Announcing: The Hopkins Hustle

The Hopkins Hustle is pleased to announce that bids are now available for the Hopkins Hustle 2008!

The Hopkins Hustle is a high school tournament for both open and girls' teams on May 3-4, 2008, at the polo fields in beautiful Maple Plain, MN. This is the same site that hosts MUDI (formerly Aquatennial) and many UPA Series events for both college and club divisions.

If your high school team wants to come to the Twin Cities in May for some great ultimate, check out the Hopkins Hustle website.

There you can download the bid as well as a "what to expect" form for your team. The tourney fee is $250.

Completed bids need to be submitted by Monday, March 17, 2008. Your team will be notified if it has been accepted by Monday, March 31. Housing (if necessary) will be provided by Hopkins Ultimate families.

Questions?

• Check out the Hopkins Hustle website
  
• Or contact the tournament director, Mike Kinsella
  

College Ultimate National Signing Day: Initial Announcement

For the past two years (2007, 2006) PlayUltimate has compiled a list of high school seniors and their college choices. It has grown into the College Ultimate National Signing Day. Now everyone will be able to see which colleges have the best recruiting classes and maybe even begin to look into the crystal ball a bit.

This year we will announce the list on Wednesday, April 30th, so the deadline to submit college choice information will be Sunday, April 27th.

There are two ways to submit your information - you can post a comment on the site (to one of the posts regarding college choices - there will be roughly 1 every 1-2 weeks) with the following information...

College
Last Name, First Name
High School
Height
Right Handed / Left Handed
HS State
HS League
Worlds Tryout?
Worlds Team?

or you can send an e-mail to PlayUltimateBlog@gmail.com with the same information. Any information sent to the e-mail address before the deadline will be kept secret until the signing day.

We look forward to seeing all the college choices!

Paideia Loses in Semifinals of Discs Over Georgia

Paideia traveled down the street to their first college tournament of the season, Discs Over Georgia, hosted by Emory. Paideia fell to Clemson twice on the weekend, once in pool play (10-4) and again in the semifinals (13-5). Other local high school team Heritage failed to make it out of the pool, losing to Clemson 11-4. Paideia trumped Georgia College & State University in the quarterfinals 9-7 before facing Clemson again. Ben Slade of Clemson offers the following writeup on RSD:

Paidiea gets an upwind break to start the game 1-0 on an overthrow. The offenses trade laborious upwind scores back and forth to three all, with many windy turnovers. Clemson becomes enamored with throwing it away on the goal-line. #15 from Paidiea is working hard and resetting the offense well against Clemson's flat marks. Clemson gets several breaks and works to take half at 7-3 or 7-4. Out of half, Clemson takes control on defense and doesn't look back, winning by a safe margin. Paidiea's over-the-top throws get caught in the nasty wind (20-25mph gusts, and very swirly).

Are any other high school teams attending college tournaments? Several teams submitted bids to Huck of the Irish but were turned down, and YHB, Pennsbury, and Columbia have expressed interest in attending Cultimate's Roll Call tournament in Washington, D.C. on March 29th and 30th.

Philadelphia Ultimate Camp releases 2008 dates

The Philadelphia Ultimate camp has released the dates for their fifth year of operation. June 16-20 will be the younger kids (ages 7-12) and June 23-27 will be the older group (11-19 year olds).

Last year the camps enrolled more than 60 campers between the two sessions, if you are interested or have questions check out their website - http://ultimatecamp.com

I am biased of course but i think the camp is a spectacular experience and a great way for players of any range of skill level to come, compete, make friends and improve their game.


Full disclosure: I am a paid employee (counselor, web designer) for the Philadelphia Ultimate camp. If you have news about other ultimate camps, (or any other news for that matter) please send tips to playultimateblog@gmail.com

Amherst Invite: Teams Announced

c/o the Amherst invite website, the teams for the 2008 tournament...

Open A Division

Andover High School (MA)
ARHS Boys JVA
ARHS Boys V
Beacon School (NY)
Columbia High School A (NJ)
Longmeadow High School (MA)
Needham High School (MA)
Nipmuc High School (MA)
Northfield Mount Hermon (MA)
Pennsbury High School (PA)

Girls Division

Andover High School (MA)
ARHS Girls JV
ARHS Girls JVB
ARHS Girls Varsity
Beacon School (NY)
Concord Carlisle
St Johnsbury (VT)
Stuyvesant High School (NY)

Open B Division

ARHS Boys JVB
ARMS (MA)
Four Rivers (MA)
Greely HS (ME)
Lincoln-Sudbury (MA)
Newton North (MA)
Phillips Andover (MA)
Somerville HS (MA)
St Johnsbury (VT)
Stuyvesant High School (NY)

The tournament will take place on May 3-4 2008, exactly one week before Easterns. A tough schedule to be sure for many if not all the competing teams here, as most (it would seem) expect to make an appearance in Pittsburgh on the 10th.

Thoughts on the tournament? Any completely hypothetical baseless predictions? Opine em in the comments...

New partnership: UltiTalk.com

PlayUltimate is proud to announce a new partnership with www.UltiTalk.com - "the ULTIMATE Ultimate Forum"

We are now syndicating the most recent posts from UltiTalk.com in the right column, just scroll down a bit. I encourage you to check out the site, lots of great discussion on there on any range of subjects relating to ultimate but without all the spam and general nonsense of RSD.

Hopefully this will provide a link to a little bit more level headed discussion forum.

If your ultimate-related website or business is interested in pursuing a business relationship of any sort please e-mail playultimateblog@gmail.com

UPA Releases Championship Applications

Today the UPA released applications for the three youth division championship tournaments of 2008. High School Easterns will be held in Pittsburgh on May 10th and 11th, 2008, and High School Westerns will be in Independence, MO on the same weekend. The fourth rendition of the Youth Club Championships will again be in Blaine, MN - this year on August 9th and 10th.

The Easterns and Westerns applications can be downloaded here, and they're due March 21st. The YCC application can be downloaded here, and it's due March 7th. Will YCC's fill every division this year? There are guaranteed spots for every UPA-sanctioned youth league - what leagues and HS leagues will be submitting bids?

Announcing the 2008 Highlight reel contest

Its back and better than ever.

With spring seasons just around the corner the time is ripe to announce the 2nd Annual PlayUltimate Highlight Reel Extravaganza - yeah thats the name, and we're sticking to it.

Last year we had 11 submissions, with 4 different sponsors handing out prizes to first through third place in three categories.

This year we are looking to expand the competition and be bigger and better than ever.

The deadline for submissions will be some time in early May - the exact date will be announced within a few weeks.

GUIDELINES:

video of your team

compiled into a highlight reel

no less than 30 seconds long

no more than 3 minutes

upload to youtube, google video, break.com, metacafe or your choice of hosted video sites


send us a link (playultimateblog@gmail.com)

• include your name

• address to send award/prize

• teams featured in the film

• tournaments etc

• and any other relevant information

There is no limit to the number of videos any person or team can submit so start those entries rolling now. Film as much ultimate as possible and put the highlights online as soon as possible. Entries will be displayed in the order they are received, so you benefit for being on the ball.


PRIZES: will be announced within a few weeks. If you are interested in sponsoring this contest feel free to email the site at playultimateblog@gmail.com

CATEGORIES: will be announced within a few weeks as well, hopefully we will expand from three categories, but we'll see what we can come up with.

Any questions, feel free to email us or ask in the comments.

Get PlayUltimate updates on your phone (via text message)

You live and breath ultimate right? And it just absolutely killls you being away from the game for more than a few minutes, right? Don't you wish there were a way to connect yourself to all the latest in ultimate instantly?

Well there is a way, and the way is now..... or a better slogan.

Long story short, via a new service (Pingie) you are now able to get PlayUltimate updates on your phone via text message. Standard texting rates apply but if you have an unlimited plan, or love the site that much its worth it.

All you have to do is click here - PlayUltimate via Pingie - enter your phone number and you will receive the headlines from the site as we post them.

Not too shabby. This should come in especially handy when we do live updates (like in the past) for Easterns, Westerns, YCCs and WJUCs - among any other tournament we might cover.

We hope to roll out some more cool stuff like this before summer rolls around so stay tuned.