Regionals!

This weekend we'll be in Burlington, playing for the right to go to nationals. With only two bids and four of the best teams in the country, it is going to be a battle.

On Saturday we'll be playing a lot of the teams that we played at sectionals: Furious, Voodoo and Downpour. Surprisingly, the biggest match up of the day, Furious, is the very first game of the day. So there's no room for a late start.

If all goes according to seeding, we'll play Rhino in the semi final on Sunday, and Revolver in the final. The winner of the final gets the first bid. The losers of the semi final play each other, and the winner of this game plays the loser of the final for the last bid.

I've had a bit of a frustrating month. My hamstring kept me from practicing at full speed. And despite lots of rehab exercises it did not really get better. Yesterday I had my first all out practice in over a month. That felt great and today my leg is only a little sore. Looking forward to play again!

This is the first time I'll be playing to extend my season. Lose twice and my season is over, scary!  The intensity, with two teams fighting for their season, is going to be unreal.
It's going to be an exciting weekend!

Follow us this weekend on twitter and score reporter!

USA vs Europe

I've been in the states now for a couple of months now and the USAU series are about to begin. Playing here is definitely different from playing in Europe and I'll describe some things I've noticed below.  I'll go over the season, training and tournaments.

Season
The first difference is that there is a very defined season, with distinct phases. The season starts just before tryouts when people start getting in shape. This is when I arrived in Seattle. I wanted to have a few weeks to get adjusted before the Combine, which was a mini-tournament process Sockeye uses to make the first round of cuts. I wasn't as in shape as I wanted to be, but could still hang with the rest of players. During and just after the combine, rookies learn the team's system. It's great to learn a new system when the vast majority of the players know what they are doing. You can learn by copying others. After tryouts, there is an experimental phase to work out what combination of players and roles work well. Especially at ECC we really focused on trying different things. I played the first months as a deep cutter, but now I play as a handler. And finally it's go time during the fall series, which start this weekend.
Another difference is how few games there are for Sockeye. I am used to playing games almost every weekend, playing the Dutch league and various tournaments. With Sockeye we only play one tournament per month, and a lot of the games (especially early season) are easy wins. It's frustrating at times to feel like I'm in the best shape I've ever been in but playing much less than I'm used to.

Training
The preparation for game is also different. Obviously, Sockeye works a lot harder than the teams I played for in the Netherlands. I spend more time training without a Frisbee than I do with one: weight lifting twice a week, track once a week, a short practice during the week and a long one on the weekend. This work really pays off-- I can go all out at the five-hour weekend practices and not be very sore the next day.

Before coming to Seattle I was afraid my body would not be able to handle the training load. Even though I pulled my hamstring by over training, I think I can play at this level and stay healthy. It does require me to pay closer attention to my body and working to get stronger in the off season.


Tournaments
The tournaments here have a very different feel than they do in Europe. They are played on one massive field, there is no central tent or canteen to hang out, teams take care of their own lodging, there is no awards ceremony and there are no spirit circles. In the Netherlands there is a lot of down time at tournaments where you just hang out and watch games. This time is scarce at American tournaments. Because of all of this, there is less interaction with opponents and more focus on your own team.

Another thing that struck me is the lack of endzone lining. The outer bounds of all the fields are perfectly lined, but the endzone line is not there. This leads to confusion in every game. It seems easy enough to add these lines, so I don't really understand why this is not done.

One final difference is that a lot of teams don't play after they get knocked out of contention. Whereas we play for 3rd, 5th or 7th place in Europe, here teams usually don't bother to play these games. In the beginning I was really surprised by this: Games are rare so why would you pass up the chance to play an evenly matched team? However, these games are usually versus teams we have already played in the tournament, so it does make some sense.

It is awesome to play ultimate here. It's great to work hard with such a dedicated group of people. The scarcity of games makes me enjoy the times that I get to play even more. The USAU series start this weekend with sectionals in Burlington. Can't wait!

Super Short Update

My computer crashed two weeks ago, so I wasn't able to write an update earlier.

I pulled my hamstrings two weeks ago. I was doing weightlifting twice a week,  one track and two practices per week. That proved to be a little too much. I could not play at Labor Day, but my leg feels a lot better now and I hope I can play at sectionals this weekend.

Although I did not play, Labor Day was fun. We got to play some teams we had not seen before. We had wins versus PONY, Cash Crop, Double Wide and Johnny Bravo and lost on universe against both Rhino and Chain. Biggest lesson from the weekend: We live in a scary region, 4 teams out of the NW region ended in the top 5.

Look for a post about differences between US and European ultimate later this week!

ECC Sunday results

After the games on Saturday we enjoyed the famous salmon dinner and slept in Andrew's massive lake house. In the morning we got up early for our 8 AM game. It was colder than on Saturday and there was less wind.

Streetgang 15 - 4

We were all late to the fields because there was some confusion about the starting time. But despite the short warmup, we still started the game ready and firing. It felt like an easy game all the way trough.

Ring of Fire 12 - 14

This was our quarter final. Ring was physical to the point that I could not chose my position where I wanted to. If I was finally in position they would just keep pushing into me. There is always some contact in American ultimate, but this was something else. They were pushing with arms and elbows, holding shirts and laying out into people.

Despite this, the O team did an OK job to keep scoring. The D had an off game, converting only once.

It was hard to play against a team like this, and I really need to figure out a better way to deal with it.

Spencer with a sick grab towards the end of the game (Scobel Wiggins)

Machine 15 - 10

Our last game was against Chicago Machine. Down at half 8-7, we finally turned it on in the second half. We had a D point were we had 5 layout bids in a row, but did not get the turn. Other highlights included Nord's grab below, and Frank's two handed block on an ex Sockeye player.

Scobel Wiggins

We did not play our final game because it was against a team we already played. This weekend was the first with the full team. I really have to get used to the scarcity of playing time. I played 75% of the O points and one or two points in D most games. This is already way less than I am used to, and this was without two injured players that play the same role.

ECC was a learning tournament for us. We experimented with different things, and winning was not the main goal. It still feels bad to lose though, especially the Ring game left a bad taste in my mouth. It did provide motivation to work harder the next couple of weeks. Labour day here we come!

ECC Saturday results

The Emerald City Classic is a three day tournament hosted near Seattle. On Friday there are some games that don't count towards the rest of the tournament. Unfortunately we did not play ourselves, but I did get to see some exciting games.

On Saturday we got up early to drive to Burlington, about an hour and a half North of Seattle. In our brand new outfits we played four games. It was a chilly day with clouds covering the sky and a slight breeze. I started the day with pain in my right hip flexor, luckily it did not keep me from playing.

This is what happened:

Urutau 15 - 1

We came out excited and firing. The Colombians seemed intimidated and did not played at their best. My favorite moment was playing 4 man cup versus their 155 cm handlers. The game was over long before the end of the round, this gave us time to see Voodoo barely loosing to Truckstop.

Ironside 10 - 13

Again we came out firing, starting of with a 5-1 lead. With two of the turns coming from the 4-man cup. They adjusted well, changing their D to force middle and giving us a hard time getting the disc off the line. Ironside is very athletic and well coached team. Even though it was frustrating to lose, it was a fun game. I'm looking forward to playing them again.

Truckstop 15 - 10

I can't remember much detail from this game. They were pretty physical, and I felt like there was a lot of unnecessary bitching going on. I had a dumb turnover, my only in the weekend.

Buzz Bullets 15 - 6

The last game of Saturday was versus the Buzz Bullets. It was really cool to play them again, because they have a very unique playing style. We stopped their flick hucks, and made them throw backhand instead. This worked very well, we got a lot of Ds on floaty hucks. I got a D on a floaty huck myself and a block in the cup.

Pictures: Scobel Wiggins.

ECC Preview

This weekend I'll be playing at Sockeye's own Emerald City Classic. On Saturday we are playing Urutau from Colombia, Boston Ironside, Truckstop from the DC area and Buzz Bullets from Japan. This will be our first chance this season to measure ourselves against the other top teams.

It's really amazing to have top teams from all over the world to come and play against you. I am really excited to battle all these teams!

We'll be updating our twitter between games, and there's a tournament twitter. Check it out!

P.S. Anybody remember Hylke Snieder? He lives in Seattle now and will be playing with us this weekend!

Finally, an update

It's been a long time since my last post. A lot of things have happened since: winning Solstice, playing Potlatch, break, playing Nexgen, tracks, lifts, practices and more track. I will write about some of those things later, but first two videos.

The first one is an introductory video of Sockeye 2011. MC put it together and it looks sweet! Look for me around 2:25.

Next is a video of our game against Nexgen. They just finished their tour winning 8 out of their 15 games.

Also, you can buy our jerseys now! Andy put together a sweet web shop, so check it out!

Sockeye 2011!

De eerste 24 spelers voor Sockeye 2011 zijn bekend:

Aaron Talbot

Adam Holt

Alex Nord

Aly Lenon

Andrew Fleming

BJ Sefton

Chris Kosednar

Danny Karlinsky

Dave Bestock

Erik Doesburg

Eddie Feeley

Frank Barich

Matt Rehder

Michael Caldwell

Moses Rifkin

Nate Castine

Phil Murray

Ray Illian

Reid Koss

Sam Harkness

Skip Sewell

Spencer Wallis

Tim Gehret

Tyler Kinley

Er zijn nog drie plekken over. Deze worden misschien nog ingevuld door spelers die nu nog niet in Seattle zijn.

Ik ben echt super pumped om in dit team te mogen spelen!

Flowerbowl

On the familiar fields of WUGC 2008, I played my first tournament with a US team. Sockeye had split up in two teams, I was on team Black.

On Saturday we played Beefshark (UBC College players), Rhino (Portland) and Furious George's O team. We won all these games, only the Rhino game felt like a tight match, 9-8.

At the end of the day we played a showcase game against Furious. This match was played with the full, combined teams. It was really exciting to play with such a big team and the energy was high the whole time. We won the game, 13-9.

Score in the showcase game. Photo by Jeff Bell

We went out to get all-you-can-eat sushi in downtown Vancouver on Saturday night. It was a bit expensive but definitely worth it. Especially because we got a free circus to go with it: The Vancouver team had won an important hockey game, so there was a big party in the streets. Zebra crossings had changed into high five lines, people were hugging random strangers, people were running on the streets to high five people in cars. It was pretty awesome.

The next day started off with a game against the other Sockeye team. We had scrimmaged them on Monday and won 13-5. This time we could not bring it, our D was weak and we made some silly drops. I was not playing very well myself, I feel like I spend most of the game trailing either MC or Ray. We lost 9-13.

We played Blackfish directly after. We were fired up after our loss to team Red. We got some easy D's with our four man cup and they could not really pressure us to make turns. End score: 13-5.

That was the end of the round robin. Normally the number one and two would play each other in the final. But the two Sockeye teams ended up number one and two, so we combined and played the Furious George D team that took some extra pick ups. It was once again an intense game, but we were clearly the better team. 13-8

Tournaments here are very different from what I am used to. This is what stood out most:
- We slept in a hotel, in a four-person room without windows that could open, with 9 people.
- We often played two games in a row, with only a 15 minute break in between.
- There was no price ceremony, no spirit circles, no central tent where players hung out.
- People kept stepping on my feet, it happened at least 5 times.
- There is so much more contact here. Instead of going around you to get to space, most players just go through you.

Next up: Solstice June 18th and 19th in Eugene, Oregon.

Ultimate in Seattle

I have been really impressed by the number of good players here in Seattle. There are definitely some players that did not make it through the first cuts of Sockeye that would've made it onto the Dutch national team. In a way it makes sense, there are just so many people that play in this city.

Just in schools alone, there are 2500 kids in Seattle that play ultimate. In every other park there is a game going on. During Sockey practices there are usually two games being played at the same fields. These games vary from no-stall-count, 6-on-6 turn over fests to decent games were everybody mastered the side-arm. On top of this, it is not uncommon for elite players to move to Seattle to play for Sockeye.

These 2500 kids are trained by payed coaches that really understand the game. I visited the Spring Reign tournament, the biggest junior tournament in the world, and the disc skills of these kids are really amazing. A lot of Sockeye players are coaches, so these kids are trained by the best. For Sockeye it is also a really good deal, because there is just a huge pool of players that are very good even before the go to college.

This coaching experience also shows in the Sockeye practices. They are all very well thought out, clearly communicated and practices are clearly building upon the previous ones. It is really inspiring to be part of a group like this and I am sure I am going to keep on learning a ton.

First practice

Yesterday was the first big post-combine practice. It was so much of fun! We worked on cuts from the flex stack, got started on a zone called Fuck Shit Up (or FSU), and played some games.

It is a bit weird to practice and try out at the same time. On the one hand I want to learn as much as possible. Playing on the edge of my comfort zone, I make more mistakes. On the other hand I want to play my best game and show that I can play without making any mistakes. I guess it's a bit of a balance, but I think about trying out as little as possible since it distracts me from my game.

One of the things I need to learn here is to not make small in cuts when people are backing me. Instead of stepping in for a small pass, I need to to work to get open deep or come under for more yards. I am getting a bit better at cutting deep successfully, but I still go for the easy mini in cuts to often.

Practice was also tiring. Four hours of running with only a couple of breaks, just enough to get something to eat or fill up your water bottle, is a lot. The 45 minute bike ride through hilly Seattle left me exhausted and hungry. I kind kind of ate all the food I had an then crashed onto my bed to wake up an hour later...

Next: Track on Tuesday, pod on Wednesday.

I made it through round one!

I made it through the first cuts of tryouts. Along with 17 others I got selected to the next phase in the tryouts for Sockeye '11.

The next part of the tryouts last for three weeks. In this three weeks there will be track workouts and pods for the selected group. At the end of the three weeks, on June 4th and 5th, we play a tournament in Vancouver with two teams.

I think my biggest challenge is (still) to change my game from demanding every second or third pass to getting less discs for more yardage. I'm also not fully accustomed to the physical game here, although I am getting more and more comfortable with the constant bumps.

I am very excited to play at this round of the tryouts. Everyone is really good, so the level will be high at the practices. The level will keep rising as there will be more returners at the practices. It will be exciting to see if I can keep up :)

The Combine

Vandaag was eindelijk de grote dag, de Sockeye combine! Op de prachtige velden onder een stralende zon speelden ongeveer 100 man voor een plekje in de volgende ronde van tryouts.

De spelers werden opgedeeld in 5 teams, elk team speelde één keer tegen elkaar. Twee van de vier wedstrijden werden gespeeld op het ‘showcase’ veld. Deze wedstrijden werden extra goed bekeken door de Sockeye captains.

Ik werd ingedeeld in het team van 2006 Callahan winner Tim Gehret. Verder zat ik in het team met veel college spelers, waaronder de captain van de University of Washington (UW). UW heeft zich voor het eerst in tijden gekwalificeerd voor Nationals. Dat is over twee weken, die gasten zijn dus allemaal top fit. Ik had zelf nogal last van m’n hamstrings. Afgelopen dinsdag was er een erg intense track workout met erg veel sprints. Iedereen die daar was had nu, na drie dagen, nog steeds last van zijn benen. Er waren zelfs gasten die eerder moesten stoppen.

Er werden stats bijgehouden voor de wedstrijden, ik was nummer 5.

De eerste wedstrijd begon meteen goed, we speelden op het showcase veld en waren veel sterker dan het andere team. Ik speelde ok met een paar scores, een layout D en een forehand huck tegen de wind in.

De tweede wedstrijd ging niet zo lekker. Ik had last van de hitte/zon, m’n voeten (nieuwe schoenen) en hooikoorts. Mijn hele team had een beetje weinig energie en we verloren dan ook met bijna dubbele cijfers.

Na anderhalf uur rust was onze derde wedstrijd weer op het showcase veld. Het was een lekkere, harde pot die we wonnen op universe point. Ik speelde lekker met een poach layout D, een D op universe point en later in hetzelfde punt een poach waardoor de tegenstanders de schijf weggooide.

De laatste wedstrijd was een uitputtingsslag. Iedereen zat er flink doorheen na drie wedstrijden in de hitte. Er waren ontzettend veel turnovers, maar wij waren toch wat consistenter. Ik gooide de winnende pass over drie kwart veld.

Ik was onder de indruk van het niveau van de combine. Het was de meest competitieve combine van tenminste de afgelopen vijf jaar. Er waren geen echte super sterren (die nog niet voor Sockeye spelen), maar iedereen begrijpt het spelletje, kan hard rennen, hoog springen en goed gooien.

Het was een erg leuke en vermoeiende dag, ik hoop dat ik morgen nog een beetje kan lopen…

Ik hoor morgen of ik door ben naar het volgende deel van tryouts. Hierin wordt er drie weken met een groep van zo’n 40 man getraind en het wordt afgesloten 3 en 4 juni tijdens een toernooi in Vancouver.

Welcome to What's Krakken?!

Day 23 in Seattle, and I finally got around to starting this blog :)

I'll try to update it about once or twice a week. I'll write about my life here in Seattle and about playing ultimate in the US of A. There are probably a lot of people interested in how it is to play ultimate in North America. Therefore, I'll tag every story about frisbee with "Ultimate", that way you can read about American ultimate only and skip the other bogus.

I am not sure yet whether I'll write in English or Dutch. I might switch it around a bit, but I'll try to stick with one language per post. I don't have a camera or hipster phone (yet), so unfortunately I won't have any pictures at first.