Boronia Bushland Disc Golf Course

We've heard on the grapevine that there's a disc golf course at the Boronia Bushland Reserve aka Greenbank Park (about 33km south of the Brisbane CBD).

Anyone played there?

Random Halibut Rap Bu-Dum-Dum

As our faithful readers know, the Brisbane Ultimate Blog strives to speak in an authoritative tone, providing a relatively objective, reliable and trustworthy view of the world of Brisbane Ultimate.

For Halibut, we only saw bits of it, so its hard to say. That said, at least as far as the bits of Halibut I got to see, I had a frickin’ entertain time and Halibut 2009, and it seemed most everyone else did too. Well done to all involved.

Please feel free to add your comments in the comments section!

A few random notes, reflecting some random noting:

- the weather was perfect. I was surprised more southerners weren’t “nuding up” given it was something like minus 2 in some capitals the day before.

- for those following the competition, Cranky convincingly defeated Kaboom in the Final, to take the Queensland State Championships title south of the border again (although once again, the cunningly created Halibut Trophy has too large to take on a plane, and so seems to have gone to the traitorous Buzz Burwell’s house for the interim (note to teams considering a tilt at Halibut – you need a token Brisbanite on your team to take care of the trophy (Kaboom should’ve looked around for an ex-Canberran-now-Brisbanite, obviously)))

- Trevor Goes to Halibut took out Spirit, taking home some handy ‘cough medicine’ measuring glasses.

- Going on the cheers for the Beau Brummell of Brisbane Ultimate, Dusty Czok, for his arrangement of the party, the Saturday evening frolics were extensive and well received. The bodies that lay in the hangover zones through the Sunday were further evidence.

- Brisbane folks are getting more and more comfortable with our regular use of the JF O’Grady fields, and people seemed to cope well with the split location. QUDA are looking to deepen the relationship with the field providers.

- After slowly coming to terms with their older legs, Mind the Gap are apparently considering recruiting some youngsters for their 2010 campaign, offering a special “Gap Year”.

- Bondage still enjoy a good spanking (of the buttocks paddling kind).

- Sorry Business-Time – you looked like a bunch of naughty school-kids to me!

- Was that super-star Mike Neild I saw giving autographs on Sunday afternoon?

- Thanks to the Downstairs Mixup for having me on their team, and for one of the almost-great-comebacks of Halibut history, against the evil and nasty Fun with Lizards squad.

Brisbane Indoor Ultimate Championships - Rule Variations

Its only two weeks until the inaugural Brisbane Indoor Ultimate Championships!

After plenty of discussion, the TD has settled on the following Competition Rules (copies will be provided on the day).

WFDF 2009 Rules apply, except in the following variations (or interpretations) for this tournament.

Playing Field
- The Playing Field is a basketball court. Endzones will be marked with cones or tape. The brick mark is the centre of the half way line.
Equipment
**All players must wear clean, non-marking indoor shoes. The TD may remove any player from the courts at any time if their footware is marking or damaging the surface. Barefoot play will not be allowed.**
Starting Play
- A long hoot from a central hooter will signal to teams that they may start the game.
- There is only one pull per game, to start the game.
- If the defensive team has not pulled within 30 seconds of the starting hoot, the offensive team may take possession of the disc from the brick line.
Scoring and Resuming Play
- Play is "semi-continuous". After a player scores, the scorer puts the disc on the ground. Play begins again when another player from the scoring team (ie not the scorer) taps the disc on the ground. If no player is moving towards the disc to pick it up, a defender may begin a stall count over the disc. Players are not required to retreat to their endzones to start the new point.
- If there is no stall count and the player fails to tap the disc on the ground to indicate a new point is starting before throwing, this is treated as a travel (ie the defending team must call travel, and the disc goes back).
Completing Play
- There is no half-time.
- A short hoot will signal two (2) minutes to go until the final hooter - no time outs may be called after this hoot.
- One throw is allowed after the start of the final hooter to complete the game (if that throw is caught for a score, then that is a point).
- The game may also be completed if one team scores 21 points.
- If a Finals game ends with scores tied, the TDs will stop play for approximately 60 seconds. Two minutes of further play will start with the team that didn't pull at the start of the game pulling.
Teams
- Each team may put a maximum of five (5) players on the court. Each team may put a maximum of three (3) players of one gender on the court. (note there is no requirement to 'match' genders)
- Players may substitute at any time, by leaving the field of play in the vicinity of the half-way line. A substitute player may enter the field in the vicinity of the half-way line by tapping the hand of the departing player.
Stall Count Turnover / Restarts
- A turnover occurs if the thrower has not released the disc before the marker first utters the word "seven" (7) - ie the stall count goes to 7, rather than 10.
- For all instances in the outdoor rules of stall counts/restarting, use the following alternatives:
Outdoor - 10 Indoor - 7
Outdoor - 9 Indoor - 6
Outdoor - 8 Indoor - 5
Outdoor - 7 Indoor - 5
Outdoor - 6 Indoor - 4
Out of Bounds
- Should the disc hit an object or person that is out of bounds, the disc becomes out of bounds. If the object is overhead, the disc is brought back into play at the closest sideline.
Pick Violation
- The distance for a pick violation is reduced to 3m for indoors.
Time Outs
- Each team has two (2) timeouts per game.
- A timeout is 30 seconds.
- No time outs may be called after the short hoot at two (2) minutes to go.

Take That, Thugby!

Final ticket sales figures for the World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan are in.

39,500 tickets were sold for the three day Ultimate tournament.

37,000 tickets were sold for the Rugby 7's event (held in the same venue).

Yeah Ultimate! Keep this stat handy next time you're talking about Ultimate at the Commonwealth Games ....

BPL 2009 Season 2

In case you missed it, League Director Stu (yay Stu) has posted the basics for the upcoming Season 2 of BPL 2009.

BPL is the highest standard in Brisbane and open to anyone who has the skills to make it onto a team - so get onto a Captain and see if they've have you.

The next season of BPL (Brisbane Premier League) starts soon with the first night (a team training night) on Thursday 6th August.

Games are played at the Annerley Junior Soccer Club, on the corner of Victoria Terrace and Baron Street. There is a possibility that during the season, some games will be played elsewhere, due to annual field maintanence.

The first league game will be on Thursday 13th August, with the final planned for Thursday 26th November, although it could get pushed back to 3rd December if rain intrudes play, so don't book your end-of-season flights just yet.

And in what is believe to be an Australian ultimate first - BPL will be played on port-a-fields (www.port-a-field. com)!!

There are going to be 5 teams for the league again this season, so Captains please sign up your teams here:
http://www.afda. com/rego/ showdivision. php?divisionid= 1166
And then get your players to sign up. So each team will get a game off every 5 weeks, in addition to this the league will not be played during AUG's or the Thursday before Mixed Nationals.

If you are interested in playing and haven't got a team yet, check out the links below, or if that fails send Stu an email and he'll try and sort something out for you.

Cobras (http://cobras- ultimate. blogspot. com/) have formed taking players from all of the previous teams to create what is likely to be a very strong team.

Dojo-Mojo (http://dojomojo- ultimate. blogspot. com/) will be out to avenge their only loss last season, the final.

Moreton Bay Buggers (http://moretonbaybu ggers.blogspot. com/) the current BPL champions have lost several players to Cobra's, injuries and other leagues, so have decided to form a single team, this could be the first BPL team to have a selection process.

UQ Lovers and UQ Passion (http://uqultimate. com.au/) have been pretty quiet in the off season but will no doubt put in two strong teams with rather different team shirts!!
League fees will be $60 per person but collected as a team. Full league rules to follow.

Mixed Nats 2009 Website is Live!

Check it. http://amuc09.tasultimate.com/

Firestorm Manifesto

Presented without formatting, much like the US Declaration of Independence:

Men of Brisbane Ultimate,(ladies, you may delete now)WHO SHOULD READ THISIf you want to have a go at playing some high level men's Ultimate, and aren't yet familiar with Firestorm, read on.If you want to keep up to date with what Firestorm are doing for this coming Nationals season, read on.If you're interested in doing the training that Firestorm will be doing, it will be starting next week - read on.Biggest key... if any of the above are true, make sure you're on the Firestorm email list (details below), as that's where future emails will be sent - NOT to these lists.FIRESTORMFirestorm is the Brisbane men's representative Ultimate club, now in its 4th season. It exists solely at a national level of competition, playing against teams from around Australia. It's comprised of players from the various leagues and tournaments around Brisbane.The Open (= men's) season is in the first few months of the year, culminating in Nationals at the end of April. Firestorm has come 8th (2007), 9th & 11th (2 teams in 2008) and 5th (2009) to date. We are now aiming to crack into the genuine top teams in the country.Many of our players are still quite
fresh to elite Ultimate - a number were only playing their first or second Nationals this year. We're actively keen to make the club bigger and stronger, and are looking for new players who could come and get involved at that level of Ultimate. FIRESTORM "COMMUNITY" EMAIL GROUPIf you want to find out more about Firestorm, or get a bit of a feel for the club, join the email list. It's set up for past, present and potential players, for interested friends/family, for those who just want to know what's going on, and so on.To join, send a blank email to: mailto:firestorm-ultimate-subscribe@2010 SEASON TRAININGThe club have decided that, as part of aiming for a better result at Nationals 2010, our preparation/training needs to be better. This means both a longer preparation and more training sessions. As part of this, we are about to begin an individual training phase.Because at this time of year, other Ultimate is the focus of the calendar (specifically Mixed and Uni Ultimate), we aren't beginning team sessions until after that is all over. However, we want to begin the team training phase with players who have already put time into disc skills and physical fitness. Therefore, these two things are the focus of our individual training.We are also aiming to keep this training load fairly light at this stage. The intention is that if you're playing 2-3 nights of frisbee per week, you should be able to get all of this training done by turning up a little earlier each night (i.e. not adding an extra day of training), and it can form a large chunk of your warm-up. We don't want to overload people - short bursts of focused training can be slotted into your week more easily than long sessions.Training will begin next week. Details will be sent out on the email list above.As a club, we will not be rigidly policing this individual training - it is up to each player to work on
their own game. Rest assured that it will be good for your individual playing
ability, and useful for any future Ultimate that you play. We expect that by the
time the season comes around, we won't need to ask who has done the training -
it will be quite evident from observation.SUMMARYFirestorm is the place for high level men's Ultimate - get in touch if you're interested.Join the Firestorm email list to keep up to date with what's happening in the club.Individual training will begin next week, and more info will be sent over the email list.Any questions, comments, etc... contact me.John

Blogging About Blogging is a Sin, Especially When It's About Not Blogging

So things have been pretty quiet here at the Brisbane Ultimate Blog in recent weeks.

Sorry about that - we've just been really busy with lots of other stuff. But here's a quick roundup of some of the stuff we should've been blogging a whole lot more about.

Halibut is on this weekend. 12 big teams, and lots of fun coming. The organisers have been solidly beavering away on getting everything ready. Looking forward to it. Squishy of the Gold Coast Blog has offered a few thoughts on some of the teams.

It looks like our own Mike Neild had a very successful tournament at the World Games. Australia finished with Bronze after beating Canada in the playoff, but it could easily have gone the other way, with the close loss to the Canucks putting the Aussies out of the Gold Medal playoff (which they were looking good for after putting the biggest scare of the tournament up the Americans on the first day, and beating eventual Silver medalists Japan). Kudos also to Piers and Pottsy for their great twittering.

Its only three weeks until the Brisbane Indoor Ultimate Championships. Get yourself on a team.

The Brisbane Premier League will be hucking off in August, with five very solid looking teams going for glory. Our tip? Passion will give Stu an entire season of team sheets when they arrive for the first game. Note it has been one month since the Cobra and Buggers websites were updated, while the Dojo site continues to trickle along. If you've been missing the training nights, you won't want to miss the one next week, with Buzz and Mike running the show.

Second semester also starts soon for those Uni students out there. UQ starts "Club Training" next Wednesday. QUT starts this weekend. No time to study, eh?

Anyways, we hope to return to normal blogging frequency sooner or later. But leave a comment of encouragement and we'll do our best.

World Games Coverage

We're flat out but here's some useful links to the World Games coverage.

Piers on Twitter: http://twitter.com/pierstruter

Pottsy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/pottsy02

Live Score Updates: http://wg09.net/displayGames.php

Queensland Dominates

Some folks might still be down about the Maroon's loss in last week's State of Origin game, but cheer up with big Stefan Rappazzo, who was named AFDA Volunteer of the Month for July.

This follows fellow Queenslander Sara Cargill who was the AFDA Volunteer of the Month for June!

Upcoming Events

Merely to cut and paste from some recent emails ...

S&M MIXED HAT LEAGUE
5 week league (names in a hat for the first game and then you stay in those teams for the league). We may try and run this as a 4 women / 3 men tournament so first in best dressed for your spot on a team!

Dates: Tuesday 28th July - Tuesday 25th August
Location: Oakman Park, Toowong
Cost: TBC.
Sign up by 23rd July (we need to work out if we can progress with the number of people etc
REGISTER:http://www.afda. com/rego/ showcompetition. php?competitioni d=688
Contact: Maylin Chuah - missmaylin@gmail. com

GOLD COAST DEVELOPMENT CLINIC (Women's Only)
There will be a skills development day for the women of south east QLD and northern NSW. This is a great way to improve your ultimate game. Coaches will help you learn more about the game and test your personal skills.

Date: 8th August
Location: Gold Coast - Pizzey Park (Miami)
Time: All day
Cost: TBC
Contact: Megan Barnes - meganbarnes84@ gmail.com
REGISTER:http://www.afda. com/rego/ showdivision. php?divisionid= 1117

SPRING INTO WOMEN'S MONTH
Come along to these skills clinics for players of all levels. We have nationally qualified coaches coming down to instruct activities for new and experienced players. If you want to improve your skills and understanding of Ultimate Frisbee, at any level, come along! This is a great opportunity to be coached by some excellent instructors and learn some new frisbee skills.

Dates: 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th September
Location: Oakman Park, Crn Union St and Mogill Road, Toowong
Time: 7-9pmCost: $20 for 4 weeks ($5 a session to be paid on the night)
Bring: Light/Dark shirts, water bottle, running shoes/soccer cleats
REGISTER: Keep your eyes open for the rego email.
Contact: Maylin Chuah - missmaylin@gmail. com & Blair Sheard - bsheard@bigpond. net.au

Who Listens to the Radio?

Well, if you were in your bedroom doing your whole wad - cruising with the rhythm and going berzerk as it were, you might have missed Mike on the radio this morning.

Thankfully, your taxpayer funded ABC has already got it up on their website at this address.

Do Ultimate media coverage a favour, and leave a comment over there, won't you?

And Mike seems to have been entertaining enough that they're looking to get him back on the show, either direct from Taiwan, or after he gets back.

Well done Mike! And go AUSSIE!

Listen to Radio Mikey .... bom

If you're up early on Thursday morning, tune in to ABC 612AM's Breakfast Show, as our own Mike Neild has been booked for an interview from 06:20-06.30 (so set those alarms).

Mike will be talking about his representing Australia in Ultimate the 2009 World Games, which start in 8 days time in Kaoshing, Taiwan. This is the absolute peak for Ultimate players.

The World Games is the largest multi-sport event after the Olympics, and features non-Olympic sports (and is a great platform for showcasing Ultimate to the IOC). Australia won Silver in Ultimate at the 2005 World Games, and is looking to go one better this year.

Good luck Mike!

Linkety links:
World Games: http://www.worldgames2009.tw/wg2009/eng/index.php
Ultimate at the World Games: http://www.worldgames2009.tw/wg2009/eng/sports.php?sn=31
ABC Brisbane Breakfast: http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/612_breakfast/index.html

Layout Catch Up

So we've been busy here at the mansion lately, but no doubt you've seen the updates on some folks other blogs -

Another WUFL Final is here, with UQ Rocks taking on our favourites, Mellow Black. Its on tonight at Toowong.

And it seems a few brave souls have crawled on out from under their post Slamtown Invitational rock, to start telling us their tales.

Meanwhile, Mexican Simmo has posted his humble view of the best 7 Open players in Queensland. Fatty, Reece, Dan ... you were all robbed.

Can We Build It?

So we sent cub reporter aL down to last week's "Build a Better BPL" training session on Thursday night at AJSC, and here's what he had to say:

"So the first week of the three building better BPL training nights went
down last Thursday at Annerley, with a fairly solid turnout of about
22 players of various levels of experience.

The session focussed mostly on man on man defence with a little bit
of thinking about how to generate cuts on offence.

Take home messages?

• When you're on defence you need think about where the biggest threats from
  offensive cutters lie and then shut down those options.
• Look for the 'tells' that let you know what cutters are thinking about doing
  and then respond to them.

And on offence?

• Remember that you're in control. Think about where you want to be
  catching the disc for the biggest gain for your side and then work to take your
  defender somewhere he doesn't to be, get him off balance, turn hard and go get
  the disc at your lesuire for the big gain.

We look forward to the next session on the 16th of July where the big
cheese will talk to us about better throwing and better marking. And
remember these sessions are open for anyone out there looking for a few tips on
how to improve your game."

WUFL-ing to a climate

We received a notification from the wonderful Laura Keating recently on beautiful pink paper with exquisite calligraphy proclaiming a message of peace and offering us a gesture of kindness by inviting us to the WUFL season 2 grand final to be played this Tuesday night. The message stated we could bring a friend if you like, so we would like all of you to accompany us to the game and cheer on the best double-X chromosomed Ultimate players Brisbane has to offer. The note went something like this:

Hello Frisbee Folk,

WUFL season 2 is coming to an end this Tuesday, so come and check out the final.
This season we have Mellow Black defending their title against UQ Rocks. The teams are 1 and 1 this season and are ready to right it out in the final.
There will also be a BBQ and Beers for all our supporters.

What: WUFL Final, BBQ and Beer
When: Tuesday July 7th
Time: 7:15pm
Who: Anyone and everyone
Why: Support women's ultimate in Brisbane

See you Tuesday!

Laura

Laura may not have mentioned it in her messaged, but the game is being played at Oakman Park, Toowong.

Don't Care - We Want One

We're sure you minions can make this happen.

Townsville Bulletin 7 December 2002

Don't forget the Townsville coaching camp is only a few weeks away.