The Olympics

So every 4 years it seems every ultimate player look at the Olympics and says "What if Ultimate was an Olympic Sport"? We have discussed this before at the BUB mansion and there is always mixed responses. See here

My personal opinion is that sports at the Olympics should hold an Olympic title at a higher level than any other competition. Sports like tennis and soon to be golf tend to be over shadowed by major open tournament titles. This is in contrast to other sports such as Athletics, Swimming etc. where there athletes strive even to just compete at the Olympics let alone medal.

How would an Olympic title be seen compare to a world championship? Would we still have a world champs? These questions are just theoretical as there are many hurdles before we become an olympic sport, but I like to dream.

Worlds in Review Part 1 - Dingoes

As many of you may be aware the World Ultimate and Guts Championships was recently held in Sakai, Japan. The BUB manor had 24/7 coverage rolling of ultimate coverage from nexgen and ultitv (with some little cycling race to break it up). I thought I would get some insights into the teams and the tournament from some of the players who were lucky/good enough to attend. So queue the first guest to the BUB mansion our resident dingo Chris Cunliffe. 

Welcome Chris and first of all congrats on making the team.

To start with I'd like you to give our readers an idea of your Ultimate back ground. When did you start playing? 

I started playing ultimate in 2005. Basically I had been playing soccer for 15 years, and I just finished my last season of u19s and the clubs/teams I was considering playing for in the open division wanted me to play/train like 4 times a week which didn't fit my "uni lifestyle" at the time. So I was temporarily looking for something more social and just by coincidence two friends of mine had been to a come and try frisbee event and were planning to play in the upcoming Yeronga beginners league and they talked me into coming along and playing with their team. 

At that point I had never heard of ultimate frisbee so it was all pretty novel to me, and to say I was "raw" would be an understatement - but I remember after a few weeks of playing that it dawned on me that it was the first time in a long time that I had played a sport were at the end of every game I didn't even know what the score was - I was just too busy having fun. So I kept coming back…

When did you start competing at the elite level? 

Well I guess that depends on what the definition of 'elite level' is…

So my frisbee story basically goes like this, Maylin Chuah was the captain/coach of my beginners league team, after playing on her team for a few weeks she invited me to come play BPL. I turned up that Thursday in the middle of the BPL season, was thrown on a team and proceeded to have my "holy sh#t this is actually a sport" moment. 

: ))

Not long after that someone invited me to come play Halibut that year, then Uni Games and then Mixed Nationals later that year. 

Then in 2006 I got my first taste of mens Nationals and then later that year I got to play at World Club Championships with the Brisbane mixed team. So I guess you'd say I started competing at the elite level some time in 2005 or 2006 depending on your definition.   

Long enough. So fill us in on your thoughts of the selection process and then the overall selection of the Dingoes team? 

For those readers of BUB that don't know, the process basically kicked off on in January 2011, where players were required to make an expressions of interest  to play for an Australian representative team. Then everyone was told their performance at Regionals, BCI and Nationals in 2011 were being taken into consideration to select 55 guys to attend a weekend training camp down in Sydney, from which the selectors chose 37 guys to attend three trainings camps in Canberra. Then after these training camps they selected 24 guys to travel over to Seattle in September of 2011 to compete in a tournament called Emerald City Classic after which they selected 24 guys from the 37 to go to Worlds. 

So the first thoughts that come to mind about the selection process are words like, long, expensive, competitive…

: ))

… but that's just the whinger in me coming out. 

In all seriousness, I honestly thought it was about as comprehensive a process as could be expected from an amateur sport.  For the most part I felt that the process gave everyone as much of a chance to shine in front of the selectors as could be afforded and I felt they put in a lot of consideration into selecting the bunch of guys they felt would best represent the country. 

That said, no selection process is ever perfect, but there is no doubt in my mind that the guys in charge were doing their very best, and I'm confident that any hiccups in the process this time around will be improved on for next time around just as the process this time was more comprehensive than the last. 

On the non playing side of selections, I thought the process was pretty awesome. For the Canberra training camps the squad were all bunking in a big church hall which was great fun and good for team bonding, and I was also lucky enough to be selected to go to Seattle for ECC which was loads of fun. Getting to travel overseas with a bunch of likeminded frisbee players to compete against the top teams in the world was loads of fun.

Post tournament is they anyone you think would have been handy to have on the team who wasn’t there? **Mike** Cough

Definitely.

I think there are a number of guys who would have been very handy, including Mike, but like any team, be it a Uni Games team or the Australian Dingoes, you can only field the guys who are "ready, willing and able" - and the stars rarely align perfectly on such things so the focus has always got to be on playing with what you got, not spending too much time wishing you had more or if things had been different.  

Plus, I'm sure every team we played against at Worlds also had some very handy players of their own who were not in attendance for any number of reasons, be it injury, financial, life, couldn't get visas, loss of desire, etc.

It's the nature of amateur sport.

Very diplomatic and I am sure there are a number of guys who would like to be there next time. Leading up to the tournament you were injured so often did you train and what sort of training did you do to prepare? 

So that basic Dingo training program consisted of 7 sessions a week split between a strength session, a running session, 2 frisbee specific exercise sessions and 3 throwing sessions. playing league was considered extra. 

As you mentioned I was injured in the leads up to worlds, which meant I substituted rehab exercises into the exercises I wasn't allowed to do.

I am sure you had some Tony Robbins audio books on during those sessions to keep you entertained. Moving on what are your thoughts on the pretour? Was it a help for the team? Was America a good choice of destination? 

Yeah I thought the pretour was great. 

Getting to play against Sockeye in front of a packed grandstand in what turned out to be a cracking game has to go down as one of my top frisbee career highlights which was topped off by a bunch of kids coming up to us after the game asking for our autographs. It was really cool.

As for if it was helpful or not, I think it was a massive help. 

Before the tour I had some real reservations about if we would have the offensive cohesion required to consistently score against the best in the world (particularly on the D team), and whilst we started slow, I think there was a marked improvement from the start of the tour to the end of the tour, and I think our team cohesion improved further over the course of the Worlds tournament as well. 

Being a team that is comprised of players from all over the country means getting some high level game time together prior to Worlds is critical. 

As for whether America is a good choice, if getting good quality competition prior to Worlds is your priority, then I think it's pretty much the only option. 

Despite coming 7th, I think the Australian Dingoes are in the top 5 National teams in the World. That said, if the US were allowed to submit more than 1 team to Worlds, I'd be surprised if they didn't take out 5 or 6 of the top 10 spots. And so from this perspective, the US offers you the best opportunity to get competitive games against different oppositions.

So watching back here in Australia and seeing photos popping up on facebook of all the tour shenanigans it looked like Japan was a welcoming host country.  How was the tournament received locally and did anything surprise you? 

The Japanese were great hosts. As for how the tournament was received locally, it's hard to say really.

I think the FAR more surprising thing was all the game footage that was being streamed online and all the interest and support from back in Australia that that created. I just thought it was really cool and I think is a really awesome step for the sport itself.

The Japanese have a reputation for running large events well, comparatively to nats how did you find the tournament was run? 

I thought they put on a good tournament. There were a couple of issues relating to lack of field space for warming up, and I personally wasn't the biggest fan of the fact half the field were Astroturf, but by and large it was a quite well run tournament. 

So the tournament itself, The dingoes had an interesting pool being seeded second to the swedes, I am not sure how this was worked out but seemed odd. What were the thoughts about the pool play games and were the boys worried about making it to the next round?

To be honest I never even looked at the draw or the different pools (my general philosophy towards tournament draws is if you just win all your pool games you always set yourself up for the best chance to win so there is rarely much to learn from draws), but if I was to have a guess I would assume us being seeded second to the Swedes would have had something to do with the fact that at the last Worlds we finished 5th and Great Britain finished 4th, but given that Sweden beat GB at the recent European Championships that might have meant that Sweden took GB's 4th seeding, which meant they were first seeds in our pool - but this is just me speculating. Someone might like to confirm in the comments.

As for the pool games, I thought we played well and comfortably beat most teams and I think this is largely reflected in the score lines. 

As for concerns about progressing, I can't speak for the other boys, but I didn't have any, and I didn't hear any of the other guys mention their concerns about any of the pool games or anything. Even when we went down a break early in our pool game against Germany I'm certain I never felt "worried" that we might lose the game, there was always a feeling of quiet confidence that as soon as we stopped the simple errors and got back to playing to our regular standard we were always going to get back on top and it was just a matter of time. 

I imagine that comes across as really arrogant, but I think the confidence just came from having at that point played with guys enough at ECC and on the pre tour to know what we were capable of as a team. 

For me personally, Worlds just felt like a continuation of the pre tour, where if I just went and did my job, and everyone else went out and did there's, there weren't any teams in our initial pool who were of higher (or even of comparable) calibre than the teams we played in the US so I felt it was always going to be difficult for them to stop us from winning. So it was just a case of turning up to each of those pool games and doing our jobs.

Actually the only point in the tournament where I found myself thinking about "the next round" was probably about three quarters of the way through the USA game when it was clear we were on the verge of going through our power pools as first seed into the quarter final (but even at that point I don't think I was aware of who we'd play if we won or lost that game) I just knew it was a game we really wanted to win to give ourselves the best chance of winning the whole tournament.   

Obviously the biggest game of the next round was the USA game. There is plenty on the USA perspective on the game at skyd. What are your thoughts on what could have gone down in history as a big upset game? 

Ahh… the USA game. The one that got away. 

I don't know about it "going down in history as a big upset" - I think the only ones who would have felt that it was a super big deal didn't know much about us nor saw us play on the pretour (but of course being from Australia most oppositions are always going to see us as a bit of an unknown quantity). 

I'm sure none of the Sockeye guys who narrowly scraped a win against us 16 v 15 (once again we had two chances to win starting on offense) would have been at all shocked if we beat the USA. I'm sure they wouldn't have "expected" it, but it wouldn't have been a "shocking" outcome.

It's also worth remembering that going into that game we had just beat the tournament's 4th seed, Sweden, to 9. So I think we had every right to be walking on the field planning to win and feeling we had a reasonable shot.

During and the game itself I know all I was thinking about was how much I wanted to win top seed in our half of the draw to give us the easiest match up in the quarter final, it didn't really register with me at the time that beating the USA in itself would be a big deal…

As for the game itself - here's my perspective - we played quite well to get ourselves into a great position. And I say "quite well" because I don't even think we played "great". No doubt a lot of credit needs to be given to the USA for putting enough pressure on us to force tougher shots and poor decisions (it was pretty windy as well), but by and large, I just thought we only played well.

Of course "well" was good enough to get us to 16 v 15 with disc in hand and it took what I consider four uncharacteristic poor decisions or errors from some of Australia's best players in those final two points for us to lose that game. 

So maybe it was just a case of the pressure got the best of us, I don't know, but all credit to the USA they hung in there and it took something a little special to get them across the line in that final point as well. So you can't take anything away from their win.

That said, prior to that game it was definitely the first time I felt that the team was a bit nervous, but I guess that was the first game we were going into as underdogs and I felt that after our match against Revolver (team USA) at ECC the previous year there were still a few linger questions as to if we could match it with such a high calibre team that had beat us reasonably comfortably 9 months ago…

… Of course most of those doubts were alleviated when we got the first break of the game. 

Of course we gave up a couple breaks just prior to half time, which a lot of guys found extremely disappointing, but I personally thought a 9 v 8 score line at half time was reflective of what was a good first half and positioned us well to have a real crack at winning and I think once this fact sank in with most guys it allowed us to come out after half time pretty excited with a lot of self belief. 

I am sure Mike is sitting at home thinking how you guys let the GB team get the better of you guys for the second time in the finals at worlds. What were your thoughts on the game and how did it affect the team? 

Firstly, all credit to GB. In a game that was played in incredibly windy conditions I honestly think they deserved to win and they also played the game with great spirit. In my opinion they just played much smarter than us. I felt like they sized up the condition, changed their game plan accordingly and got the result.

I think we on the other hand lacked experience in those conditions. And I don't mean that in the sense that as individual players we hadn't played in those conditions before, we all obviously had, I mean that in the sense that "as a team" we had never played in those conditions before and as a result we didn't have any specific strategies of how we as a team would play in such conditions. So from my perspective we by default tried to stick with the team strategies we had developed over the last 12 months that had served us so well, but the conditions probably warranted that we change our game plan. Of course that's just my opinion.

As for how it affected the team - it's hard to explain,  one minute the dream you have been working towards for years is still alive, the next minute it's all over, and it all happens so quick. I think it affected a lot of people differently. 

For me personally I was only called on to play two points in that game so I was left feeling like a huge dream had just been ripped away from me and yet at the same time I had so little personal control over the outcome of that game that I didn't know how to feel about it all. To be honest, I still don't… 

USA v GB final was a bit of a one sided affair from a spectators point of view. What were your thoughts on both teams and the blow out result? 

Well my "view" of the final probably wasn't the greatest given I was nursing an almighty hangover from the Worlds party the night prior. 

Firstly the conditions were once again windy and GB just came out dropped a couple of frisbees and threw a few turns early in the game (probably nerves), the USA didn't return the favour, and that was pretty much all she wrote. 

Giving a strong favourite an early lead in any game of ultimate, let alone a Worlds finals, tends to work out very badly for the underdog who is generally relying on keeping the game close in the hope that the favourite will panic a little under the unexpected pressure.

As for the blow out result, it just made me feel like it was a bit of a missed opportunity, and I'm sure the other pre tournament favourites, Canada and Japan, feel the same. That said, I'm sure GB aren't too worried they lost 17 v 5 - a silver medal is a silver medal no matter what the final score was. So congrats to them.

4 years until next worlds, will you make a play for the Aussie team in 2016? 

Good question... 

And at this stage I honestly don't know. I'm still processing the fact that it's all over…

I really don't know, there's a lot of variables to consider and I don't know where I will be with life and frisbee in two years time. That said, with full realisation of the massive physical, financial and emotional commitment required, which wasn't as obvious to me 18 months ago, it definitely makes you realise that you have REALLY got want it bad and you got to know that all the guys around you want  it just as bad if you want to have a real chance of winning at that level.

I tell you what though, I'll be FAR more likely to try out again if there are at least a couple of Brisbanites who are likely to make the team. Committing that amount of time, energy and money to the campaign would be far easier if I knew I'd get to enjoy  with a few more Brisbane team mates...

Thanks so much Chris and good luck with your recovery

Out with the old in with the young old man

In a move akin to asking Gref to give me a haircut I have agreed to take over the master bedroom of the BUB mansion. I have turned the nursery into a gym and look to start working my journalistic muscle on the Brisbane Ultimate Scene. My views on Journalists and the lack real research are no secret, so I hope to bring the facts and some fun along the way. 

So now for my first post. The only way I could think to start was to get some thoughts of the out going BUB owner and get his thoughts about Brissie Ultimate. So with out further ado I give you the "Supreme Administrator" JdR Himself.  

Welcome JdR. So when and where did you start playing Ultimate? Also when did you become addicted?

I was first introduced to Ultimate in the mid 1990’s.  I was playing soccer for UQ at the time, and Stew McGlashan was looking for able bodies to increase the numbers on the Fluid Druids.  So I played a handful of games on the sacred Oval 7, but had other things to do.  Then in February 2001 I moved to Canberra and was looking for a new sport, and Stew suggested I drop by Dickson Fields.  I arrived in Canberra on a Monday, started work on Tuesday, and then after work on Wednesday walked to Dickson in my work clothes.  I decided to sit on a fence and watch play from a distance when a guy jogged about 100m over to me and asked me if I wanted to play ... and well that hooked me.

How did you get into this blogging business?

I find writing easy, and for some years posted regularly on afda.com and ran the Australian Ultimate Magazine.  But I don’t have any particular interest in learning how to do websites and such.  I moved to Brisbane in 2005 and in early 2006 Rubes started a blog.  I thought it cool and asked for access, and found it very easy (back then, online editing was pretty new).  I set myself the goal of posting almost every day for a year to see if I could be creative enough to generate that much content, but of course with a community like Brisbane Ultimate it turned out well!

Brisbane has a number of promising team names, however if you had to pick one team name from your tenure in Brisbane what would it be and why?
That’s a toughie.  I think I’ll have to go with Dyspnoeics, as it took me some years to learn how to type is quickly and correctly.

We will agree that no one can say it properly and move on. With all our sunshine and warm weather there is plenty to love about Brisbane, but what is your favourite thing about Brisbane ultimate?
Well yes, playing all year around, particularly in Winter, plus the comparative lack of rain.  Brisbane-ites do feel the cool but they also don’t know how good they have it.  And then obviously there’s the people.  But I think something I’ve really liked about Brisbane Ultimate over the last few years has been the sense of growth and continuing improvement.  Ultimate in Brisbane isn’t static, and new volunteers aren’t having to reinvent the wheel.

Many Readers may not be aware of the amount of behind the scenes work that you have done for Brisbane Ultimate with the AFDA, QUDA, Griffith and wherever else you could get your hands dirty. You have definitely left your mark on this city, but what do you see as your biggest legacy in Brisbane Ultimate?

You’re very kind to say.  I’ll have to leave questions of legacy for the karmic judges, but I hope Griffith will continue to grow in numbers, but perhaps more importantly continue to lift its quality and start challenging other UQ and other teams on the field.  QUDA has an amazing amount of things it could be doing, so it was great to be able to do some of these.  As for AFDA, well, that was a long haul, and its interesting to be starting to do things for them again.

From your wealth of experience do you have any advice for Ultimate administrators?

It is better to try stuff than not, and better to get going now than wait.  Let volunteers make their own decisions and feel ownership of things.  If you have money, get out there and use it, preferably in ways that excite or make it easier for volunteers and members.  You can generate more money – but time only goes forward.  Some people might not agree with what you do, but its better to do than to do not.

Experienced administrators or people who have been active volunteers in the past – think about some small thing you can do routinely, like hosting an annual tournament or liaising with a field providers or whatever.

You have driven much change in Brisbane. When you return to Brisbane in five years time after losing 3 toes and a thumb to frostbite from the cold Canberra winters, what changes would you like to see in the Brisbane Ultimate Community?
Ooo – crystal ball time!  But its pretty simple really, I’d like to see growth in all ways.  Monday night League play could easily be double its present size.  BPL too.  A second major mixed League.  After-school pickup every day of the week.  I hope Regionals and Halibut will continue to grow.  And that volunteers have found long term grooves they want to be in.

We know you have good reasons for leaving and we wish you well, but what is it you will miss most about Brisbane Ultimate?
Its hard to pick a ‘most’.  Playing I guess - I’ll miss chugging around for the Griffith Go-Go’s, and catching up with people at tournaments like Halibut, Badmans, Regionals, Indoor and whatever they do up in North Queensland.  And hanging shite on the self-important (including myself at times!)

Do you have plans to implant yourself as dictator in the Canberra ultimate scene and become the mayor of Fyshwick? And for those who will miss JdR Tournaments will we have the chance to travel to one?
It’s tricky here as Winter and Worlds has made the scene here quite quiet.  It seems that Canberra Ultimate has many chiefs and its thinking about at a lot present, but I’m offering to run a new League for them, and am looking around for the opportunity to run a tournament.  There is also talk about a bid to host Mixed Nats 2013 here, for the 100^th Anniversary of Canberra.  And I’m also talking to AFDA about doing some work for them. 

So we’ll see.  It is kind of nice to take a break at the moment.

This interview is going really well, if I do say so myself. Will this young upstart be able to keep the BUB mansion running smoothly and remember to walk wetnose once a week at BPL?
All I can say is the best of luck.  The blog was at its most successful when it posted something new every day – even if it was ‘merely’ a photo or a cut and paste of an email.  Don’t forget you can automatically schedule stuff, and get some other regular contributers (Mansauce has offered to write a BUML preview each week, and Wettie might be able to get back to posting the BPL draw in pictoral form).  The readers came and then came regularly when they knew stuff was going up regularly, and the comments built the sense of community.

Also, please tell Mike S to update the Hall of Fame over at buml.quda.org before this season’s results get forgotten!

I will see what I can do a daily post may be a bit much but weekly posts and previews is my aim. Any final words or funny stories to leave with us with?

Exit stage left?

Thank you JdR and we look forward to your continued commenting on this Blog. 

Time Out

So, the Brisbane Ultimate Blog is going on pause, at least until someone decides to take up the disc and huck long to blog all things Ultimate in Brisbane.

The blog will stay here for as long as possible, at the least to provide some history of the sport in this fair city from 2007-2012.  Feel free to go digging amongst the 1400+ posts, and keep an eye out for all that other Ultimate stuff on the internet (including some stuff JdR will be posting soon).

Thanks to all the readers and contributors.  Its been fun.

BUML2012 Season 1 (aka BUML20) Grand Final Results

Just in case you haven't seen them posted elsewhere ...

Division 1 
Grand Final - UQ Lovers 17 defeated Drop Bears 5
Spirit Winners - Drop Bears
Final Standings:
1st UQ Lovers
2nd Drop Bears
=3rd Dyspnoeics
=3rd Poachers
5th While Lantern
6th Ghost Who Walks

Division 2 
Grand Final - Bermuda Triangle 9 defeated What the Huck? 6
Spirit Winners - Heroes
1st Bermuda Triangle
2nd What the Huck
=3rd Discheads
=3rd Tsunami
5th Heroes
6th Agent Orange
7th Baby Chimis
8th Disc-Iples

Division 3 
Grand Final - Griffith Go-Go's 12 defeated Mellow Yellow 8
Spirit Winners - Griffith Go-Gos's
1st Griffith Go-Go's
2nd Mellow Yellow
=3rd Griffith Oh Yeahs
=3rd Ultimate Apostles
5th QUTies
6th Slipped Discs
7th  Griffith FC
8th  Ultimate Yeast

BUML Season 20 Grand Finals Preview

Some pestering from the masses has seen us pull out the giant gold key, and reenter the stately (and toasty warm ... ahhh) Brisbane Ultimate Blog mansion to provide a preview of tonight's BUML Grand Finals.  Perhaps the masses just want something to comment on, in which case, go for it, lines are open.

Anyway, its been the BEST SEASON EVER for BUML.  Seriously, it has - its the biggest ever, there's been very little rain, teams have been well coordinated, games have been close, and the League Directors have all their hair (or at least, pretty much the same amount as at the start of the season). 

But tonight it comes to an end.  Some of us are gutted that there's no live internet telecast of the games (we blame tech-guru DanB and AndyL's assumptions that they'd actually be in the games) but we'll have the bottle ready to toast some champagne Ultimate anyway.  Who will add their names to the mighty roll of honour?  Let's check out the games and of course book your seats at Easts Leagues now.


DIVISION 3 - Griffith Go-Go's vs Mellow Yellow

The unrated Division 3 has certainly thrown up a lot of excitement this season, as teams that have in the past been relegated to 'newbies and/or pissheads and/or cheap meat' status have had something to really fight for in the inaugural Division 3 title.  It certainly showed in the Semi Finals, both of which were decided by one point.  Props to both the Ultimate Apostles and the Griffith Oh Yeahs for very nearly making it.

Griffith are now in their fifth season and have certainly grown in quality as well as quantity, winning a lot of games.  But in the back of their minds will be that early season draw against Mellow Yellow, and all those times Mellow Yellow beat them in 2010 and 2011.  But maybe, just maybe, those scars have calloused over and the Go-Go's will have the mental toughness to take the win tonight and put a medal into the mail to postcode 2600 tomorrow morning.

Mellow Yellow ... well, what can be said about this Oliver Reed of an Ultimate team that hasn't been said before?  Now in their amazing 16th season and with a much loved BUML12 trophy in the pool room ... and they smile the whole game!  Seriously, watch them any time, they'll be grinning.    That's the confidence they'll have as they march proudly onto the field tonight. 

The question will be whether the slightly aging but well experienced Yellow bones can handle the youthful exhuberance of the Red blooded Griffith Go-Go's.  Very hard to tip, and I think the bookies are only taking bets on whether or not the winning point will come from a hammer or not.  Expect entertainment.

What should be fun though is the Spirit you can expect to see in this game ... something all them hotly competitive folk at Worlds could take note of.  Between them, Griffith and Mellow Yellow have won 8 of the last 18 BUML Spirit Prizes.

DIVISION 2 - Bermuda Triangle vs What the Huck?

This one is straight out of the text-book.  The two teams who were clearly the best in the Division have smashed their way through their Semi Final opponents and into the Final. 

Bermuda Triangle go into this match undefeated and all smiles this season, after a very tough 2011 when they soldiered hard and grimaced firmly at the bottom of the Division 1 table.  Last week they cleaned up a determined Discheads 13-8, in a display that showed off their offensive power.  Bermuda are on of the oldest teams in the Monday night competition, with this their 17th season, and having not featured in a League Final since their three losses back in 2006-7, will they finally take a title?  All we know is that key play Geoff will be completely fanging for disc.

What the Huck? meanwhile easily took care of the slightly disappointing Tsunami last week 15-4, and have only had two defeated this season, going down to Bermuda 13-7 in March and 13-8 in May.  The Huckers first appeared in their current form back at the start of 2011, but can trace their lineage and winning ways back to the former Kelvin Grove Cougars, who took three consecutive Division 2 titles in 2009-10.  The big question tonight will be whether they can contain their desire for speed-speed-speed and avoid the unforced errors the Triangle have been able to put on them in the past.

This game will be titanic.  Bermuda go in as the deserved favourites, but how will they carry the weight of expectation?  What the Huck seem to have the wood over the rest of the competition, but they haven't yet given the Triangles a hard run.  Who's cuisine will reign supreme?  Internet bookies www.andrewmansaucehouse.com.au are offering $1.20 on Bermuda to win, and $2.80 on What the Huck.

DIVISION 1 - UQ Lovers vs Drop Bears

The fat one - the El Gordo of Brisbane Ultimate 2012.  Forget your BPL, forget your Halibut, forget your Mayan apocalypse scenario.  This may well be the flying disc battle of the year for this city.

What's exciting here is that while Division 1 finals of reason seasons have sadly been dull, one sided affairs, this game includes Dusty, the most exciting player in sports Ultimate entertainment ... er ... I mean, this game is going to be both loose and close.  It'll be close in that these teams have matched up tightly this season, and loose in that ... well, up until last week they both looked like middle-of-the-table teams. 

Some folks with an eye for history will be betting against newish team the Drop Bears (despite the age of some of the connections within the team).  They didn't even have a proper name at the start of the season, after all.  Then they only won six games during the season, losing to UQ 9-11 back in April, but then rolling them easily 17-7 in more recent times.  Indeed, that was the start of the Bears 'hayne-train', only losing one game (and that by a single point) since then).  So the Drop Bears are in the final because they have some massive momentum, and defeating the much fancied but ultimately challenged Dyspnoeics last week 13-10 (not sure what happened there, but I'm sure we'll get an explanation in the commments). 

Given their age and reputation as one of the 'name' clubs in Brisbane, a lot of punters will be jumping on the Loving bandwagon.  But remember that UQ have not won a BUML since 2008 or a BPL since about then (sorry, can't be arsed firing up the records machine).  Sure they seem to do ok in Division 2 at Uni Games ... but there will be big questions asked and answered tonight.  Internet bookies www.andrewmansaucehouse.com.au seem to have suspended betting on this match, while players on both teams face allegations of fantastic drug use over the weekend.


Looking Ahead

And for those looking ahead to next season of BUML and wanting to comment in the comments ... when last we heard fixtures were due to commence on Monday 6 August (with a few weeks of learn to play and pickup beforehand) so mark your calendar and keep an eye on the buml.quda.org website and Facebook.  Colmslie will be added as a new venue to further the growth of the competition, and the League Organising Committee as always are looking for more helpers.

Gossip will also be turning towards the makeup of Divisions next season.  Its a perennial toughie for the organisers.  It seems the winner of Division 3 will be ready to move up into Division 2, to make room for new teams in Division 3, but then the Ghost Who Walks will certainly be seeking to drop into Division 2.  So whether Griffith or Mellow get to make the jump will probably come down to the level of interest in new teams entering Division 3 ... maybe if 24 teams are in the mix then BUMLOC will try for four divisions of six.  We shall see.  After three seasons now, the jump from Division 2 to Division 1 still seems to remain very large - Bermuda still bares the scars from last year and won't be keen to go back.  Perhaps the only way is for BUMLOC to apply some roster restrictions on the other five Division 1 teams, so see if a competitive sixth team can be formed?  On the other hand, someone's got to come at the bottom of the table ...

Anyway, that's it from us here on the BUML Show at the stately Brisbane Ultimate Blog mansion.  Tune in next season if someone feels like doing it.