USA Ultimate

Wind, 40,000, and Karaoke

Photo Gallery: 7/18/09
Video Clip: 7/18/09
Video Extra: Dragon Boating

It rained rather hard last night but stopped a couple hours before we took off for the fields. We all met in the lobby at 10 and soon after took a coach bus to the fields. All of our tournament transport is done by comfortable coach busses. I wonder if we can bring them back with us?

We headed north from the hotels to the practice field, located across the street from the stadium. We arrived about 20 minutes before our time slot so the team started warming up in some side space while Japan and Taiwan finished their practices. (The field was being used by two teams at once.) The day was bright, warm, and very windy. Very, windy. We were told a typhoon was passing the island and not hitting it, so the wind should clear up by the early afternoon. It turned out that was correct, but for the duration of the practice we got to experience some gusts that were upwards of 50-60mph.

The team started off with some easy throwing, small box drill, and a set of marking drills. After warming up the team moved into half field scrimmaging with various zone defenses. The team looked smooth working the disc quickly and with purpose through the very strong wind. At just before noon the team wrapped up and we headed back to the bus for the short ride to the stadium.

We unloaded at the player's entrance and met our guide who took us into the stadium for our tour. We started off by seeing the locker rooms and indoor warm up area. We were all very impressed by the size of the space, the four massage tables, and a room that seemed to be used for technical work. Next we headed to the media center which was filled with banks of computers and phones. Down the hall we got to see some of the Ultimate press conference. Gwen was our rep at the event and we got to see her speak for a while. Go Gwen!

Next we headed out into the stadium and on to the field! The grass was in decent condition and once again we were awestruck with the size of the stadium. Out in the center of the field there is large "World Games 2009 Ultimate" text written on the field. Awesome.

The team milled around for a bit on the field soaking in the sheer enormity of the playing environment. We took several pictures with some of the volunteers and then I headed up to the second level of the stadium to get some group shots from above. As I took the pictures I noticed I was in the space that was used by the Taiwan president during the opening ceremonies.

We then headed out of the stadium and boarded our bus. A few minutes into the ride the big discovery of the way was made -- a fully functional Karaoke system with multiple mics was on the bus! So, the whole team started signing! We rocked out to classics like "Hey Jude", "Mambo #5", "Desperado", and many other classics. Dylan won the actual voice contest, Chelsea and Beau won the seated dance portion of the night, and Gwen and Cara won the "do what they are doing in the video" contest. Such style. Such grace.

Our next stop was lunch at the catering center where we filled up on another tasty buffet lunch. The highlight of the meal was connecting with the US Dragon Boat team who told us all about how their sport works and how their race went. We learned that boats aren't supposed to block each other, but they do anyway, it's a very rough sport (broken oars, bloody arms), and that it's played all over the globe. We also had some fun playing the game "Which team would be able to win at another sport if the teams playing in that sport didn't participate".

Back at the hotel everyone was unloaded and headed out to enjoy a few hours of free time. Some people headed out to see fist ball and another group went to see softball. At 6:00 we met up to catch the bus to dinner and again enjoyed the cool chill of the catering center. After dinner the players all headed back to the Queen Hotel for a team meeting. Greg and Meredith headed to the nightly WFDF logistics check in meeting, and I scoped out the local laundromat.

After the team meeting I headed out and completed the laundry run as the team went to sleep.

Everyone is very excited for tomorrow's games. We play Australia at 11:30 and then Canada at 7:10. It should be one heck of a day. We'll be covering the games live via the Twitter feed. WFDF's coverage is online right here. I put up a score reporter page for the tournament right here.

Time to sleep.