catch ‘n’ release wrap-up
And so I present to you the promised Catch ‘N’ Release Wrap-up!
Day One:
Saturday started with the fog burning off and the glorious sun filling a bright blue sky.
The team I was playing with was named Wham-O! It was a team that Brad put together with some of the Master’s team, some Squids, and some other assorted pick-ups. Except for three people, I believe we were all Master’s age (and up). We knew we’d be going against a lot of younger teams, so we knew we’d have to work to shut down any speed advantages.
The schedule was set-up in a ladder format, so we were never certain who we’d play until each round of matchups was completed. Our first game was against SMUTT, the Moncton B-Team. We had a new zone that we decided to try — with the three people that would normally form a cup each taking one third of the field and just marking in their third. It worked very well in this game as we took the match 13-3.
After a bye, we went on to play Spawn- I mean, SOS. (Spawn from Fredricton goes to tournaments as either Spawn or SOS (for Spawn Of Spawn) — they have some reasoning for this, that I’m stymied if I’ll ever figure out.) They are a much stronger team than SMUTT and have played together for quite a while. We went down 4-0 before we scored a point. Our new zone was not as effective and we went with more man-on-man defence or regular 3-3-1 zone. While we had some good long points, they took the game 13-6. I had the unfortunate distinction of attempting to throw through the cup twice and having both throws blocked by the top of the cup.
Our next game was craptacular in the first half, with a minor resurgance and the second half. We were playing SCUM from St. John (yet another New Brunswick team). They have improved a lot this year and are much faster and more intense than previous years. Worse, we broke down on ourselves in the first half of the game, miscommunicating and sniping for a little while. And our zone was getting shredded. We ended up going to half down 1-7. Not the best place to be, to say the least. At half we had a pow-wow and basically decided that we needed to simply ramp up the intensity while being nicer to each other. The second half was much better. We lost the match but won the second half. Final score was 12-10 (I think).
This was also the game that we lost our first guy — Glen was gone with something in his eyes. At this point, my shifts began increasing from two points on to three/four/five points on.
So. If we wanted to make the quarters on day two, we had to win our next game. And we had to play MUTT, the first Moncton team (making the all-New Brunswick extravaganza complete). This was a good matchup for us and we went into it hungry. The wind picked up at this point and was heading straight from one endzone to the other. After a couple of points, it looked like it would definitely be a case of the upwind point making the difference. Our zone was much tighter in this game, forcing dozens of throws. We worked it well up towards the endzone, but had the problem of trying to punch it through and losing the disc. So the game continued with long points on both sides.
Then, MUTT scored an upwind point and went up 6-4. So we had to get an upwind just to return to point trading. It was time to suck it up. We worked it patiently, using our swings very effectively, and eventually threw the disc in for a very clean, very upwind score. Crisis averted! We then got the next downwind tying it up at 6-6. MUTT then scored the next downwind to take the half 7-6. Luckily after half we were receiving the pull and going downwind so we didn’t lose the advantage. We went on to score the next downwind and then scored our second upwind point of the game. At this point, I felt the tide of the game shift over to our side as we got more confident and relaxed. (It was also around this point where I had to leave the field for a point after my calf cramped up.) In the end we took this game something like 12-9. Off to quarter-finals we go!
At the party that night, I was graced with the presence of my beautiful and patient wife. The party took place at the Halifax Citadel, a 19th Century fort in the centre of the city. (There ain’t nothing quite like partying inside a National Historic Park, let me tell you.) However, it was not Beth who tired early — after pizza and two cups of beer, I was dead on my feet. So, off to Dartmouth and bed for me. Alas, I was not to win this year’s Donair Prize *.
* Donair Prize: The award given to the tournament participant that can present a receipt to the Tournament Director on day two for the donair or pizza slice purchased at the latest time the night before, signalling their mastery of the party.
Day Two:
Well, another day started off gorgeous and sunny and we were in the quarters! Unfortunately, we were in seventh place, so we found ourselves facing off against ENUT. the winners of CnR 2004. ENUT is a very fast and very talented team, so we knew this was going to be hard. Honestly, I think most people on our team were hoping just not to be spanked too silly.
Then something pretty interesting happened. We played hot. We didn’t win the game, but we made it a close one, losing 12-9. We used our zone quite effectively. Sometimes, when a team scores through a zone, it’s easy to think that the zone is not working, but a zone is not designed to stop all offence. A zone is designed to make the offence throw a much higher number of passes or force them to throw lower percentage throws. Our zone did this quite well. They scored on our zone, but not easily.
I had quite scare going down for a disc, when my defender went over me and I felt his cleats slam into my eye-socket. I got a little scared then, but everything ended up being fine, except for my contact lens being jammed into the corner of my eye.
Also, this is when we lost another guy — no injury this time, but the lure of deep-sea fishing pulled him away.
So, we were off to the consolation round. And who should our opponents turn out to be, but SCUM. This was not going to be an easy game.
We basically traded points for a while, sometimes leading, sometimes trailing. I got my one deep strike of the weekend halfway through the game, receiving a long huck in the endzone from Bruce — it felt very good. But on the whole, the game was brutally tiring. Our team was exhausted at this point, with one male sub and two females subs — one of them pregnant! — and several people had to always come off in shifts for assorted babysitting. I think I had one, maybe two points off until my guy-on-guy-on-guy collision got me off for a couple in a row.
After this collision, I — ahem — wasn’t as effective as I was previously (i.e. I could barely freaking move) . In the end, our exhaustion got the better of us. We let them get a couple points off of us and the time-cap cut off our chance of closing the last gap. We lost the game 12-10.
Well, at this point we had two choices. We could stay and play for seventh place. Or we could go home. As Brad was in the midst of given me a greatly needed neck adjustment at the time, I was very glad when the consensus was to go home. I was too beat up, with two collisions in one day, to put a full out effort into another game. (I also had the promise of ribs at my brother-in-law’s house if I made it in time.)
So Wham-O! hung up their cleats, going 2-2 on day one and 0-2 on day two, but having had a very fun and successful weekend.
The team was a lot of fun and it was especially great to get to play with Mike and Meghan and Bruce again. They are a lot of fun to play with. (Props have to go out to Mike — he lost around forty pounds in the past year and it showed in his play on the field. Go Mike!) And Brad was the star in getting the whole thing organised. (I know I wasn’t up up to pulling together a team…)
As for the Iceman Project… except for the grumpy first half of the first game against Scum — where I was just one frustrated cog among several — I felt like I was making solid progress towards playing a cooler and more patient game. Bruce noticed that sometimes I have a habit of throwing what looks like a throwaway, but sometimes is just me seeing an opportunity that the receiver unfortunately isn’t in place to see as quickly from their position. Something else to work on…
I did make it to my brother-in-law’s in time. But they weren’t having ribs. It was pork.
Oh well. At least it was better than a cleat in the eye.
