Open Thread: What does your team do during the summer?

Well, high school leagues are done for the year, YCC teams are almost all yet, WUGC team has been selected. But that leaves a lot of players and in a lot of cases whole teams without high school ultimate to play.

So an open question - what does your team, or the players on your team, primarily do (ultimate-wise) during the summer?

• Play on club teams
• Summer league
• Summer practices with HS team
• Individual workouts for your HS team
• Frequent pickup games
  
• Occasional pickup games
• Read PlayUltimate (and other ultimate websites) incessantly
  
• Relax and forget about ultimate for a while

Something else? Throw it in the comments.

There is also a poll up on the right hand side of the site, feel free to vote!



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YCC 2008: Philly SEPDA out of tournament

Philly SEPDA will not compete in the 2008 YCC tournament.

After difficulties fielding numbers for tryouts, Philly's mixed team was not able to complete a roster in time for the UPA deadline. Many of the players from last year's team will be playing for DEVYL, a team which will draw heavily on Columbia and Pennsbury talent. Most of the interested players that did attend this year's Philly tryouts were sophomores or juniors though, and (very) early indications point to an intention to attend in 2009.

No word yet on who will replace SEPDA in the tournament, the YCC 2008 website has Cincinatti down, but I believe this is a result of the copy&paste of last year's website, rather than the actual situation.

Last year SEPDA finished 2nd in the Mixed division to Atlanta, in 2006 they won in the open division.

This leaves the mixed division with...

Denver Youth Summer League - Denver, CO - Youth/UPA
Eugene Youth Summer League - Eugene, OR - Youth/UPA
BUDA High School Spring League - New England - HS/UPA
Disc Northwest High School Spring League - Seattle, WA - HS/UPA
Minnesota High School Spring League - Minneapolis, MN - HS/UPA
Atlanta, GA - At-large
Nashville, TN - At-large

via upa.org

WUGC 2008: UPA Team USA Bios released

The UPA has released player bios for the 2008 WUGC team.

They have put up stuff for the coaches as well.

What I find most interesting at least from the Open side is the "years playing" category. The lowest is 3 years, but almost all have more than 5. Meaning almost all have played more than just high school disc, somewhere between 6-10 years of playing seems to be the norm.

Is this an interesting turning point for our sport, or just a coincidence? To play at elite hs levels is it necessary to be introduced to the game at a much younger age?

This seems like a developing Tiger Woods effect of athletics in general. Or like i said, maybe it is just coincidence...


40 Days until WUGC 2008 in Vancouver, the anticipation builds... Check back here all summer for the best coverage of high school ultimate

YCC Rosters: BUDA (Open)

This is an unconfirmed roster posted in the comments of a previous post, will confirm as soon as possible...

2008 BUDA New England YCC team (open)

1. Amos Adams (Amherst Regional High School)
2. Tom Allen (Needham High School)
3. Tom Basset (Penn State University / Needham High School)
4. Spencer Diamond (Amherst Regional High School)
5. Evan Doucett (Andover High School)
6. Ben Feng (Georgetown University / Phillips-Andover Academy)
7. Max Gillett (Lexington High School)
8. Conor Hickey (Andover High School)
9. Ryan Holmes (Needham High School)
10. A.J. Hutchins (Longmeadow High School)
11. Matt Jerry (Amherst Regional High School)
12. Jeffery Kelly (Longmeadow High School)
13. Peter Login (Longmeadow High School)
14. Corey Mindlin (Hofstra University / Needham High School)
15. Evan Ponchick (Amity Regional High School)
16. Gain Robinson (Greely High School)
17. Ryan Rzepka (Longmeadow High School)

Reminder: If you are a captain or coach of a YCC team please send your roster to playultimateblog@gmail.com as soon as it is available. Thanks!

YCC Rosters: Pittsburgh Impulse (Open)

The Pittsburgh Impulse has released it's roster for the 2008 YCC competition....

1. Alex Thorne
2. Allen Rakers
3. Amar Rao
4. Ben Funk
5. Chris Lippert
6. Cody McInnis
7. Colin Conner
8. Collin Hite
9. Dylan Burns
10. Jack Gazdik
11. Jack Ross
12. Jeff Olko
13. Max Thorne
14. Nathan Hess
15. Nico Virgi
16. Pat Earles
17. Phil Stahlfeld
18. Ryan Smith
19. Seth Weidman

More rosters coming in in the next few weeks, stay tuned here for more details. (If you are a coach of a YCC team please send your roster to playultimateblog@gmail.com when it becomes available)

YCC Rosters: Pittsburgh Moxie (Girls')

Pittsburgh has released their women's YCC roster for 2008....

1. Maria Bajzek
2. Gina Barber
3. Jamie Blair
4. Meredith Burger
5. Jojo Buss
6. Kelly Casey
7. Jamie Diskin
8. Nicole Elway
9. Robin Eng
10. Rachel Federonko
11. Emily Fisher
12. Chelsea Grindle
13. Kassi Kaiser
14. Ivy Kentzel
15. Becky Lowrie
16. Bailey Moorhead
17. Hannah Muehl
18. Anna Rakers
19. Ellie Shaul
20. Kara Stoever
21. Sarah Zapletal

More rosters to come in the next few days, comments welcome...

YCC Teams List Finalized

The finalized YCC teams list was released on the 10th.

I'm looking forward to another phenominal weekend of Ultimate in Blaine!

From here:

Girls Division
Cincinnati Youth Summer League - Cincinnati, OH - Youth/UPA
Denver Youth Summer League - Denver, CO - Youth/UPA
BUDA High School Spring League - New England - HS/UPA
Disc Northwest High School Spring League - Seattle, WA - HS/UPA
Madison High School Spring League - Madison, WI - HS/UPA
Minnesota High School Spring League - Minneapolis, MN - HS/UPA
PHUL Spring League - Pittsburgh, PA - HS/UPA - Announced Roster

Mixed Division
Denver Youth Summer League - Denver, CO - Youth/UPA
Eugene Youth Summer League - Eugene, OR - Youth/UPA
BUDA High School Spring League - New England - HS/UPA
Disc Northwest High School Spring League - Seattle, WA - HS/UPA
Minnesota High School Spring League - Minneapolis, MN - HS/UPA
Atlanta, GA - At-large
Nashville, TN - At-large
Philadelphia, PA - At-large - Withdrew

Open Division
Cincinnati Youth Summer League - Cincinnati, OH - Youth/UPA
Denver Youth Summer League - Denver, CO - Youth/UPA
BUDA High School Spring League - New England - HS/UPA - Announced Roster
Delaware Valley Youth League - DE/NJ - HS/UPA - Announced Roster
Disc Northwest High School Spring League - Seattle, WA - HS/UPA
Madison High School Spring League - Madison, WI - HS/UPA
Minnesota High School Spring League - Minneapolis, MN - HS/UPA
PHUL Spring League - Pittsburgh, PA - HS/UPA - Announced Roster

Youth = club based league (all non-school-based teams)
HS = some or all school-based teams in league
UPA = UPA sanctioned
At-large - unaffiliated team

edit - I added links to the announced rosters thus far. - Matt

Looking for new contributors...

PlayUltimate is looking to add contributors - especially in states that we do not currently have coverage. If you are interested in a position please email the site at playultimateblog@gmail.com

If you live in Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Virginia, Maryland or Georgia and you are interested please let us know. If you live somewhere else but are interested we would love to hear from you.

If you have any questions about what being a contributor would entail, just shoot us an email.


A reminder as well if you like PlayUltimate become a fan on Facebook! Help publicize the sport and the site!

Churchill HS Girls Westerns 2008 HL

People have been waiting for this one for a little while. Sorry to have taken so long with it. This is the 2008 Churchill HS Girls HL from the Western Championships held in Independence, MS. There are at least one or two hl plays from each team we played. If there are teams who would like to have their full game footage, please send me an email and I'll see what I can do (luketimjohnson(at)gmail.com).

If you want to see this video in HD, you can click on it for a 1280x720 streaming version.


Churchill HS Girls 2008 Westerns HL from luke johnson on Vimeo.

Churchill HS OHSUC 2008 HL

This is from the 2008 Oregon State Mixed Tournament held in Corvallis, OR. Churchill split their teams and went X/Y and found themselves undefeated until the finals...


Churchill HS OHSUC 2008 HL from luke johnson on Vimeo.

Thoughts on Easterns and Westerns: Looking back

At the request of a commenter...

Let's look back at easterns and westerns, any thoughts? Best players? Best plays? Unfortunate matchups? Best games?

Does what happens at easterns and western predict what might happen at YCCs?

Let's test out the new comment system (remember to log in if you can).

2008 College Choices - List REOPENING!

Over the past few years we have gotten on average more than 100 submissions to the college choice event.

This year was a little slim (around 50 submissions). So we decided to open it back up.....

.... Except now it is automated. Meaning i dont have to type in every single person's information as they email it to me. A godsend.

So, if you have decided where you are going to college but haven't posted your information yet - click this link to send it in.

Depending on response we will keep it open for 2 weeks. So send an email to your friends who aren't on there yet and remind them to get going!

A reminder: You can view the current list by clicking here.

Become a fan of PlayUltimate on Facebook

As part of the new redesign you can become a fan of PlayUltimate on Facebook just by clicking here.

If you like what we are doing here feel free to become a fan, and at the same time it will make the sport of ultimate a little bit more visible for the rest of the world.

All about the new comments...

The Problem:

So, in case you hadn't noticed there has been a little bit of an issue with the comments since Easterns and Westerns. As a result we had to scale back and only allow registered users, this helped in some ways - there were fewer people posting inane or offensive content. However they still posted with some surprising regularity.

The Solution:

An entirely new commenting system. We have moved away from the Blogger default comment system and installed a system called Intense Debate. It will allow for anonymous comments, BUT it will allow for greater moderation as well - including IP banning, user blocking, etc.

What does that mean?:

It means that PlayUltimate now has a more fully functional commenting system with the following awesome capabilities...

• Nested comments - reply exactly to the message you want to inline, your comment doesnt automatically filter to the bottom of the page
• Comment organization - you can click to reorganize comments by Date, Rating or Last Activity
• You can now RATE EVERY COMMENT, give them a thumbs up or thumbs down, your votes will determine that posters credibility. The top 10 commenters will be displayed on the right hand side.
• You can post anonymously, but its discouraged - you wont be able to make the commenting leader board, people wont be able to connect you between comments. Also when you log in you can choose to be notified of follow up comments via email. And a slew of other cool features. If you are anonymous you also can not vote on other posts.
  
• Logging in - IntenseDebate uses the OpenID platform, so if you have a login for Blogger, Livejournal, AOL, SmugMug, Flickr Yahoo or a ton of other sites - you already have a login, no need to create a new account.
• When you log in - you will get the option to create a profile so other people on the site can know a little bit about you - who you play for etc. This is entirely optional though of course.
  
• RSS Feeds - is there a comment thread that particularly interests you? you subscribe to the RSS feed for any comment section on the site.
  

There are a ton more cool features but those are the basics.

If you didn't feel like reading that, just poke around, know that everyone can comment now, but the community will help moderate. If someone is perennially being voted down and saying offensive things, we will block them. No questions asked.

Let the debate begin...

Over the next few weeks I'll post a few more times regarding new features on the site, feel free to poke around in the meantime though.

Phew, that was a marathon

Ok, so...

It's pretty much done. Welcome to the redesigned PlayUltimate Blog.

Some features you might like...

• New commenting system - try it out for now, I will explain things in detail sometime tomorrow (anonymous comments are "allowed" for the time being). Play around with some of the features here
• YouTube channel in the upper right hand corner
• The all-new PlayUltimate Store with tons of Ultimate and disc sport-related merchandise.

There is a bunch more cool stuff that you can poke around for. As always I am taking suggestions for further improvements, just throw em in the comments.

The redesign will allow us to put a lot more dynamic content up quickly, so [hopefully] you will see a few more updates and interactive stuff happening over the summer.

More fun announcements later in the week...

site updates...

unfortunately due to some blogger limitations i am going to have to work on some of the site design aspects live, so for the next few hours the site will look very screwy.

everything should be back to normal (hopefully) by tomorrow morning.... hopefully.

Ultimate gifts for grads (and dads?)

Playing ultimate is often times something that confounds parents, aunts and uncles, friends etc when birthdays or graduation time comes around. "What the hell do I give the person that plays that sport with the frisbee and the dogs..."

Well below are a few of the options you might want to forward over to parents etc. as graduation gift ideas. Or if you are looking to give something to that ultimate playing friend of yours... Or maybe consider grabbing something for your dad for father's day?



This is also a preview of the site redesign, coming soon, which will include an entire ultimate-themed store. New design will either be up by the end of today, or by the end of the week - depends on how much I get done over the next few hours.

UPA College Nationals - Open full game streaming

just hit play to start it up

UPA College Nationals - Women's full game

just hit play to start the video, men's game is above

Philadelphia ultimate camp

Anyone who will be in Philadelphia for the summer, consider signing up for the Philadelphia Ultimate camp.

All the info is on the website here - http://ultimatecamp.com . It is an awesome time, the camp is in its 5th year at this point and brings together some of the best ultimate players in the Philadelphia area (and beyond) to teach the game.

Counselors in past years have included College National championship winners, Club nationals Winners, World Championship winners... and that's just Big Rick.

Information on how to sign up is listed on the website, hope to see you there. (Camp starts in two weeks!!)

site redesign is quickly approaching, any suggestions or requests let me know asap, you can comment here or send an email to playultimateblog@gmail.com

Site improvements, what do you want from us?

Over the next two weeks I will be redesigning the site for aesthetics but also to have better connectivity with the other PlayUltimateMedia sites, such as PlayUltimate.us.

So with that in mind, any suggestions or hopes for a new and improved PlayUltimate? Are there any things you wish you could do that you can't currently? Keep in mind certain limitations of Blogger, my scripting knowledge and the "Internets" in general.

Also, I had to recently reinstall Windows on my computer and briefly had to view the internet through the eyes of Internet Explorer [shudder]. Which reminds me, if you do not currently use Firefox, I strongly suggest it. The site is designed to work and look best for that browser, and for good reason - its faster, safer (less popups, spam, adware etc), and just overall better. You can download Firefox by clicking here - if you use that link it supports the site as well (it also installs the Google Toolbar, which is useful, but you can easily disable it if you dont like it).

Looking forward to hearing your ideas!