Summer League Champions!

I spent the weekend playing in the Ottawa Ultimate League championships. I played in two leagues this summer: women's and co-ed. Ottawa's co-ed ultimate league is so huge that each night is a different division, and each division is subdivided into tiers. And then they run this stupid ladder system that's supposed to ensure you're always evenly matched against your opponent, but in reality ensures that you keep playing the same small number of teams over and over. So even though the co-ed league on Tuesdays has 78 teams (!), my team only played 10 of them.

ANYWAY, we were 4th at the end of the regular season. And a distant 4th, I'd say, since we'd been pretty much pummeled by the teams ahead of us. So I really wasn't thinking this would be a championship season. But today the gods of ultimate brought wind and rain, exactly the equalizers our aging, speed-challenged team needed for a semi-final matchup against the very confident top seed. I won't bore you with a dissertation on how weather conditions radically affect ultimate and the kinds of strategic adjustments that should be made in response. I'll just say that our high-flying opponents did not make the necessary adjustments, and we did. End result: We crushed them. It was devastating. 13-4 or something? I'm still not sure what happened. Our opponent played some shiteous ultimate, that's for sure. And we were pretty good, all things considered.

So, the underdogs advanced to the finals against another team that thought we'd be on the receiving end of a serious pasting. And the exact same things happened. We continued to play smart. Our opponent didn't adjust to the conditions or our defense, and we won by a comfortable 15-9 margin. Woo-hoo! All hail the 7 Deadly Spins, Tuesday Night Tier 1 League Champions.

It felt very good to win not just because it seemed so unlikely given previous results, but also because I have lost an ungodly number of championship games in my career. Seriously, my record is ugly. So even though I wasn't highly invested in this team or the results of the season, I was very happy not to lose yet another final. Also, I had a great day on the field, scoring a ton of goals, throwing a few more, and making a couple plays on D. So, yay me!

Women's league playoffs was Saturday. In contrast to today, it was very hot and sunny. My team lost by 1 point in the semis and won by 1 point in the consolation final. Good enough for 3rd place. I can live with that. At least we didn't lose in the final. And it was nice to end the season with a comeback win.

That's my dispatch from the narrow world of the fringe sport I play. I'm off to treat my blood blisters. . .