Nice Try

The artist and player formerly known as The Baron already wrote a masterful summary of the Van Buren Boys experience at MUDI. I know all of you are dying for more, so here we go.

First, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how I wish this tournament's name hadn't changed to MUDI. Every time I say or hear it, I think of the "I say tomato" song: "I say Muddy. You say Moody." I know it can't be Aquatennial anymore, but I just wish Greggae would have found some loophole and named it something like Aqua Ten Event Loophole (a.k.a. Aqua Ten E.L.).

My fingers can hardly keep up with all my thoughts of the good things about this weekend. Again, just a solid, all around, fun-having weekend.

Friday night, Amesians and Kansians arrived at my house for dinner. I never use canned sauces for my pasta anymore and I think it surprised a lot of people to see me making a homemade sauce. That pleased me. As did hearing that people liked it. I immensely enjoy cooking for people. Making the mini pizzas at Nationals was one of the coolest parts of the trip for me last year. Anyway, we ate, then others showed up and we took a walk down the street for pool, darts, NBA Jam, Buck Hunter, Karaoke, and Gibbler's strip tease.

We met our expectations of Saturday victories, going 4 for 4. We had the perfect game, no goals scored on us, 0 turns. TBA and Ding Wop both gave us a little more than we thought they had. And then the St. Cloud young team scored one on us ... er, okay okay, scored one on me.

On the day, I had 4 D's, though Becknasty kindly pointed out that one of them kind of came right to me. I got scored on once, the only goal in our 13-1 win. I threw 5 goals and caught 1. Zero turnovers.

Saturday night, I saw Rosco's place for the first time. What a cool house! For a while, we sat in front of a campfire listening to fireworks (note: not as cool as watching them). I regaled teammates with stories of the Tranny Patrol, my old magic days, and shared an exact figure of how much I lost on those two hands of poker while we counted out chip stacks. Kevin killed me at poker with his notably disciplined hand selection. Wimer then buried our team early in a game of spades with some extravagant bidding so Kevin got to win .... again.

Sunday morning, my man crush and I drove out to the fields on our way to face Goose Egg. I said to him, "we better be careful with them, they can beat us if we don't take it seriously." Sure enough, they go up on us 5-2, then 6-3. We fight our way back to 11-11 and Kev calls some big lines to lead us to the win. I had 0 D's in this game, a few shut downs on the dump, and allowed one thrown goal by J-Rod. Again, 0 turns.

And now for the get-to-know-ya portion of my blog:

• If you weren't there for it at Rosco's, I revealed to everyone that in high school, I performed magic for cub scouts, third grade classes, and the like. When challenged about the authenticity of my story, I proceeded to fail at a few flourishes with a plastic deck. Once I got my hands on a Bicycle deck, however, I was truly, extraordinarily, amazingly impressive with my 4 types of one handed cuts and 0 magic tricks demonstrated.
  

Madison was next. Maybe they were fatigued from their one point win against Climax, but they put up no fight at all. I got 0 D's. Twice, though, I poached well that resulted in a wild throw for a turnover. I also turned it over for the first time in this game. Then again the next point I played. I made a really poor decision on the first one on a swing to Rob and on the second, I tried to hurry it into Joe's hands in the endzone, only to overthrow him by about 3 field lengths.

And then, the long-awaited Sub Zero game. I'd never played in front of such a large crowd before. Ding Wop played Sub Zero in the sectional final in 05, but the crowd size was not as large or as interested. I think players in the region had been anticipating this game as much as we had. One, they wanted to see if Van Buren is for real, and two, they apparently wanted to see Sub Zero lose, quite reminiscent of Come Inside Where It's Warm.

We pull. Two throws later, Jimmy's huge block of Todd Owen's huck attempt can be heard from fields away and is echoed with a thunderous roar from the crowd. We pick up, and a few throws later, we're in the endzone with an upwind break on the first point. Again, the crowd is roaring.

We pull. Same line for us, but this time, Zero methodically works it up the field and scores on an upline cut. The crowd is deafeningly silent. Even though we had talked about it in the huddle about how there were a lot of people wanting to see us win, it wasn't until Sub Zero scored that it became obvious just how lopsidedly the support favored VBB.

Up 7-6 and receiving with the wind at our backs, fatigue had set in. Sub breaks us twice to take half and to return to serve. And the remainder of the game was much of the same. They go on an 8-2 run to win 13-9. Their depth dominated us. As it probably should have; they had a larger roster and have had just a few more practices than us.

Some highlights from the game:

• Jimmy's block of Todd Owens
  
• Charlie's eruption of "it's down it's down it's down!" followed immediately by a calm "oh, okay" with a what-did-I-do look on his face when told that it was up in an equally eruptive manner
  
• Ben's hand block of Todd
• Karsten catching everything
  
• Todd's gratuitous air spike following a play in which he was not even remotely involved
  
• Ross faking the air spike, in mockery of Todd, followed by a 90 second ovation by the crowd

Personally, I didn't do a whole lot, except try really hard and shut down 3 dumps. I had a small layout catch to save a dump. I laid out 3 other times. Two were really really close ones that I thought were all mine when I saw them go up, but missed them by inches. The third was just a desperate, try-to-be-a-distraction-to-cause-a-drop attempt (the one time I got scored on). Again, 0 turns.

On the weekend, I had just 2 turns, 0 drops, 2 received goals allowed, 1 thrown goal allowed, 4 D's, 6 goals, and a bunch of "nice try's." The layout I had underneath while I was guarding Truesdale was probably my best in 2 years, only I missed the D. Regardless of the outcome, it felt amazing. In general, my body is doing great. No soreness, a little fatigue (especially since Fridays are my hardest workout day right now), but 10% of my skin is decomposing somewhere on the field with all the horse manure. After being denied a cortisone shot from the Doc last Tuesday, he gave me a different NSAID to replace the 1600 mg of ibuprofin I normally take on tournament days and my knees feel brand new. No doubt, my ability to play at a higher level than I have a long time was a result of the pain-free running. I left the fields wanting to play MORE because I hadn't driven home from ultimate in about 2 years without a throbbing right knee.

If this post bored you, replace "right knee" with the body part of your choice and comment with "nice try."

Cake, Death, or Defeat

I put some thought into some way we (Cake or Death) could have been considered the winner of the indoor tournament last Saturday so I could title this post "Cake or Death Wins Come Inside Where It's Warm!" but I couldn't think of anything even remotely feasible, given that we exited in the semifinals by virtue of a loss to the team that lost in the finals. Instead, I'll give credit where credit is due: to St. Johns University.

I'll bet you didn't see that one coming.

SJU is a bit of an enigma. Somehow they produce solid talent year after year despite having a team that is hardly competitive. Wade, Schwa, Dave Klink, and Moss are the players that immediately come to mind. There are others, but those are the standouts. Two of them even made Sub Zero (though both declined the opportunity). Only 5 players from the U of MN have made Sub Zero (though 2 of them are not the same caliber players as the other 3). The difference? If I'm not mistaken, SJU has never made the top 10 at Regionals, whereas the U of MN hasn't missed the top 9 since I started playing in 1999. Additionally, my Hopkins High School boys effectively tied SJU last weekend with an 8 man rotation that did not include one of our captains.

Seiler made the same observation about Iowa State, but I don't think that it's equivalent. Iowa State is WAY better than SJU and has a much more impressive history. That said, Iowa State sure does produce some high caliber ultimate players. Rachel Derscheid and Lana come to mind. Hmm. That's all I can think of right now.

All that said, I was joking. SJU doesn't deserve any credit. It wouldn't surprise me if an Iowa State women's alumni team beat the current SJU team. Seriously. Why all the bitterness toward SJU? I'm just a little irked over some calls the SJU team made against my Hopkins boys and the overall poor spiritedness of that game. I was really proud of my boys for the way they handled it, though. Way better than the way their coach did.

The finals was interesting. Seemed like everyone in the field house was rooting for the Small Packages. Big cheers for SP scores, only cheers from their own team when Anna Nicole (Sub Zero) scored. Maybe it was due to the somewhat insensitive name of their team. Even if she was a bit of a mockery in her time on this planet, was it appropriate? Even if it was appropriate, was it funny? I dunno, who's to say their motives weren't innocent and it was actually a tribute to her legacy. It was still weird that there wasn't anyone cheering for Anna Nicole. Someone had mentioned that the Anna Nicole team was made up of a bunch of jerks, but that just wasn't the case. Pat, Naz, Truesdale, Schmellzlzlzly, KG, etc. are all some of the nicest guys around. If it were about personality, it must have been the Todd Owens effect, who, by the way, will have a dedicated post in this blog at some point.

In any case, the out of towners seemed to have home field advantage with the crowd on their side. Down to a 6 man rotation, they were really only behind during 3 points of the game. Two of those were at the end of the game, though, and the crowd did not see their heroes successfully defend their championship. There was some speculation afterward about the Joe Brisbois impact. I don't think there's any arguing that he alone can make up for 2 points.

How did I do? In the games where I was trying, I did well. Zero turns and a few good D's -- including a nice deep D where I made up a lot of ground against a Karsten backhand huck. In the games where I was goofing around, I had 4 turns and got served in the air 3 times by high schoolers. My backhand huck flew solidly. The forehand just sucks.

There aren't any more indoor tournaments for me to play this year. Thank goodness. In fact, I'd like to take this opportunity to officially retire from indoor tournaments. Until December.

SMRT Wins Minneapolis Winter Mixer!

I dedicate this post specifically to 3 world class ultimate players and worlder class people. Wait, did I say that right? Anyway, this one goes out to Dave "that water spill was Lou's fault" Karsten, Shawn "I downloaded Screech's sex tape" Walding, and Kevin "I blog more frequently than Joe's Brother" Seiler (the player, not the indoor coed team with the same name). It is expressly not dedicated to David "I like to play with my Wii" Bequette.

Moe (doing busiiness as SMRT) once again proved its pool play supremacy by defeating all of its pre-bracket opponents at the indoor Winter Mixer at the Midtown Y in Minneapolis this past weekend, including the game against the Seilerless, Brisboisless, Lunless, indoor version of CLX. By securing the top seed in its pool, SMRT also secured an easy path to the finals, having to go through only CSBSJU to reach the championship. It also set up an exciting CLX+randoms vs. CLX+ringers semis matchup. As last year's results might have predicted, the team with the Open division superstars fell to the coed cohesiveness in thrilling fashion (a one point victory), setting up a rematch of SMRT against the previously mentioned CLX squad. I was one of the exactly 3 men who said they would continue playing for SMRT. The 1 woman who had never played before didn't want to play on, leaving us with just 2.

Playing savage, we won the flip and received. We proposed a game to 1, but that proposal was evidently rejected because we scored first and were handed no trophy at that point. Next, they scored, then we did. Up 2-1, Becky changed his mind about playing and jumped in. CLX scores. Then, someone on the sideline blows the horn. I'm not sure who, so I'd say it was officially unofficial. Universe point, Becky still in, we get broken and CLX goes up 3-2 (Becky +/-: -2 in 2 points played). The SMRT men return to the line. Meanwhile, the SMRT women are taking off their shoes and CLX is crowning themselves champions. We insisted we wanted to play without our women, 5 on 3, but CLX refused and declared victory, citing the officially unofficial horn blow as the end of the game. But you know what I call refusal to play? Yup! Forfeit! Hence, the title of this post.

Something tells me not even my mom would side with me on that one.

Oh well, I had a really good tournament -- especially for someone who was ready to retire from indoor ultimate a year ago. All day, I had one turnover on a huck that went a little long and bendy. In the 2 CLX games, I had 2 pretty good D's (one in the air against Russ Barr and one clever poach D), 1 other not so impressive D, and was involved in the scoring on 4 of our 11 points (including catching a deflected disc in the endzone where I let the girl D it because I thought she was my teammate Gizmo catching the goal).

The verdict? Indoor still hurts. My knees especially. I rested my knees for 12 weeks after the end of the outdoor season hoping that I could walk up and down stairs without pain. The respite worked. I was pain free. But after just one indoor stint at the end of December, my knees were sore again. It always amazes how I can be playing, sprinting, lunging, and generally killing my joints and feel no pain, but just walking two days later can sometimes be a chore.

So for now, it appears there are 3 ways for me to deal with knee soreness:

1) Rest (Ice, Compress, Elevate)
2) Play Ultimate
3) Ibuprofin

One of those options is really good for my joints (#1). Too bad I'm most diligent about the other 2.