3-0 in the big winter league season. Although the schedule looks to toughen up a bit as we play the "Alumni from the other school in Northfield that plays ultimate, but never had any success". Kind of a weird team name.

The game was close for a while, 5-5 at one point. Then a decisive 4 point run put the game away and we would win 13-6. My stats, again, were very unimpressive. 7 points played, +3 (the last 3 I played, part of the decisive run!), 1 goal, no assists. Although if this were hockey, I would have had 4 assists. Clearly, the throw before the goal throw is very important. I did have my first every point block on a woman. I got skiied in our endzone, but then skiied the same guy back the same point.

2 things from this game. First, 11 pm games are very tiring. Second, and somewhat more controversial, this game reminded me of a topic we use to discuss a lot when I was in Ann Arbor. Specifically, 2 types of players, well there are plenty types of players, but this is more fun to discuss. The first group - the Worst-Good Players. The second group - the Best-Worst players.

The only real rule is you will never be able to switch from one group to the other. Well, maybe it is possible, but I have never seen it.

For example, let's say Paul Greff (used to be considered tbpitg) gets really bad. Well, he, at worst, could only be the worst-good player now. He could never ever become the the best-worst player.

You can improve your stock. I used to think Matt Higbee was the worst-good player in ultimate. Then playing with him in 2000, he clearly was a good player. And he could have the worst-good player removed from his playing ability.

I bring this up b/c we played a team with a couple guys who you could argue are the best-worst players in ultimate. There are a couple of things that make you the best-worst player in ultimate:

1. Athletic- usually these guys are athletic, fast, can jump, but rarely can put all of their tools together at one time.

2. Throws- they have ok throws. Take away the wind and they complete some funny stuff which in turns fuels the fire to make funnier throws.

3. The earlier the season the better. You do not want to play these guys indoors or early in the outdoor season (maybe more significant in midwest). You must remember these guys only have one level and they play at that level all year. If you are not ready, they can beat you. They will be more motivated than you to play, that is for sure.

4. A refusal to go to the dump below 7 or 8. Almost the most reliable part of their game.

I am slowly beginning to learn really how to take down these guys. Really, it involves a tough mark (and by a tough mark, I do not mean hacking the hell out of them pups). At 6-5, this is what changed in our defense, we marked better and took away open throws with the mark. They got discouraged and either hucked it away, or got stalled or threw a stupid dump at 9.

Is it worse to feel cheated by a neutral party (ie ref in the steelers game) or by a player on the other team (ie frisbee)? I mean, can't you feel equally cheated in both cases? If I were a steelers fan, there is a good chance I would have gone crazy. Luckily, Peyton Manning was quarterbacking the other team.

So yeah, I watched a lot of football this weekend.

Winter League Update- 2-0. This game was much uglier for us, most likely b/c our fearless leader, Mr. Boardman was not there. I think we had no discipline. We won like 11-2 or 3 or something. My stat line was not as impressive as last time. 4 points played, +2 rating, 0 goals, 1 assist (not coed but upside down), 0 turns. I think playing most of my points with RG kills my stat line. I will have to change that.

The most important thing about that game was we had 3 hell points. Points of longer than 5 minutes. I was in for exactly 0 of those. Those points were equivalent to the 4 corners in college bball in the 80s. Just take the air out of the frisbee. We had a "stupidest" aka someone catches the disc in the air, clearly in bounds (with me saying, "plenty of room, plenty of room") and then throwing it before landing well in bounds.

My season stats are 11 points played, +9, 1 goal, 6 assists, 1 turn.

Workouts last week

Sun - Ran twice, 15 min to work and 10 min from work, I think running 2 shorter times in a day is very good for ultimate training.
Mon - nothing, only situps and pushups.
Tue - Ran 10 minutes + 90 minutes of bball. first bball in a long time. I could not hit anything outside of 12 feet. Luckily, I kept shooting.
Wed - Ran 22 minutes, the weather was great for Jan.
Thu - Nothing, What was my excuse? I forget, I had a good one.
Fri - Ran 10 minutes + played frisbee
Sat - Ran 26:30 minutes, longest run of the year. The first 20 minutes felt really good. I think I covered about 10o yards the rest of the time. Don't finish runs when you are out of shape going up a big hill. The weather is still awesome here.
Sun - Nothing, Absolutely nothing. I watched a lot of football. So a very mentally taxing day.

Here is my attempt to talk about something theoretical.

Offense wins in ultimate. [Go here or here for what prompted this topic. And also, the fact that the redskins gained like 100 yards and still won a playoff game puzzles me.]

I feel I have played at or close to the top of the elite club level the last 5 years with zero. I have never been in the semis. This year was my first glimpse into it. Although we were not there, we were close. We had a chance. The first chance I have ever really had. And it was due to the offense.

What was the difference between the semifinalist and the rest this year, offense. The northwest + dog, all had their offense scoring consistently in the very big games. Same holds true for 04 when the northwest and Pike were scoring big on everyone.

When we struggled in 01 + 02 to attempt to get the semis, it was not due to talent (Masulis, Chase, Turtle, Ryder, OBrien, Greff, Sebby, Guyette, Cooter, Burkhardt, Kaiser, Severt...). And those were the guys we lost since then. We could play d on anyone. We could convert ds on anyone. But we did not have an offense that could consistently score. We did not have an o that when receiving the disc late in the game, you can count. We could score in one way, a long throw. Watching Furious, Jam, et al this year, that can score with the bomb or working it up the field.

03 + 04 saw us change to an o/d squad to maximize experience playing with each other. 03 lack of experience + talent. Followed by 04 where we were better, but still taking baby steps.

05 saw the same concept of o + d. Part of it this year was having enough talent that stocking the o team did not leave the d team bare. So we could avoid runs + make runs at the same time (not necessarily true in 03 + 04). Plus, this year we could score in multiple ways, something that the talented 01 + 02 teams struggled with.

Granted a d team can go on a big run. Convert a lot of goals. But if your O can't hold it, it means nothing. It is not so much that the other team knows they can win. It is that you are unsure if you can win.

College is different, less skilled player, rely on more d. But the 02 Stanford team and the 03 Hodag team were some of the best offenses ever in college ultimate. Maybe they could not have done great at the club level, but they took that basis of club ultimate and applied it to college. If you get a smaller group of guys who know each other and play well together with the disc....

What are some of the keys I see in the successful teams breifly mentioned above.

- Win with the huck but not die by the huck. Guys who can throw deep, guys who can run deep. But also guys who can throw short. Around the mark. Beat them underneath. A team knows that can beat you with the deep game, but they do not HAVE to beat you with their deep game. I would argue a lot of teams who lose in the quarters die by the huck.

- Interchangeable parts. The most important idea. Did anyone see the Kirkshank moving downfield move? If someone told me that after 04, I would have thought what the hell are they doing. It got them a championship and obviously a couple of guys and to fill in for his numerous throws around the disc. If your guys can ONLY handle, your o is in for some trouble. Same goes if they can only go deep.

- Scoring on the endzone. Duuuhhh. We had 2 extra possessions on the upwind endzone against Furious. My hammer gets sl-mo'd on disc 4. Luckily, they don't show the other turn. I am fairly certain Furious never turned it on the endzone against us.

- Hot receivers. Sockeye last year, even Pike last year. You need at least one or 2 guys that the defense is scratching their heads.

Winter League started on Friday and my unbeaten streak at the MInneapolis Y continues. (On an unrealated topic, what was said about dog's o such that the pups website is down and out?)

Friday nite, we (wanna buy a duck) beat Big Red ~13-2 in our 50 minute game. Our team was slightly more experienced than this summer/fall league "co-ed" team. We are composed of Zero + Bait with some friends of the program sprinkled in. A deep roster of ~14 for 5-5 (3/2) co-ed ultimate. That big a roster is necessary when all your games are on Friday nite.

This year will be more challenging as we cart a little one around, luckily her bedtime is about midnite and everyone enjoys babysitting.

Anyway, to the game. I played awesome. I was just so stoked to be playing ultimate frisbee again. I was +7 (only played 7 points). I had 1 goal, 5 assists, but 1 turn, a breakmark deep flick that bladed a little more than I desired.

I thought in co-ed you got 2 points if you threw a goal to a girl, but you don't since 5 of the 6 goals I was involved in were co-ed scores and we never got 2 points. I do not think the women on the other team were used to women being thrown to.

I did fall down on my butt once b/c I was avoiding a collision (also a very important point of indoor ultimate). It seems I have lost coordination.

Our "cover 2" like defense was in full effect. Some say it is mean to play zone. We say we are just lazy not mean.

Ummmm, that is all I got.

2006, time to get in shape. Now that I am old and only a club player, there is no need to stay in shape all year round. Or no good reason. So, I take all of November off. Start thinking about running in December. And now, finally, I begin.

January in Minnesota is not the easiest time to get in shape. It does not bother me that much b/c I grew up near Lake Michigan so cold, wind chill, snow is normal. Although wind chill below 0, then that bothers me.

My first week is fairly easy. I mainly run to get into shape. I will start going to the gym occasionally when school starts to ride the bike, play some ball, or maybe even lift a weight.

So far, it has been every other day. 23 min Sat, 20 min Tue, and today 15 min. Not much, I like to slowly ease into it. The pace is ~7 min/mile. I think that is the pace I can always hit no matter what. By the end of the season, I *think* I can get that closer to 6:30, but not too sure. The first week is just making sure I want to do this and I feel like getting in shape. Right now, the weather is beautiful for Jan. Upper 20s/lower 30s. No wind. No snow or ice on the sidewalks. It is as good as you can get....

This year I have decided to do push-ups and sit-ups everyday as well. Paco inspired me earlier in the season. I felt bad b/c I stopped short of the team goal due to a hand injury, but now I am trying to make that up. I have done 50/100 everyday. Before you say that is all, I am pretty sure I had not done more than 200 pushups in my life before this year.

So 3 out of the 6 days I have ran. Not a bad start. Tomorrow will be a short run and the start of indoor frisbee. 50 minutes of look how good my throws are. I have yet to lose a game inside the Minneapolis Y. I look forward to continuing that streak this year.

Oh, holiday music that I acquired. White Stripes "Walking like a ghost" single, classic, they rule the music world. Death Cab, got as a gift, better than expected. Makes me want to get the cd with "sounds of settling on it". Coldplay, "X&y", ok, unsure of his voice. Some songs good, others ok. I swore I would never get a coldplay album b/c of that stupid yellow song. It was a gift, so I find that acceptable. Also, Pixies live dvd is excellent. And heard the Wilco live album. GOod if you like live albums. They would be on top if it were not for the stripes.

It's like 1993 again. I can hear "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" in the back of my head.

Although far less interesting than other discussions going on, I had a small talk with a sz alum about our performance this year. He was quite impressed and called it equal to the 1999 zero semis performance. I found this interesting as we did not make the semis and that year zero was very competitive in the semis against the 'dors. His point was this, they beat a nobody to get there (bog) and then had a tight one with the 'dors. Instead of playing a nobody in the quarters, we played the monkey and lost in the quarters.

This, along with all the NFL parity talk, got me thinking about parity in ultimate. Or lack there of. To me, ultimate is like the NFL in the 80s a couple of teams who are always there and the occasional up and comer.

Since 99 (when quarters started), here are the semifinalist:

99 - dog-furious, condors-zero
00 - condors-dog, furious-jam (?)
01 - condors-dog, jam-furious
02 - furious-dog , ring-sockeye
03 - furious-ring, condors-jam
04 - sockeye-pike, jam-furious
05 - furious-jam, sockeye-dog

If you consider zero "lucky" in 99, meaning not playing any of the big 4 [not that they should apologize], you could consider 99->01 that there were 4 top teams and then the rest (w/ zero being the best of the rest in 99).

And it seems now that there has been a top 3 to emerge at nationals the past 2 years. Although they have played close games with other teams, they are the ones left standing.

My thoughts turn to how can this be cracked? Zero is currently has an interesting mix of young guys based in the twin cites + madison, plus a key # of vets around the cities. The current core of the team will be on our 4th year together (bascially a reloading year in 03).

The obvious disadvantage for us is "frisbee central" aka northwest is 2000 miles away. 5 of the top 9 teams are out west and it is hard for a team w/ $$ issues to get out there much. I feel we have to see them at least once before nationals and hopefully we will be able to do that.

The other coast, although not as good, still is better than the central region. If we are to choose where to go, is it better to go against teams at a similiar level or even below us? Or should we go exclusively to the place where the teams are at a similiar level or above us? The ol' confidence v. expereince during the non-conference schedule.

Although local tourneys allow us to have a bit more fun + experiment with new things + positions, there is only so much that we can do with these. It is unfortunate that we have a tourney 5 hours from the cities and fairly central to our region, but teams like Chicago + Truck will not go to b/c they can't get enough good games... I can't blame them, but maybe our 6th place finish will bring them back. The only real driveable tourney that is competitive for us is Chicago. And that is late in the year.

We are not located in the greatest area for competitive frisbee, that is for sure. But we enjoy it here and we enjoy playing here. Last year was very interesting b/c of our youth and our combo with some of Madison. It worked better than expected and it gives me confidence going into the new year. We had much success this year with very little experience together. People came away from nationals thinking we can compete at the top and we need to improve. That is a great attitude to be apart of.

Now this year, what can happen? What other teams will now shoot for us? Will the upper teams expect a little more from us? Will we push them more? For me, what will happen after a tie score like 10-10? We did not win many of those games last year. A sign of inexperience on the field and inexperience together.