EUCF 2010 - Video Preview

Upcoming weekend it's EUCF time (European Ultimate Championship Finals) or Champions League as some may call it. I would put my money on Clapham ; any other thoughts on that ?

Here's the complete list of teams competing :

Women Division

Hot Beaches (1st on EUCS-CE)
Cosmic Girls (1st on EUCS-NE)
Misscoldisco (1st on EUCS-SW)
Leeds (1st on EUCS-W)
Lotus (2nd on EUCS-SW)
Iceni (2nd on EUCS-W)
Jinx (3rd on EUCS-CE)
YAKA (3rd on EUCS-NE)
Open Division
Ragnarok (1st on EUCS-CE)
Viksjöfors IF Ultimate (1st on EUCS-NE)
Freespeed (1st on EUCS-SW)
Clapham Ultimate (1st on EUCS-W)
7 Schwaben (2nd on EUCS-CE)
Skogshyddan Ultimater Gotebörg (2nd on EUCS-NE)
Flying Angels Bern (2nd on EUCS-SW)
Chevron Action Flash (2nd on EUCS-W)
Feldrenner (3rd on EUCS-CE)
Cotarica (3rd on EUCS-SW)
Fire of London (3rd on EUCS-W)
Silence (4th on EUCS-CE)
Helsinki Ultimate (4th on EUCS-NE)
Ultimate Vibration (4th on EUCS-SW)
Fusion (4th on EUCS-W)
Otso (5th on EUCS-NE)

Random Video - Funny Beach Ultimate Tactic

Check out this funny beach ultimate tactic video as posted by Patrick from BULA (Beach Ultimate Lover's Association).
Filmed in Boracay, Phillipines, home of the Boracay Dragons (silver medalists at the WBUC07-World Beach Ultimate Championships in Brasil)
More cool stuff to be found at http://www.beachultimate.org/

Random Info - Update On The EUC2011

For your intrest : An email sent out by the chairman of the European Ultimate Federation some two weeks ago :
"Here is an update about European Ultimate Championships 2011. The position is not ideal, but we wanted to provide information to help people with their planning for next year.

Firstly - following the international events this summer - and in particular the World Junior Ultimate Championships - we are now working on the basis that our preference is for running the four JUNIOR divisions at a separate event. The EUF Junior Committee are working on some options for that event now. We are not in position to confirm the likely venue or date quite yet but we can say that:


1. we are planning to make sure it does NOT clash with EUC, and
2. we are trying to put the event in central/eastern Europe

With that in mind, here is the current situation with EUC:
1. We are working on the basis that the EUC event will take place from Sat 30 July to Sat 6 Aug.

2. We are working with a "lead bid" in Ireland. However, they are still resolving a number of questions and so we are not yet able to award the event. I am hopeful we will have a much clearer picture of this by the end of September.


3. Since we do not know if all of those questions will be resolved positively we want to make this known to the European Ultimate community in case anyone else feels they would like to put themselves forwards. Its worth noting that with the Junior divisions at a different location/time it should now be possible to run EUC with around 12 fields. If you think you have a viable venue and would like to discuss things further, please get in touch. Please note that we are very much want to stick to the dates noted above: i.e. 30 July - 6 August.


Wish it was better news – but we’re working on sorting it out asap.
Si Hill, on behalf of EUF Committee"

Selection Days BELGIAN OPEN Team !!

Sunday 03 octobre at Blaarmeersen in Ghent from 13.00 till 16.00sharp Exact adress : Zuiderlaan 5, 9000 Gent. Meeting point : changing rooms in the middle of the domain.


Sunday 17 octobre at Sportkot in Leuven from 13.00 till 16.00sharp Exact adress : Universitair Sportcentrum, Tervuursevest 101, 3001 Heverlee (back fields) Make sure to bring 2€ for the rent of this field !

More information (=the invitation email) : https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1YebSDoxWCkg4rDb6BE1tQCkLMgDauvnool7CGXT8vi4&hl=en&authkey=CLu1gM4I&pli=1#


Fill in this doodle if you wanna join : http://www.doodle.com/zfz5v7htgpmv4yuu

Von Dynamite Catch & More - "The Ooooh Moment" of Viareggio Final

For those of you who were there, you most probably remember this catch by Wouter "Von Dynamite" Vandamme (picture by Frans Passchier, bedankt!). PJ from TeamToo, who was narrowed at the sideline threw a bladey forehand to the middle field as no one seemed to be open. His desperate pass seemed to go straight at Michiel from Zoccoli Misti (T2's opponents in the final) who was a few meters in front of Wouter. Almost everybody expected Michiel to make this relatively easy catch but they seemed to forget Von Dynamite.

Like a devil coming out of a box he caught this blade in true dynamite style and showed the crowd why that's his nickname. Not only is he the founder of Team Too, he's also been doing crazy stuff like this for many years now ; below is another picture by José Pires of Wouter doing his stuff at Yes But Nau 2005 (maaaassive diving D !)

But let's not forget the OOOH's and the AAAH's that came from the crowd at this point in the game.

After Wouter made his big catch Michiel simply answered with another amazing footblock, which pulled another wave of amazement through the crowd, after which another OOH was yelled because another Zoccoli player dropped an easy swing pass after which T2 managed to score the point. Pressure anyone ?

Two Times Team Too !!!!!

Team Too succeeds in making the dream come true twice in a row : after 2009's victory and Spirit award our amazing bunch wins the Burla Beach Cup 2010 and again brings home the Spirit price ! Not exactly the same team as last year but definitely not lesser.
Yeaaaaaah T2 !!

More info and reports coming.

xEUCF Teaser

While we're off to Viareggio here's something for you to chew on in the meanwhile.
I'm looking forward to seeing this dvd.(but more looking forward to play with Team Too for now :) )

Team Too Documentary

Tourney Report - Gentle (+overall results) @ EUC Regionals SouthWest

A short report on the adventures passed in Bern,Switzerland last week at the Regional selection weekend for the SouthWest division of the European Ultimate Championship Series (also known as "Champions League").

Gentle ended 6th out of 12teams and exceeded expectations as we went there without having anything to lose.
We started the weekend by beating CUSB La Fotta in the very first game on the nice Swiss fields which gave us a great feeling towards the other games. A seemingly quite easy victory over Friztoi (FR), a really disappointing really tight loss against Solebang (Swiss, including our good friend Mario) and another big (5points) loss against Iznogood ended a hard day's play in a sort of triangle between teams.
Our sunday morning at 8:30 (!!) was one where we definitely came out as underdogs against Flying Angels Bern, a team who has been on a roll all season (winning Windmill Windup, playing nicely at Worlds, beating Freespeed more than once at Swiss nationals) so we had nothing to lose.
Although we felt like we had somewhat of a good game, not making it easy for FAB to score points or to do big D's on our team, we made a lot of scoring errors after playing the disc all the way up field...
These errors were easily punished by the FAB scoring machines and so Gentle learned a little lesson in ultimate with hard numbers.

After this game we still had a chance to qualify for the final weekend in Barcelona but first we would meet our Frenchy friends from Friselis. In a nice game where both teams showed some high level ultimate Gentle was able to bring home the victory and had even more chance to go up to the qualification.
Next up was Ultimate Vibration, if we would beat this other french team we would have one game to win to become 4th in ranking and thus qualifying.
Still with nothing to lose, we came out on the field singing songs about Barcelona but the dream wasn't meant to last as we had no game stopping UV's offensive flow.

After a game that ended with 2 or 3 points difference we congratulated UV and wished them luck beating CUSB La Fotta for the qualification.
For those who were there, I don't need to explain why we seriously wanted UV to beat Bologna and for those who weren't there, this is the short version of what happened in the Bologna vs Izno game :
Call.....play...call...play...call....call...minor discussion....play again....call.....Italian player going completely bananas....play....Italian middle finger....crowd "boo's".....play.....end of game....more bananas.
A seriously unsportsmanlike behaviour not even worthy of the name unspirited.
Anyhow, the show must go on. And I'm hoping that situations like these don't occur too much. It's unfair to say CUSB is an unspirited team as only one player seriously crossed the line.
Let's hope he had a lot of remarks from his captain/coach/teammates/other players and may have learned a valuable lesson.

Cota Rica was already qualified as third team and UV had to beat CUSB La Fotta (Bologna) to take the last spot. UV had a seemingly quite easy victory over La Fotta (UV only having about 10 players) and so there was only one more final game to be played.
Although there were not a lot of  spectators, as a lot of teams already had to leave, Freespeed took an epic victory over FAB which hasn't happened a lot in the last few years. I've read that FAB was unbeaten by a Swiss team from 1997 up until 2007 and ever since they've only been beaten by Freespeed once but I cannot confirm if this last fact was really true.
Anyways the Freespeed boys were really happy and celebrating afterwards since this might once more be the end of an era, or at least a change in victory land.

In women's division, with only 6 teams Misscolldisco (It) and Lotus (Swiss, with our very own Jane) also qualified for the final weekend.

Here's the complete list of the 2010 European Championship Series Finals at Barcelona on 2-3 october.

Women Division

Hot Beaches (1st on EUCS-CE)
Cosmic Girls (1st on EUCS-NE)
Misscoldisco (1st on EUCS-SW)
Leeds (1st on EUCS-W)
Lotus (2nd on EUCS-SW)
Iceni (2nd on EUCS-W)
Jinx (3rd on EUCS-CE)
YAKA (3rd on EUCS-NE)

Open Division
Ragnarok (1st on EUCS-CE)
Viksjöfors IF Ultimate (1st on EUCS-NE)
Freespeed (1st on EUCS-SW)
Clapham Ultimate (1st on EUCS-W)
7 Schwaben (2nd on EUCS-CE)
Skogshyddan Ultimater Gotebörg (2nd on EUCS-NE)
Flying Angels Bern (2nd on EUCS-SW)
Chevron Action Flash (2nd on EUCS-W)
Feldrenner (3rd on EUCS-CE)
Cotarica (3rd on EUCS-SW)
Fire of London (3rd on EUCS-W)
Silence (4th on EUCS-CE)
Helsinki Ultimate (4th on EUCS-NE)
Ultimate Vibration (4th on EUCS-SW)
Fusion (4th on EUCS-W)
Otso (5th on EUCS-NE)

Anyone wanna guess on this year's champs ?
More info to be found at http://www.eucf2010.com/

Belgian National COED Team - Selection Days Coming Up !!

Check out this email by Ine announcing the upcoming selection days for the national coed/mixed team in preparation of the European Ultimate Championships of 2011.

Dates are Sunday 12september and Saturday 25september. More info below :

"Hello sunshine boys & girls,



sunday 12 and saturday 25th of september we'll be looking at you in Leuven (sportkot) to see if you're the one we want to join the national co-ed to rock the European Championships 2011!
'We' are still Johnny, Nathalie and myself, but we've replaced Karel by Sigi since Karel is having some father-issues this time of year :-)


Unfortunately, no date, place or cost is set for this event, but as soon we have more info, we'll put it out - do not let this stop you from coming to the selections though!




How?
We'll have an hour of warming-up and throwing-in after which we'll play (depending on the number of players that are coming) a long game.
We'll start at 14:00 sharp - so please, be in time. We'll stop around 17:00.
Please bring a dark and a light shirt, a bottle of water, a snack, a disc and 2 euro (please, this if very important to Jet Set: to use the fields and accomodation, everybody has to buy a day-card at the reception!).


Johnny, Nathalie, Sigi and me will NOT play, but just watch, note, encourage and enjoy you from the sideline.
Nathalie cannot join us the first selection day.


After the 25th we'll divide tasks among us and let you know who's doing the coaching, the paperwork, ...
From october on, we'll have one training each month, these dates will be announced asap.


Because we'd like to know who's coming, and probably so are you, do the doodle on http://www.doodle.com/8n3rr3id7f82sbg2   and please, do this before september 9th, so we know how many players we can expect.


Who? are we looking for... you might wanna know.
We'll try to be as clear as possible, so these are our criteria:


1. SPIRIT - a hard one to define,
but the spirit we are looking for is one of knowing the rules, positive attitude, being a team player instead of wanting to be the best player on the field and communication.
We are the co-ed, and we like to have some - correction - a lot of 'ambiance' in our team.


2. We like people who know themselves. Not the ones who do the spectacular catches, but the ones who make sure no spectacular catches are needed :-)
Still, we like spectacular catches too.


3. People who are in shape, or, if they are not (like if you have been injured, sick or pregnant), are willing to be in shape by spring 2011.


4. Experience, technique and knowledge of the game called 'Ultimate'. That doesn't mean you have been playing since you were ten, but we don't want to learn you how to throw a forehand or an upside.
Neither do we like to explain what a horizontal versus a vertical stack is. Or what a stack is at all.


5. Since this e-mail is in English, the four of us are speaking Dutch, some of our teammates will speak French: a basic knowledge of English is required, since this will be the main language we'll be using.


6. Willing and able to play about 3 tournaments in spring 2011 with the co-ed team as a preparation for the championships. We can say for sure we'll hit G-spot and Geneve, for the third one we still have to decide.




How many? players we are looking for?


After the 25th of september we'll let you know in the upcoming week if you made it or not.
The selection we are making is a definitive one, so no one is added or dumped from the team after this week.
We would like to have, in the end, a team of maximum 22 players, 11 boys, 11 girls.




What if you can't make it to none of the selection days?
If you can come to only one day: doodle which one. It's not of any influence if you can come one or two days, but if none of us knows who you are, we'd prefer the both days.
Even so, if we do know you: the more, the merrier - on both days :-)
If you are injured, but you would like to join, e-mail me and come!
If you are on a holiday, abroad or not living in Belgium: e-mail me (and cancel your holiday, come back to Belgium and join).
Let me know at least before september 20th.


If people can't make it, there's still chance that they will join the team.
If we have hesitations about a player or we don't know a player well enough, we'll ask a second opinion (being someone of the players hometeam).




I hope that you are still reading by now, it took me some words to explain what we are exactly looking for,
but the clearer now, the better later.
If you have any questions, you can contact me at this e-mailadres or just plain call me on 0475 28 68 36.
Spread the word (pleaso do!!!) to all of your teammates!


Hoping to see many, many, many of you on the two selection days!!!


x ine, Johnny, Nathalie & Sigi for the co-ed.
ps. exact adress of Sportkot:
Universitair sportcentrum
Tervuursevest 101
3001 Heverlee
2 back fields (V4 en V6 on http://www.kuleuven.be/sport/accommodatie/grootplan.htm)"



PS More info on the Belgian Open team and selection days coming soon.

Tourney Report - Belgian Beach Cup 2010 - FB Ploeg Vant Strang

FreezzzBeezzz PLOEG VANT STRANG ("best team of the beach") at the third edition of the Belgian Beach Cup in Zeebrugge.

It's been a while since the Bruges boys took home a title but as I've been told they really deserved this win.

Congratulations to them for convincingly beating Jetset (Kings of the Beach 2009) in a nice final ending 13-6 at the semi-sunny beach of Zeebrugge.

Looked like some good times over there :

Final ranking :

1. Freezzz Beezzz
2. Jetset
3. Mooncatchers 1
4. Schijnwerpers
5. Diabolic Heaven 1
6. Gentle 1
7. Huyltimate
8. Freespect
9. Slijpschijven
10. Mooncatchers 2
11. XLR8RS 1
12. Hazzzbeezzz
13. XLR8RS 2
14. Proppelers
15. Gentle 2
16. Gentle 3
17. B Freezzz
18. Diabolic Heaven 2
19. Skywalkers
20. Trancheuzen

Spirit of the game :
1. Schijnwerpers (14,7 avg)
2. Gentle 1 (13,7 avg)
3. Mooncatchers 1 (13,6 avg)
4. B Freezzz (13,1 avg)
5. Proppelers (12,9 avg)

All pictures above by Myriam (Glenn's wife) and loads more to be found right here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/7939659@N08/collections/72157614589834319/
Goe gedaan, Myriam !

Now up to the FreezzzBeezzz winning indoor and outdoor championships ?

Random Ultimate Thoughts - It's a Mental Game

Okay, you may have heard this for about a million times but it can't be repeated enough : Ultimate is a mental game.

When preparing for a championship or an important tournament (in this case the Regional selection weekends for the Champions League) one of the most overlooked aspects of this preparation is your mental state.

I'm not giving you any new info at all here but I just wanted to remind you (and actually myself) that confidence is one of the most powerful weapons on an ultimate field (and in life in general I guess).

It's wisdom that has been around for hundreds of years and was written down by a Roman poet Juvenal around the year 100 (AD) in these words : "Mens sana in corpore sano", a healthy mind in a healthy body.

I've written about this several times but as I said it can't be repeated enough. When you feel invincible, you are invincible. Okay you might not get évery layout block or big sky catch you would like to but you sure will do a lot better if you do what you do with confidence.

You gotta use your head and believe in every disc you are going for.

Hence the term 'Get Horizontal' if you wouldn't remember.....

On paper/officially we (Gentle, Belgian champions of 2010) might not be the strongest team going to this weekend's Regional selection weekend for the Champions League in Bern, Switzerland but by our love for the game we swear we will give it everything we got. We know nothing is impossible and that is exactly how we are going to play this weekend. We are definitely not going down without a fight and we sure know it's possible, as we have defeated some of the other attending teams before.

Anyhow, just needed to get some things out of my mind before I go recharge my batteries after our final practice.
Bern, here we come.
Let's Go Gentle, Let's Go.

Team Too Documentary Online Next Wednesday !

Remember this teaser ? Well, a few weeks before the next edition of Burla Beach Cup and Team Too the documentary is about ready. It'll be online next wednesday after we've had our own little "movie premiere".
Oh, and one more thing : it was worth the wait !

Tourney Report - MonsterBall (NL)

Check out a report on last weekend's MonsterBall tournament by Fery from Diabolic Heaven (Hasselt,BE)

"Ultimus Prime (The Hague,NL) organized a nice tournament last weekend in a little town called Monster.

Although there were some “problems” with the weather in that region last Thursday (buildings flooded, roads closed etc.). The organizing team still wanted to continue the tournament.

And so did the four Belgian teams who entered the tournament. They were prepared for beach ultimate fun, no matter what kind of storm the Dutch threw at us.

So Friday night Diabolic Heaven, Diabolic Heaven 2 – Sea Stars, Scandisc , and “sexy motherfuckers” (Gentle) arrived at the campsite in Monster.

Ben from Diabolic Heaven has a huge tent (pun intended) and Sigi added an extra tent of his own to it. With this add-on, we could easily fit our17 players and enjoy some nice homemade food, Belgian beers, some songs and lots of laughter before the tournament.


On Saturday morning we enjoyed a nice Dutch breakfast with real ‘chocomel’(the dutch name for cécémel’). A nice feature of these Dutch tournaments is the “make your own lunch”-possibility. You get little sandwich baggies to take with you to the fields. This way you can have a decent meal without paying 20 gulden for a tosti.


After being blown away on the dike, we made it to the beaches. Ultimus Prime prepared 7 nice fields for us, a bit oddly shaped. They seemed quite short and wide.
They were neatly stacked close to each other so you never had to walk far in between games.
There was quite some wind, so it wasn’t that easy to score upwind.


In the first set of poules:


Diabolic Heaven defeated WAF (Wageningen), and MaULm (Germany) and finished first in their pool. (Due to cancellations there were only 3 teams in our pool.)
Diabolic Heaven 2 –Sea Stars won 2 games , had one tie and also made it to one of the top pools.
Scandisk and sexy motherfuckers also made it to the Top Pools


We played by the BULA-rules, with one strange addition: after the time is over, everybody has to freeze, and after a check you can give 3 passes to score.
So no cap+1, just pause the game, pass 3 times and if you don’t score it’s finished.

In the high Pool DH1 met the sexy motherfuckers from Ghent. Our girls were excited/scared by the shortness of the motherfuckers shorts. For some reason they decided to play in marcellekes and pingpong-shorts in stormy weather. But still, it was excellent fun playing these crazy guys.
Diabolic heaven lost just one game, against “indische buurt”, with 4-5. This meant we had to compete for places 5-8 instead of 1-4.


After the games it was time for the barbecue. Ultimus Prime learned a lot from the previous year, where they had queues all over the beach because they couldn’t bake fast enough.
In the 2010 edition they had loads of barbecues and volunteers to cook the delicious meat. It was a bit stormy during the barbecue, there was some shelter at the beach club, but the rain seemed to fall horizontally. No way to escape it.


After a 5-minute shower, we decided to hit the party. Ultimus Prime invited a nice band to play at their party, and afterwards there was a skilled DJ to keep us all dancing.
The beach bar served Jupiler, but they couldn’t keep up with the rate the Belgians were drinking. So they hauled in an extra wheelbarrow of cans of Jupiler. Some crazy rule stated that they had to shut down the music at 2 and stop serving drinks! But this didn’t bother the 4 Belgian teams. Even though one DH-player looked very sad when they called for the last round and he couldn’t order 20 beers at once. The Belgians just kept on partying, dancing, acting crazy and trying to score some beers. After lots of chants about our lovely country, we finally got kicked out of the place around 3 o’clock. Sexy Motherfuckers won the party award and the costume award for this great party.


After some hours of sleep, with a sore throat and in very cold weather, we we’re ready to play again.
DH1 beat Jong Oranje, who couldn’t contain our superb Handler Oli with their cup. Oli was actually younger than most of Jong oranje.
In the semi-finals we met Scandisk. An excellent game with our Belgian Friends. It’s always nice to play a Belgian team in a foreign environment.
DH 2 – Sea Stars played the sexy motherfuckers for places 15-16. After a really funny game with loads of turnovers they ended in a tie, decided they were equally good and went in to the bar to defrost.DH finally played the organizing team Ultimus Prime for places 5-6. We we”re ahead to points in strong winds and heavy rain, when UP wanted to stop. They still had to clean up the beach and stuff and didn’t feel like getting too wet. So we decided to call it a day, hit the showers and pack our tents. After a pit stop in the burger king in downtown Rotterdam, we headed home. Excellent, but stormy weekend. Even more excellent when Jan informed us that Diabolic Heaven had won the spirit. Now all we need to do is go and pick it up in Den Haag…"

The ultimate Ultimate Video by Ultivillage - You Gotta See This One

"This highlight reel features the best open club highlights from the UV archive. As official videographer at the past 5 USA Ultimate Club Championships, WUCC 2006 & 2010 and WUGC 08, UV has a ton of great highlights to pull from and these are the cream of the crop. Enjoy!"


More info at http://www.ultivillage.com/