The European Ultimate Championship Finals begin on Friday in Frankfurt. Once again the best 12 Mixed and Women’s teams and the best 24 Open teams in Europe will gather to crown a champion. The ShowGame will be running a series previewing the tournament from a UK perspective, with some additional pieces about how our Irish friends may fare and what to expect from European teams coming as well. Continuing the series, Sean Colfer looks at surprise packages Ka-Pow!
Kapow
London Calling – Open Preview
#ukut1, Bad Skid, Brighton, Chevron, Clapham, club, DED, Devon, EMO, Fire of London, Flying Angels Bern, Glasgow Ultimate, Kapow, Leeds, London Calling, Manchester, Previews, Ranelagh, UK Ultimate, ZimmerReturning to St Albans, Tour 1, this year’s London Calling sees over 70 teams entered into the open division with 10 coming from overseas.
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Photo courtesy of Graham Bailey. |
Bad Skid beat Clapham’s D-line last year at London Calling but lost to the O-line in the final. They met a full Clapham team in the semi-final of Euros and lost again. Since then the team has added a few younger players to the squad, as well as NexGen player Philip Haas, who won’t make it to London. Captain Holger Beuttenmüller admits that the team needs to be at their best on both sides of the disc to be in with a chance of beating Clapham, but places faith in the trust between his teammates who have largely been playing and competing together since they were as young as 14.
North of the north, the battle to be Scotland’s best team has taken an interesting turn with the complete dissolution of Fusion. Glasgow Ultimate top the pile at the moment, and will be looking to solidify the A-tour spot they earned last year. Sneekys have added a large number of Fusion’s Edinburgh contingent to their roster, and yet only beat in sudden death new team NEO, who have recruited heavily from Aberdeen and Dundee universities. DED meanwhile, are refocusing on Open this year, and are one of the few club teams in the UK with a dedicated coach – Jonathan Saunders. The squad, captained by Sam Vile, has seen quite a large turnover and brought in plenty of young players, but promise has already been shown in preparation for the season with a trip to Rising POT, a tournament in Poland where DED finished 4th and won spirit.
There’s a lot of top quality competition coming to London – and Si Hill is to be congratulated for once again attracting overseas teams. Tour’s opening weekend is reliably one of the toughest tournaments in the calendar, and this year is no different. With a large but fairly static domestic scene, mainland-European competitors make for exciting matches, unfamiliar styles and the inevitable occasional shock result. With the battle for A-tour distorted by the influx of single-appearance teams, teams in the 12-24 area are going to scrapping for every single win.
What are your thoughts? Have we missed a sleeper? Will we see an all mainland-Europe final? Let us know in the comments. And remember to use #ukut1 for social media and smack talk. Finally, best of luck to all teams attending from tSG!
Dear C Tour: Why Trialling Might Be Worth A Shot
A Tour, C Tour, DED, Kapow, Trial Season, xEUCF
Trials season is approaching. For many hopeful players, they’ll be turned away, having gained experience from the trials but that’s it for the year. Some players, having worked their way up the tours (or been on the training squad last year) might have their eyes on finally breaking the squad. And, just occasionally, there’ll be an amateur who dares to dream big.
Last year, I was one such hopeful. In 2012, I played just one open tour. C tour. We battled well and were proud of how we’d done, and I enjoyed playing with them. I wasn’t the best player, I wasn’t able to single-handedly swing games, and at times I was a liability. Yet still I dreamed.
In C tour, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that sometimes you have to avoid putting certain team-mates in certain situations, I personally wasn’t trusted with the disc as much for any assists, and in the wind everything went to chaos. At A-Tour and Euros, there isn’t that luxury. You have to trust every team-mate. And I did. I can’t identify anyone whom I would be uncomfortable giving the disc to and in return really didn’t want to be the one player they couldn’t trust. After those games I finally realised I could be trusted. That it wasn’t beyond me.
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Harry Mason skying for DED Mixed at MT3 in 2013. Photo courtesy of Graham Bailey. |
So, swallowing my fears and with a scared lump in my throat I applied for DED open. I remember my heartbreak when injury knocked me out of the second trial. Then elation when, during the 3rd trial, Luke Tobiasiewicz came up, clipboard in hand, and said I was being strongly considered. Taking his advice I gave it my all.
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Ka-Pow’s trials started last weekend, but who will make it from these young hopefuls? Photo courtesy of KaPow Ultimate. |
Distraught, I went to the experienced players for advice. Then, the impossible occurred. I started to get the disc, and pass it without being blocked. I got free occasionally! This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not supposed to happen at all. The game was faster than I was used to – much faster – but it was still the game I knew. It wasn’t much, yet to me it was the world. We lost that game, but it still meant a lot as the biggest jump I have ever, and probably will ever get in Ultimate.
The Grapevine – 20/12
Fire of London, Kapow, Love at First Flight., SYC, The Grapevine, UK UltimateThe Grapevine this week has a lot going on…
Fire of London have opened their trial applications..
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…as have Ka-Pow! who claim over 70 applicant already!
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Next up Shut Your Cake-hole … sorry SYC have released a little photo montage from the 2013 season.
Finally my personal favourite. We see many foreign students playing Ultimate in UK Universities and one lucky Turkish player (Eylem Caner) did so with Sussex University in 2012. From there he has gone on to represent his country at ECBU in their very successful WFDF debut and about a year ago he created this wonderful mini-documentary about the love of the sport. Includes some great UK and European Ultimate clips plus interviews with some of the central characters in Brighton (and UK) Ultimate. TheShowGame is very proud to (re)present “Love at First Flight”.
Love at First Flight from Eylem Caner on Vimeo.
The Grapevine – 15/11
Kapow, Morrill Performance, PushPass, The Grapevine, Understanding Ultimate., WUCC2014Ultimate News from around the country and beyond…
WFDF have revealed which nations will be granted the additional bids for WUCC 2014…
Benji updates us with his throwing mechanics project…
Whilst Ultimate Rob posts on forehand mechanics from a different but still technical point of view…
Push Pass coverage of all 36 games from xEUCF is now online – check out a sly callahan by Kapow in this clip…
Tim Morrill has completed his tour of the UK and is soon to release the latest in his Ultimate Fitness Products – F.U.T.U.R.E 1.0…
Things have been a little quiet over the past few weeks at tSG but rest assured we are hard at work! Keep an eye out for new content in the coming weeks… – JCK@tSG
The Grapevine – 18/10
Get Horizontal, Kapow, The Grapevine, Tim Morrill, UK Ultimate, Understanding Ultimate., USA Ultimate, USAU Nationals 2013Here, there, everywhere; The Grapevine brings you bits of news from the week.
Over the first week of November KaPow and UK Ultimate are hosting Tim Morrill in London, Liverpool and Manchester. Tim will be leading sessions on fitness and strength work for Ultimate, sign up and get to it!
In this months UKU newsletter we got a reminder of all the indoor dates. If you haven’t already update your calendar…
…making sure to add the UKU General Meeting on 9th November. We are the board of directors, get you vote in either in person or online for a new UKU resolution.
Understanding Ultimate gives you some options for throwing if there are only two of you.
Our european partners Get Horizontal are very lucky to be at the USA Ultimate Nationals which started yesterday. Make sure to read up on their page as well as the Ultiworld live update page. A great watch is the following video recapping yesterdays play, can you spot our exported players?
How’s your off season shaping up? DP @ tSG
The Grapevine – 04/10
Bordeaux, Kapow, Strength and Conditioning, The Grapevine, Tim Morrill, Understanding Ultimate., xEUCFThe Grapevine – ultimate links and news from around the globe.
The UKU have released the known major outdoor dates ahead of next season – fill your calendar’s now!
In exciting news for Ultimate fitness freaks, Kapow Ultimate have released details of their one-off London based fitness sessions with Boston Brute Squad and Ironside trainer – Tim Morrill.
Understanding Ultimate takes a look at disc reading in the latest of many insightful posts.
Get Horizontal have released a recap of xEUCF, which amongst other things sends out a strong message regarding SOTG of this year’s open division.
Over the pond USA ultimate has been receiving recognition from mainstream media publications – check out these articles in TIME magazine and The Economist.
Well done to all British teams who entered xEUCF – keep an eye out for Bordeaux reviews and more on The ShowGame! – JCK @tSG