I went to my first Irish Frisbee Tournament as a part of the UCC team! We went to the Siege of Limerick in, you guessed it, Limerick. I wasn't really sure what to expect, especially since I didn't have cleats and had only been practicing with the team for a few weeks. We played the tournament as one team (sometimes they split into two teams if enough people are going to be there).
I had been sick all week before this tournament so I hadn't been going to any trainings which made me even more nervous. I still was not feeling the best when I went to bed on Friday night, but luckily when I got up at 5 Saturday morning I had miraculously gotten a lot better! The team rented a private coach bus to get everyone to the tournament, and it was leaving at 6am. This was weird to me, because we ALWAYS drive to our tournaments in the US. I realized that part of that is probably because it is normal for everyone in the US to have their drivers license by the time they get to college. The majority of the team here doesn't have a drivers liscence or a car because the public transportation is so good here. This was nice though because it meant we could sleep for the two hour drive to Limerick.
The fields that we were playing on all weekend were at the University of Limerick and they were 3rd Generation Astroturf which was amazing because i was like running on grass without all the mud and slipping. The tournament was taking place on all of the pitches which was great!
The lovely Astro at sunset
All these pitches were filled with frisbee!
For many reasons, this was probably one of the best organized tournaments I have ever been to. First off the fields were amazing, normally there are puddles or holes in the field, but that was not the case. They also had 8 changing rooms inside the building that you could change in, warm up in, or leave your stuff in so that it wouldn't get wet outside if it started to rain. They also did a great job with their merchandise. Every tournament that I have gone to, it seems like they are sold out of discs and jerseys and shorts by the middle of the first day, so if you aren't quick, you are out of luck. Here they had merchandise all day, and had ordered enough discs that they still had some available on Sunday! I made it in time to get a jersey and a disc.
The food was also above par. Of course, being me, I love to eat so this was great! In the tent for "breakfast" they probably had about 100 loaves of bread, and you could grab as much as you want with jam, nutella, and other spreads to put on it. They also had boxes of apples and bananas you could grab. This is quite different from at home where normally they just give you a bag of food that doesn't even feed your entire team and once that food is gone, you are out of luck. The tournament also provided lunch everyday! They gave each team a box that had enough food for each player to make a sandwich roll with ham and cheese and veggies, plus they had rice cakes, and chocolate and peanuts and some more fruit.
The games at this tournament were shorter than I'm used to as well, they were only 65 minutes long instead of 85. This meant they could fit more game times in the day, and we ended up having a game on then a game off then another game on all day. I was conflicted about this, it meant that we were able to take a breather after each game, but there was also only about 20-30 minutes of time before you had to start warming up again for the next game so it was hard to get a good warm up in, and you didn't really get a good cool down either.
Either way, we played pretty well and got better as a team at working together as the weekend went on because many of the players were new to outdoor play. In addition to the UCC team, another team from Cork attended the tournament, the Cork club team Rebel Ultimate. There are a few women who play for both teams, and most of the UCC team at least goes to Rebel practices. The Rebel ladies made it to the final, and ended up losing a hard fought battle against a French club team, but it was fun to watch a few of the people that I have practiced with play in the final. The Rebel lads also made it to the final, and that final was probably one of the best games of Ultimate I have ever seen. Rebel was down 8-2 and went on a 8 point streak to make the game 10-8. They ended up winning 14-12 and it was great Ultimate from both sides.
The Rebel men's game
The Rebel men's game
The awards ceremony was spot on too. They had each team do spirit scores for every game, and for those of you who don't know this about frisbee, spirit is the driving force of the game. With no referees to help make calls, it is all up to the players to have good attitudes and play fairly. They also had each team pick an MVP, a Most Spirited Player and then another player to be recognized as a sort of secondary MVP. Each of the MVP's from every team then got a hat at the awards ceremony that said MVP and their name was called. Each MSP had their name called and got to go up and get a cupcake. I think that this was great because the team got to decide as a whole, and these people were recognized as upholding the values of the game.
Overall, it was a great experience to see how tournaments are run in Ireland and get to know the team better. I can't wait for Inter-varsities this weekend where every University/College in Ireland sends a team to compete, sort of like their version of nationals!
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