I didn't grow up with Halloween so I missed Canada's annual excuse for a costume party. This year, we celebrated Halloween in Victoria, the weekend coinciding with Victoria Ultimate's Halloween tournament, Pumpkin Pull. (Pumpkin's the obvious metaphor, but for those outside of ulti circles, a pull is the throw that begins a point, the kick-off of ultimate.) Sarah and I were members of a team created especially for the tournament, drawing largely from players of Comox Valley's ultimate league and including a number of our Campbell River friends. Pumpkin Pull is a costumed tournament. We decided to replicate Bill Murray's crew in the 2004 Wes Anderson film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. We were Team Zissou in baby blue and red beanies. Easy enough costume to put together and visually identifiable. Sarah created the Zissou flag which flew on the sidelines of our games.
We played six games over the weekend, four on Saturday and two on Sunday, against teams from Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, as well as Victoria and Nanaimo. We lost all six, but improved through the tournament. We lost our first game, 13-1, and our last, 10-9. (Admittedly, our Sunday opposition was closer in experience and strength than Saturday's.) Team Zissou was low on tournament experience but made up with tonnes of good cheer and attitude. Ninja's jellies contributed to the spirit.
Sarah's sister Katy was there to document a couple of our games. Her photos capture something of the tournament.
Disc is up.
Break that force, Sarah.
One flick coming right up.
So close, Alana.
Sarah on Nude Crayon; nice feel.
Trevor flinging the disc.
Sarah to Dax, disc poetry.
Quinton playing mighty defence on White Crayon.
Yellow Crayon's forehand release, like some kind of Jedi tai chi. Darrin shuts down the break-force side.
Tired of the cup: let 'er rip.(Cup is a form of zone. We encountered both three- and four-person cup zone, with the cup closing down the disc handler, and defenders upfield operating in their respective zones.)
Extension.
Our third game of the weekend was against Like A Box Of Crayons, from Vancouver. Our team became more comfortable playing against their zone defence, and we put points on the board. They were one of the more creative costumes we played against. Others included Tweedle, dressed in black and white stripes a la Tweedledum and Tweedledee (depending on how well they were playing, they cheered "Tweedledum" or "Tweedledee"); Tight & Bright, in 80s fluorescents; Dirty Banjo had bales of hay on the sideline, but disappointingly no banjos.
In ultimate, opposing teams have a little get-together after playing. Teams sing a song or play a game. We fed our opponents Eric's sublime alcoholic jellies. Like A Box Of Crayons played a version of Pictionary, using a "Crayon" to draw an image we had to guess. Hilarious.
Dave's pull: game on. (Spot Duffgirl in the background.)
Ninja on the disc; my peripherals hard at work.
Trev taking a beauty, thumb and two fingers on the disc.
Jon swooping in.
Saturday done and dusted.
Team Zissou.
Time to alleviate our ills.All in all, a great experience and for most of us a huge learning curve. Our team gained a greater appreciation for tournament play. By the end of the weekend we'd put ourselves in a position to win a game (and we should have won that one). We also had the chance to watch a high quality final, between Smitten Kittens of Victoria and Pandamonium from Seattle. The level of play was high, with huge hucks, massive layouts, a wickedly tight Panda man/zone defence and great spirit. Craziest of all, we saw a Greatest result in a Callahan (translation: Smitten guy diving out-of-bounds, caught and passed disc in-bounds before touching out-of-bounds = Greatest; unfortunately for Smitten, passed to Panda guy standing in Smitten's end-zone = automatic Panda point = Callahan. Got to love the distinctive language of sports.). Both rare plays, on the same play. Next tournament is April, Udderbowl in Nanaimo. Will we have a team there?
