Transition to tournament play

[D_Rocks]

So here is the situatuion.

over the last year me and a decent group have been playing pick-up games of ultimate.  we played first semester almost everynight without fail. second we slowed up  little bit to a couple times a week. but we always played a rougher but looser format. our field was about half again as big as a standard field with bottomless endzones. and for the most part we didt play side-lines. ( if you could make the catch you would just walk back to sideline and play-on)

now we are going to play in our first tournament this weekend. i am just wondering if anyone has any good advice for us.

The biggest issue i can forsee is just the format changes and the boundaries.  im just looking for someone with tournament experience to tell me what to look for and what to prepare for.

[chargeorge]

Make sure everyone knows the formal rules, and be prepared for travels, fouls and other calls you aren't familar with. 
Make sure you are familiar with Zone offense, you'll see a zone D some point, so be ready.
Be prepared, since you are used to playing on a half field, you are going to be running twice as much out there, make sure you've got plenty of subs. 
Make sure to bring a whiteboard and have some people writing down the score.  Once you've played a 13 point game to 19 you'll understand why . 
Be ready for cheers, at the end of the game other teams will come up to you with an encouraging or possibly discouraging (hopefully not) cheer.   You don't have to, but it's nice to reciprocate. 
Bring a TON of socks, like 3 pairs per day.  Change them often, this will help your feet. 


Have fun and Don't get discouraged, if your school team hasn't played in a tourney before it's a different world out there. 

[evanhp]

Let your guys know there will be a lot of calls made by other teams. New teams are sniffed out like a scared fox to a wolf ( or something cool like that). The teams will know youve never played and either they will
a)be very encouraging and help you learn the rules with great Spirit or
b) they will take advantage of your ignorance and try to make calls and get you down and angry and your whole team will end up hating everyone they play lol (lets hope thats not the case)

Just make sure they all know that there is an official way to play, official rules, scoring, boundaries, and calls that they might not understand at first, but it will come in time.
Dont let them get hot headed while arguing for things especially when they dont know the rules. Let them also know not to expect a win every game but progress is key. Shoot to win a game and go from there.

Most of all good luck and have fun, let us know how it goes, I would be interested to see. Happy first tournament butterflies !

[D_Rocks]

Thanks for the help,

i hadn't really thought of the calls being a big issue untill now. When we play ourselves,(and i kinda assume this is standard) we rarely call each other out on something unless it is crazy obvious or blatent. so i'll remember to be looking out for that.

at the very least this tournement will be fun, we are most worried about a team from outside our school coming in to clean-up. this tournement is being put on by the intramural dept. of our college so i don't know what outside competion we will have, but i guess we'll see.

I'll make sure i give you guys an update after were all done.

[evanhp]

Ohh.......
If its an intramural tourney than you shouldnt have too big of a problem.

I was thinking this was more of an Open tourney or something.

You should probably be fine than, Im assuming most teams will be on about the same level.

But most importantly have fun and show everyone how much fun Ultimate is and keep them coming.

[D_Rocks]

Well as far as me thinking this was more of a school exclusive tournement, we were very wrong.

once we arrived on saturday morning we very quickly gathered that the teams entered were NOT other ferris teams. their was a good portion of the teams that were legit clubs even as far as showing up with their coaches. which was a long huck away from the level of competition we expected.

the tournement was well organized and prepared, which made it easy.
As team we didn't do great. We didn't even win a game. I think that skill-wise we could play most of the teams there. we were just not prepared for the format and conditioning.

I think the biggest dissapointment to our team was the attitude a couple of the teams held towards us. they were far from fun to play against.

But overall it was a fun weekend and a huge learning experience.

[chargeorge]

I'm sorry you ran into some dicks man, unfortunately it's going to happen in this and any other sport. 

Who organized the tourney your school, or another team on campus? 

Does your school have an existing ultimate club team?  If not, you should look to start one.  The addition of funding,the ability to secure field space, can help bring you guys to the next level.

It might be a long ass drive, but you should look into Unleashed and Untrained, it's a big college tournament in Montreal, http://www.mcgillultimate.ca/?q=node/11 .  It's designed around colleges bringing all their freshmen out to train and tryout, so it often has a low key attitude.  The team also does a great job finding space for ultimate players to sleep so you most likely won't have to pay for hotels.

the 12 hour drive from michigan may be a bit rough for a weekend tourney though (totally worth it though)

[Apriori]

When I read this early on I figured you were talking about Ferris.
You should definitely try developing a team at Ferris, we need more of an ultimate presence in Michigan. There are plenty of big tournaments in the area like Chicago Invite, No Wisconsiquences, etc.

[D_Rocks]

Yeah, We are definitely looking to start a team if at all possible. at one point like four years ago there was a club team here at Ferris but their numbers dwindled to the remnants we have now. i will be a sophmore this fall and am really hoping to get the team running well enough to continue on after i leave. assuming we get a team going, one of our issues will be finding equal competitors. magnUM is one of the only teams i have heard about but they are a little over our heads.  okay. WAY over our heads. Is their anyone from the great lakes area that would know where to look for tournements and teams. The UPA site will be able to help but im just looking for personal experiance with the teams around the area.


The tourny was put on by the Ferris Recreational Center. but it was a completely open tournement. their were a few teams from the smaller grand rapids area colleges. I can remember Calvin college specifically.

[evanhp]

from my experience with better local teams is that they are willing to help out other programs.
you just need to get a hold of their captain and start emailing him or talking to him expressing your passion to start a team and im sure he can give you some tips.

you guys could schedule scrimmages with their B team, or freshmen team, or even scrimmage their A team. you can learn a lot against a really good team, at least it can tell your team how much better you can get and also what to work on. teams know how good they are and if they recognize you guys are new, they should be more than willing to help you out, thats just from my experience as a "new" bad team local private school team who is overhshadowed by Missouri State University to our north.

i encourage you to seek out their competition and friendship, it has proven a world of difference for us.
we still are bad lol but my guys know what we can work on, and many of them have stepped up their level of playing and gone on to club teams and such.

[mzappitello]

If you are looking to start up a team, and are looking for competition, I would say that you might want to consider looking into the ohio ultimate scene.  Ohio has a good number of solid college teams.