This past weekend I played in my second ultimate tournament of the year, in Jackson, WY. Being on the move and working in remote places like I have been this year has really limited my tournament attendance. By this time last year I had already played in 12. But what I'm lacking in quantity this year I'm making up for in quality.
My first tournament was Poultry Days back in June in between working at Guadalupe Mountains and Yellowstone. Tyke got me onto a Madison team and it was simply awesome. Great food, camping at the fields, watching team USA vs. team Canada, and as always throwing numerous hucks to Tyke that appear to be ill advised but almost always work because we know each other that well. The over-arching highlight of the weekend was the realization that I am a good ultimate player. I hadn't played competitive ultimate since club regionals last October, but I more than held my own playing on a good team against good competition. I know I'm not elite open club good, but I'm good enough to know I can play, and play relatively well, at about any other level, which is nice.
The Jackson tournament was my introduction into yet another regional ultimate culture, this time ultimate in the Rockies. The tournament was attended by teams from Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, and Idaho and was a mix of competitive mixed teams trying to make nationals and teams formed by local pick up scenes that wanted to attend a tournament. From what I can tell the attitude at mountainous tourney locations such as this is much more about traveling to a sweet place, hanging out, and partying than playing serious ultimate, which is fine. All I wanted to do was have fun anyway.
The team I was playing with, a combo group out of Bozeman and Missoula, fully embraced this attitude and went all out with a hippie theme complete with giving everyone on the team hippie names such as Dandelion Dream, Lunar Moon Unit, Sundried Tomato, Prius Herbgarden, River Sprout, Morning Glory, and Cord of Wood, among others. Mar, who had come up to visit for the weekend, and I were initially skeptical of this theme and it reinforcing stereotypes, especially after the team played it's first few point barefoot. Soon after that though everyone cleated up and we realized they were all pretty good. A few of them had even won mixed nationals last year playing for the Flycoons out of Missoula.
Despite this tournament being less competitive than Poultry Days, I had a much harder time padding the stat sheet here than I did there, which I attribute to the style of play. Poultry Days I played with Madison guys and we were all on the same page offensively, at Jackson I didn't know their system and Mar and I both were constantly being looked off on under cuts, double cutting, or cutting when the thrower wasn't working. It was frustrating at times. The Montana group liked to run a vert stack with 3 handlers and basically handler weave until someone opened up deep. Cuts were called on the line like "we're looking for so and so deep followed by so and so deep", so mention of in cuts or breakside or anything. This made getting the disc rather hard for someone who specializes in in-cuts and breakside flow cuts such myself. Still, I made it work, and by Sunday I was opening my deep game and made some plays. It was also great to play with Mar again, though as always we need to work on our connection. I was 0 for 2 on hucks to her during the weekend. At Poultry Days I was probably 8 for 10 or something when looking to Tyke deep.
Best part of the tournament was probably the party. It was outside at a mexican restaurant/bar and started right after games were over and ran until long after Mar and I left at 10:30. Copious amounts of mexican food, good local beer, a good local band, and good weather. Couldn't really ask for more.
Oh, and we went 3-3 on the weekend.
