The Week That Was

Wellety Welley.. it HAS been a quiet week here at the BUB Palace, and it's finally caught up to us with views plummeting rapidly on the weekend. Or perhaps, like us, you were busy doing REAL stuff and enjoying the beeaaauuutiful Brisbane Winter. Either way, we're back and here's a summary of what we have certainly missed, but you, discerning reader, may have sourced your information through some back-water under-the-table dodgy dealing (with shonky builders).

Enough shocking ACA slogans, here it is (it's pretty boring):

The Australian Women's Beach Team desperately needs players. As we know that women don't read blogs, please pass this on to the women in your life who are great at ultimate. They need to get in contact with Notty for this one.

If you want to provide some light entertainment for the Australian Beach Teams, you will have your chance on the 23rd of July. Ride the AFDA Dinosaur to register. This is NOT limited to gender.

In the spirit of SEQ, we must further boast about our good weather (we've had little chance this year!) All of this week's news is about Beach Ultimate! Al Don would like to open up his Beach Courts to all and sundry, every Saturday at 10am - that's on Palm Beach. Just cruise on down and enjoy it. It must be said that when the mercury drops below 20, it's prime time for Beach Ultimate.

Now for some non-beach related news (boooo!):

A 4-week "Draft" style men's league will begin on the 30th June. This will be played at Annerley and will be a refreshing time for the BPL guys to mix it up and a great opportunity for new players to come and get a taste of BPL. Who knows, you may even be offered and exclusive spot on a BPL team for Season #2!! Head on over to AFDA to register. I'm not going to give you a link - if you can't get around the website, you shouldn't have gotten this far.

BUML Roundup

Here's a fine cutting and pasting job with regards the conclusion of this season of Monday night league. Props to Notty for taking on the League Director role and applying so much gusto!

Last night saw the first DIV1/DIV2 BUML final attended by only a few
spectators, what had it made with ample room, a few eskies of free beer, and
plenty of entertainment. Does anyone know where the trophy is by the way??

Congratulations to Mellow Yellow for confidentially taking out DIV2. Can’t quite remember the score but I believe the margin was at least 5.

Congratulations also to Plastic Scougery, scraping up the win by 1 point in DIV1 for an undefeated season.

Spirit winners were UQ Playaz DIV1 and QUTies DIV2. UQ Playaz being aptly
represented got the choice of prizes and collected their bottle of Jager to enjoy later. QUTies need to collect their Vodka from me.

MVP was a close call as many people were selected. I hope to publish the full list when I get some time. The two winners receive a mini MAG light to keep their light burning. They are: Oliver from Poachers; and Jess from Dyspnoeics.

Next season I will be stricter on people submitting MVP and spirit score for every week. I let it go this season as it’s a short season and you haven’t had to do it before.

Changes to next league: So far two time slots, DIV2 first then DIV1. Possibly use of both Yeronga as well as Annerley. Talk of DIV1 being a structured hat but I will get you to vote on this soon. Oh and there will be some sort of trophy for both divisions. If you have any suggestions for improvements etc for the next league feel free to email me.

Notty

Barra barra mundi's!

Congratulations Kristin 'Notty' Nott and Al 'aL' Don for their selection in the Australian Mixed Ultimate team (aka the Barramundi's) to compete in the World Ultimate and Guts Championships in Vancouver in August. Go Queensland!

Aussie Beach Ho's

Well, that title ought to lift our google-search-traffic (not that I approve of such language).

Once a week we're looking to give the Brisbane Ultimate Blog over to a guest blogger, and this week we have the delightful 'Queen of Diamonds' herself, Danielle Smyth, who is recently returned from the World Ultimate Beach Championships in Brazil. Take it away Danielle!

“You know you’re in trouble when your face goes numb” (Bree Edgar)...with a comment like that, this was going to be one hell of a week at the World Beach Ultimate Championships in Brazil.

I arrived in Maceio only to find that my bag decided not to, but as Notty had my playing gear and…hell no cleats were going to be needed…it was time to just kick back, have a beer and enter tourney-land! The Aussie teams were staying opposite the fields…well done Matt Ward for organising this piece of strategic genius! The two main playing arenas were apparently cemented football areas, so they knocked down the goal posts and flooded them with sand (it definitely felt different to run in than the beach fields). The three beach fields were therefore on the beach (how novel)...and all had a slight incline, which made it interesting!

Funniest/greatest bits:
Winning bronze and winning spirit with FULL POINTS!

Supporting ‘our’ boys (so many proud Qlders) to victory in the final against the Philippines!! Both teams were often playing at the same time during the week, so we didn’t have many chances to see them in action…they were awesome!!

Mica emailing the team the week before saying that she had been in a car accident and may be wearing a neck brace, but don’t worry, she has since played some Ultimate and can still layout…during the week Mica was a layout queen!!!

I had brought some green and gold zinc to get all patriotic, everyone got into the spirit and wrote OI down their arms…but as I walked towards the team I innocently asked why we are all writing ‘HO’ on our arms…we then referred to ourselves as the Aussie Ho’s for the rest of the week and incorporated it into many game chants.

Singing Waltzing Matilda at the top of our voices before our semi-final against the USA and Leanne and Kaz (Karen Palmer) creating a couple of songs for us to sing to the other teams after a few of the games!

The final party night: So many stories, here’s a teaser: food fight, Brazilian reggae band, naked Ultimate, Club 504…

From a personal experience, being the least experienced on the team (and, cough, the oldest), I was inspired beyond belief by how supportive everyone was towards each other. It was clear from the start that we were all there to play great ultimate, improve as a team over the week and were dedicated to having a great time. Leanne King was a fantastic choice for captain and was cool headed and consistently came up with positive strategies for when things got a bit hectic on the field. Apart from being awesome on the field, Notty also got landed with being manager for BOTH teams (and did a brilliant job) and also got some sponsorship from her workplace! The final time the team got together we sat in a circle and passed around a coconut to drink from. The idea was to say something about a person who inspired you throughout the week and pass them the coconut to drink from…we could have sat there for hours, the team really clicked and it was clear that everyone played their all and got inspiration from everyone else…awe bless!

Danielle and Notty have heaps of photos over at Facebook ...

The Women's Team with their US Semi-Final opponents:

The Open Team:

Bit of laying about:

Brisbane Ultimate Blog Awards

So now that I've got polls and stuff bedded in, and now that I've finalised posting the AFDA Awards on afda.com, I started to think about rolling out the 2007 Brisbane Ultimate Blog Awards.

Of course, the Awards would be all about you, the readership, so give me a comment and we'll see where we get. Suggest an award, or suggest a nomination for some other award, or tell me to forget about it.

Here's a couple of ideas to get you going:

Best Thing to Happen to Brisbane Ultimate in 2007
Nominations: Bootius Win Mixed Nats; BPL Grows from 4 to 6 Teams; Lovers Win AUGs; Biggest Halibut Evah.

Best Off-Field Moment in Brisbane Ultimate in 2007
Nominations: Liam's Mankini; Notty Moves to Brisbane; Boy on Boy / Girl on Girl Chants; Jangles Getting Caught.

McNaughton of the Year 2007
Nominations: Bruce; Peta.

Brisbane-Based Website of the Year 2007
Nominations: Brisbane Ultimate Blog; QUDA.

Worst Team Name in Brisbane 2007
Nominations: Passion; Hooray for Everything

Biggest Loss in Brisbane Ultimate 2007
Nominations: Rena; Scott Massey; Rubes and Tegan; Women from a Season of BPL.


Hit me!

Worlds on the Horizon

The AFDA Chair of Selectors, Mr Owen 'O-Shep' Shepherd, this morning announced the 'selection squad' for the Open, Women's and Mixed teams for the World Championships in Vancouver in 2008.

These are the 'train on' group, who'll now converge for a few training camps, before the final teams are selected in February (if I've got it right).

From Brisbane then we have:

Chris Cunliffe
Al Don
Brett Matzuka
John 'Cheeseburger' McNaughton
Mike Neild
Kristen 'Notty' Nott
Jonathan 'Pottsy' Potts
Piers Truter

And we'll call Rueben Berg ours - even though he "lives" in Melbourne these days - he does read this blog. (Go RUBES!)

So I call upon all folk in the state of Queensland (and beyond)!

If any of these people ask you for a throw, a run, or even to spare a dollar for a raffle ticket - HELP THEM OUT!