send me names that I don't have and please forward
to any teams that may be interested that I am unaware of or
that I have not contacted through this e-mail. 

Wax - Fadi 
Voodoo - Ken Lange 
Rush - ?
North Bay Nads - ?
Gloucester - ?

Stella - Nikki Brackstone
Kali - Jen Wilkie
Women with Lives - Lynn Lovett
North Bay - Alexis Brunette

Smell My Mule - Jack Webb
Dead Dog Spot - Steve Ott

Cheers, 

Deb Murphy
Director - Eastern Ontario
CUPA

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NO BORDERS IS THIS WEEKEND:

The ?'th annual No Borders Ultimate Tournament is next
Saturday and Sunday at the Sod Farm. As usual there will be
some great games to see. Feel free to come out and watch
any time. The finals are usually Sunday afternoon.

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CONTACT INFO FOR ULTIMATE IN CALGARY:

Anyone?

e: rjperron@bvx.ca

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MASTERS NEEDED FOR WORLDS:

I have entered a masters team, Aged To Perfection, for the
International Cup in Blaine, Aug 15-23. But I don't have
enough players. Before looking to the ICUP pickup list for
international players, I'm hoping to find enough Canadians to
fill the team. If you know any masters age players (male or
female 30+) that would like to play with a highly spirited
Canadian team for the ICUP, please let me know.

John Harris
e: harrisj@interlog.com

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MONTREAL JAZZ FEST TOURNAMENT -- LOST AND FOUND:

I have a big box of shoes, cleats, hats, umbrellas and
sunglasses. I even washed, dried and folded the T-shirts,
pants and socks.

Contact me to claim your stuff.

Lorne Beckman
 e:lorne@orl.mcgill.ca
 h:(514) 847-5351

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LOOKING FOR PLAYERS:

SPORS a lower tier Tuesday 4/3 team are looking for a male
and female player.

No experience is necessary.

E-mail Steve at seabrook@lsec.lete.dnd.ca
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LOOKING FOR AN APARTMENT:

Looking for an apartment in the Glebe or Centertown area.

Willing to share an apartment with other disc minded folk.

Thanks,
Steve Seabrook
 e: seabrook@lsec.lete.dnd.ca
 h: 737-5650

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FOR SALE:

I'm selling a bright red 1991 Chevy Sprint 2 door hatchback
for a friend that has moved out west. It is in excellent
condition... no rust, less than 60,000 km. It also has a 6
CD changer in the glove box. He would like $3500 for it.

If you are interested:

Paul
 h: 277-0037
 e: kry@null.net

----------------

I am selling my (Dancer) Kayak, spray skirt and paddle for
$650.00 (Which is a great deal!). Interested bodies could
contact Laurie or Dan at 523-6797. Thanks.

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SPIRIT AND RULES ARTICLE:

THIS IS FOR AN ARTICLE I'M DOING ON ULTIMATE. IT'S IN A ROUGH
NOTES STAGE. PART OF IT WILL BE POSTED TO A WEBSITE, PART OF
IT WILL APPEAR IN A LOCAL WEEKLY, PERHAPS AS A SIDEBAR.

IT'S MOSTLY FOR BEGINNERS, BUT WE HAVE THREE-YEAR VETERANS
WHO EITHER DON'T KNOW OR ARE STILL UNCLEAR ON SOME OF THE
RULES (INCLUDING ME).

I'M HOPING I'M CLEAR ON THE RULES (OTHERWISE I'LL JUST ADD TO
THE CONFUSION). HOPE YOU CAN HELP.

ANY/ALL COMMENTS WILL BE APPRECIATED. PLEASE SEND THEM TO
flannagan@vkool.com

I DON'T GET TO CHECK USENET AS MUCH AS EMAIL, SO EMAILED
COMMENTS ARE MUCH PREFERRED.


THANK YOU. THIS IS THE ARTICLE/NOTES:

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Rule Clarifications:

There's a problem in Ultimate - a whole lot of people don't
understand the rules. They come into the game, their friends
explain the basics of play, and that's that. They've played
other sports, where Testosterone is a big factor. Now they're
bringing that to a co-ed Ultimate team.

And, from experience, I can tell you that it's hard to
maintain your cool when you're standing still and some guy
slams into you from behind, then calls a foul on you, and
that's the sort of thing that's been happening all game.

It's a huge problem right now in Vancouver Ultimate, and it
seems to be getting worse. The problem is, teams that play
outside the rules will win. If every time someone's about to
make an important catch you know them down, your team will
win. To some extent, that's happening.

On my team, we've been beaten by some teams that were just
outplaying us, and that was fun. We've also been beaten by
some teams that have just played too aggressively. We don't
currently have any real mechanism for dealing with this.
Discussion of it at a captain's meeting last year, and I
think that was part of the impetus behind bringing in Spirit
ratings, but now we have some teams that just live with a bad
Spirit rating, and win a lot.

I like best the suggestion of the Tournament Director for
last year's Worlds, Gary Gisel: "I think all the teams should
play each other in a round-robin, then you'd just vote on who
had the best spirit and the best skills."

One idea might be to, when making the schedules, schedule
teams with poor Spirit rating for less games (i.e., they
wouldn't get many double headers), since who wants to play
them, anyway?

It's easy to show good Spirit when you're winning by a huge
margin, or when you've decided to forgo competitive play in
order to show good spirit, but that tends to mean things like
not calling fouls, allowing picks, etc. A telling example:
In that World's tournament, the team that won the spirit
award was the Master's team at the bottom of the standings,
and two teams that topped the Men's division were really
testy (especially the winner), arguing and even shoving over
almost every play (making for a game so tedious and drawn-out
that the spectators were chanting, "Booorrrring!").

Until we come up with something better, I submit the following
rule clarification's, in the hope that they will help bring
about more enlightened play. Here we go:

SPIRIT

Spirit is paramount. The rules are not to facilitate play so
much as to keep the Spirit intact. Therefore, when you
interpret the rules, interpret them with the Spirit of the
Game in mind.

For simplification, I've used players from two teams in these
examples. Players from the Z team are doing it right. Players
from the Y team are generously providing examples of bad play
for our instruction..

Foul rule -

Because the rules mention "incidental contact", lots of people
think contact is not a foul. Some take "incidental contact"
to mean any contact that occurs when they're going for the disk.

One player couldn't understand why plowing through someone to
get to the disk wasn't incidental contact. I ended up in the
most incredible argument I've had in Ultimate. The player
insisted that he knew the sport was non-contact, but that if
I was between him and the disk, he had to get to the disk. He
felt I couldn't legally be between him and the disk, and the
solution was to try to knock me down.

That's called {ITALICS} position {END}. If another player has
position, there's nothing you can do. You can try to run
around her, but otherwise, forget it.

It was cool to watch games in the Worlds in which a player
had the disk coming down to him in the end-zone. Even though
there were defending players right there, he had position and
airspace, so no one tried to do anything about it as a
perfectly thrown pass hovered right down to him (OK, he gave
a little jump at the end, but no one tried to swat over him
or bump him or reach into his space).

I've seen a Z player leaping for the disk and have a Y player
jump into him, the impact knocking the Z player a foot out of
the way. Then heard Y insist that it was "incidental contact."

The rules state, "It is the player's responsibility to avoid
contact." I feel that they'd be better off to ditch any
mention of "incidental contact". Basically, assume that if you
cause impact with another player, it's your foul (and you
should call it if they don't).

If you're not sure the whether the contact was your fault, be
gracious. It's not that big a deal, just take the foul. The
importance of the foul rule is to avoid having Ultimate
become a contact sport.

You also cannot put your arm out to block another player
(soccer style) from running, and you can't push-off, as in
other sports. Your goal is to outfinesse the other team, not
bludgeon them into submission.

In Ultimate, there's a rule that players have to call it
themselves when they get fouled. I'm not sure this is such a
good rule. Sometimes a player is just stunned for moment.
Sometimes a player is too furious to call a foul. A better
rule, I suggest, would be for anyone to call a foul, and then
the "fouled" player can agree our disagree.

However, if you foul someone, always call the foul yourself.
Sometimes a fouled player doesn't realise she's been fouled
(perhaps she dove for the disk and didn't realise it was you
that kicked her off course, not the ground).

We had a game where an opposing player called a foul on
himself, and the player he said he'd fouled contested it
(insisting that he hadn't been fouled) That's Spirit. Calling
a foul on yourself is an excellent example of Spirit (and not
calling it when you know you've done it is a sure sign that
you should look for a rugby league). 

Position -

This is a key concept which many beginning players fail to
understand. Unlike in other sports, if a player has position
there's nothing you can do. You don't jostle/shove/body check.
You can't try to run {ITALICS} through {END} the other player.
You have to respect their position.


Hospital throws -

At the lower levels, where players are less experienced at
making their cuts and then clearing out, it often happens
that a disc heads towards a whole pile of people.

Rather than run smashing into the pile, players should (and
at higher levels do) realise it was a bad throw and allow the
turnover. Basically, you should never be throwing into a whole
heap of people. When it happens, respect for the other players
should be paramount, which brings us to...

Dangerous play -

This is very important category that gets too little attention.
Players should not be afraid to call dangerous play violations.

In a recent game, I'd slid in and was about to catch a disk
when I saw my check headed right for me. As I realised he
wasn't going to be able stop, I gave up on catching the disk
(it shot through my hands) and ducked my head. I got a kick
to the neck.

It would have been a kick to the face if I'd stayed in
position caught the disk. This was a foul, but since Y was a
couple paces off when I "missed" the catch, he insisted he
had nothing to do with it. If I'd stayed in position and lost
teeth, I guess it would have been clear.

Other examples, the disc was coming down 5 steps from me.
Easy catch. A Y player off to the side about 9 steps way made
a running leap. If I'd stepped forward to catch the disk, I
would've gotten smashed by the 210 pound player a split
second later. So I stopped and missed an easy catch (instead,
I caught him). That's cheating. Call it.

A third (all from the same game). I was chasing my Y check.
As the disk came, another Y player came zooming in from the
side, typically out of control. Sensing a three-way collision,
I pulled up. The two Y players landed on top of each other,
the disk landed on them as they rolled over, and they called
it a catch.

It was actually a foul - dangerous play. I had to give up on
the disk (it was an easy swat) or this out-of-control Y
player would've steamed into two players instead of one, and
injury would have been probable.

There have been games where people have stayed in position,
and they do get hurt. In one game, I watched from the
sidelines as a Y player came streaking in to get the disk and
was running so fast that he actually climbed onto one our
players, then came down on her head so hard that she needed
stitches.

Staying in control is part of the game. Never just go
barrelling in. If someone can't run that fast and still stay
in control, they can't run that fast.

Call dangerous play. It's important. Not just for you, but so
that those who don't yet quite understand the difference
between Ultimate and other sports, the difference between
endangerment and finesse, will learn, and the games will be
better for everyone.

Note, however, that a player running fast and swatting the
disk away isn't dangerous play. A player making you change
course isn't dangerous play. A player running full bore at
the place where you're going to be in two steps, clearly
intending a collision if you don't back down, that's
dangerous play (assuming you'd get there first, otherwise
maybe it's you that's guilty).

Point:

Be sure it's really a dangerous situation (and not just a
competitive one), but, if it is, please call it.

Pick -

A pick is again part of the  non-contact idea. It's real
purpose is safety.

Basically, you call "Pick" when another player gets between
you and your check. A pick isn't meant as a penalty. It
doesn't mean anybody's done anything bad; it just mean that
a player is between you and your check.

You call a pick to stop the play and catch up without
crashing through the other player, so no one gets hurt.
Otherwise, you'd crash into people, or through them.

Short throws -

Throws can be one-inch, as long as it's not a hand-off. If
it's a hand-off, it's a turnover.

Airspace -

Airspace is what's above you. You own everything up to heaven.
Hence another player can't put a hand over your head to knock
the disc away. Watch the better players and you'll see them
jump up side-by-side (with a defender often unable to make
the play because his check has position. Again, position,
and who has it, is a very important part of the game to
higher level players).

You also cannot reach completely over another player and swat
it down in front of her. I saw this in a recent game, the Y
player insisting, "I didn't touch her."

Learn the rules. Play better. Have more fun.

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Ultimate Happenings is a e-mail newsletter for the
Ottawa-Carleton Ultimate Association.

If you want to subscribe send an e-mail to
mharley@achilles.net with the subject
"Subscribe Ultimate Happenings".
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