My Ulti-ventures: Mixed Regionals 2010

Tired. Noxious. And severely jet-lagged. That’s how I’d describe my initial experience at the Mixed Regional Championships. It was a weekend-long tournament in Burlington, Ontario for the several co-ed touring teams in the region to qualify for the few seats to the Canadian Ultimate Championships taking place this August in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

My plane from Mumbai had landed the night before and I felt energized to get back into the game. It had been almost a month since I had played serious Ultimate and I could feel my cardio level dip below zero (not the greatest feeling going into a competition that qualifies for nationals). After reaching the fields, I received a warm welcome from my Tundra teammates and a new set of jerseys. It felt comforting to have the number “5” on the back of my new sublimated jersey and to be accepted back this quickly, but I knew I’d have to earn my spot on the field.

One bad throw after another. I tried to adjust after every throw, but I figured it was something deeper. I had to teach myself how to focus on the game once again. What I had normally considered to be warm-ups left me more tired than any competitive game I had played before. Almost like a shock to the system, I could feel the lethargy and lard of a month’s worth of stuffing my face and doing almost no exercise.

Ever had one of those days where you feel completely out of sync with your body? Where your body just won’t respond to anything you try?

“What’re you? 18?” heckled a teammate.

“Yeah, on paper,” I responded.

I pushed forward with the drills while trying to suppress the strong urge to vomit.

Our first game was against Zen, our training buddies from Toronto. I played for a few points, trying to keep up with my friend on the other team. They gave a great fight, but our quick disk movement was able to set the pace for the rest of the game. We took that battle with a 15-3 victory. Our next game was against Big Hammers, also a strong team from Toronto. After many fouls, picks, and yells, the game was lost, 8-9, at universe point due to a hard cap rule. We had another close game against Bytown Flatball Club (BFC), but we ultimately took it for an 11-10 victory. The last game on the Saturday was against MuD, a fast-paced team from Guelph. We weren’t able to capitalize on the few turnovers we received. The battle was fought hard by both sides, but we lost 8-15.

The next day, my teammates came back with vigour and a positive attitude. We all wanted to qualify for nationals. Two more wins would guarantee us a spot, but we convinced ourselves that it’d take four more wins. We started off down at the lower fields against Big Fish, a feeder team to BFC from Ottawa. We picked up our energy from the start to keep the momentum throughout the day. Big Fish is a team that relies heavily on momentum and energy. If they score a point, the sidelines erupt into a “Big...Fish!” chant. We were able to seal our 9-6 victory with a few great hucks. Monster is a solid team from Toronto and we had to really shift gears to keep up. We knew we had it within us to defeat Monster, but with a few breaks they took it 8-11. Our next game was against Druid, a team from London. We exchanged the first few points, but after a timeout we were able to successfully claim our spot for Nationals with a 12-4 win. Our final game for the weekend was against Mayhem, a Hamilton team that went undefeated. Both teams had already qualified, so this was sort of a test game to gauge each other’s abilities. We started off strong and exchanged points till halftime. In the second half, there were great scoring attempts and layouts from both sides, but we simply couldn’t contain Mayhem’s offence. We lost the game 9-12.

It was a great experience to be with my team. I value every minute I spent with them because it gave me a chance to bond with them after a month’s break. I also got to learn a lot from observing the games and tried to play my part as an active sideline. I look forward to a great season with this team!