Rocking in Rostock ?

Errrrrrrr…. No… One can say that we were not “rocking” in Rostock for rocking can have two definitions : decimating all opposing teams in the Masters (over 30 years old) Division at the 2005 EUCC (European Ultimate Club Championships) by my team the Lizard Kings, or partying/dancing up a storm… unfortunately neither of these occurred.

Worse, I took notes almost every night and today (the Saturday after the tournament) I have no idea where the paper scrap disappeared to… so I will have to use my halfheimer’s memory.

As you know, outdoor ultimate frisbee is played seven on seven so in a Masters club which had only 24 members, we originally had 16 players sign up for this tournament which was to take place between Sunday July 3 to Saturday July 9. One of our principal handlers (or a backcourt guard in basketball) Scott, an American, injured his ankle the weekend before in an open tournament in Chinon (near Tours) playing for the LK so he had to drop out… since his trip was pre-paid, he came anyway (in from Poland but where he has been living for over a year with his girlfriend but working during the week in Bristol, UK) as sort of a “trainer” who helped out Emery our coach and quasi-player. Another player had to stay back at the last minute due to his eventual new job… leaving us with 14 players for a strenuous week-long tournament… funnily enough, most of the masters teams arrived with fewer than fourteen players (except for one other French team).

The Masters Division in Rostock was almost cancelled as two teams backed out in the prior month as the English and German (Wall City from Berlin) teams sneaked into the Open Division… as they wanted to have more competitive games… and in after thought, they were probably correct. Wall City finally ended up 22nd out of 32 teams… I did not even know under what name the English team played… so LK who was originally supposed to represent France was joined last January by two other French teams OUF from Tours and Friz Toi from Luzarches (one hour north of Paris)… of course these two teams did not have enough players over the age cap so they “recruited” other “veteran” players using an SOS over the French ultimate frisbee web link. Fortunately two other German teams Frisbee Family Pempelfort and the Farmers from Luneburg replaced Wall City. The final team was to be the formidable Red Lights (or today’s Masterdam from the Netherlands), a team created in 1984 and where the players have known each other for eons… to boot, they barely lost in the finals in a recent Belgian tournament to the # 1 French team (Ultimate Vibration)… so we were six merry bands of men (or mostly… we had one girl on our team… eventually costing us dearly and there were three women on Friz Toi but who had about 18 players… and one Amazonian woman on the Red Lights). There was no seeding in the Masters Division.

I took my half day off on the Friday preceding the tournament as I was able to go home and grab my bag, hop on the train, then the metro for the south of Paris where I was to meet the rest of the team (half which had arrived from the south and west of France… coming from Brittany, Le Mans, Lyon, Ile de Ré, etc) at about 3:30 AM. We had originally rented two vans and Europcar screwed up so badly that we did not even leave until 8 PM as we had to wait for one of the vans to arrive from Lyon !!! We spread the players evenly between the two vans (one a smoking one… and not only the tailpipe or cigarettes) and I took the “cleaner” one. We had a bit of problems leaving Paris due to the Friday night traffic (plus the vacation departures) and then cruised north for our overnight odyssey… according to mrmappy, it is about a ten hour drive but it took us over 13 hours (we had two drivers per van) due to a dinner stopover and the Paris delays. Sleeping in the seats was horrible for the health (and necks) so we found a way in the back as two guys slept on sleeping bags on the floor, two on the seat rows and one on the luggage in the back compartment. Despite having one of the seats, I slept like crap…

We arrived at our motel in Kritzmow, a few miles south of Rostock, before 10 AM… of course we saw little to none of the Belgian or West German countryside and East Germany was full of plains (non-agricultural ? ) and gigantic wind vanes. Believe it or not, the highways were in much better shape than in Western Germany (which had mega road work noticed on our way back). The hotel was rather chic as it seemed to have been renovated completely… players were divided into rooms of two and there were two “suites” with kitchens for up to four/five players (we literally took up most of the motel rooms). I was happy with my room of two… even though I changed mates often (except for extremely obese Emery who I had for about four nights).

Once again, without my notes, it is difficult… but I don’t think we did much that day… we had dinner in a Greek restaurant (the Xanthi) that night (below the hotel) where we eventually learned the sirtaki (Greek dance). We had dinner in the motel apartments for only two nights during the whole tournament…

That Sunday afternoon all the teams had their first match before the opening ceremony game which was to take place in the local stadium… all the other grass or artificial turf games were to take place all over Rostock in five different locales… but wow, do they have fields… probably dating back to when East Germany were “harvesting” anabolic steroid-stuffed athletes during the Stazi (secret police) years before the crumbling of the Wall. One of the sites with two fields was on a military base and if you did not have your player pass, you did not get access and they were very strict. Each match was to last 1hour 40 minutes or first team to 17 points. And we were to start against the French team OUF who had 12 players (need at least ten available members ready to play or else the team is forfeit) and rumors had it that half the team was already hobbling or had other physical handicaps. Well “foutaise” as you say in French or “rubbish” would be a good translation. We had visions of being in the final against the Red Lights thus our return trip planned for the following Sunday (with most of the finals occurring the following Saturday). We started off the game in the manner of most of our weekly games… in the hole and having to crawl out of it and mostly failing. If I remember correctly, we were down 9 - 3 at halftime and we just could not believe it… nothing went right and that was the theme of the entire week… bad or dropped passes, two cuts (or runs) in the same spot, bad defense, etc. I mean I could eventually have an excuse on defense with my age as at 41 galloping behind a 31 year old could be tough, but our collective team effort (average age being under 35) was a disaster… why ? we barely train together (I went only to two group practices in Tours), we have no clear offensive strategy (when we tried the only one everyone knew, it never worked anyway)… for a Masters team, we had two beginners (less than two years of experience) at the tournament which is not normal since Masters should mean experienced but our team President little Pierre Leleu was taking in all players interested. We finally ended up losing the game 17 - 12 as we tit for tatted points in the second half but it was all too late. In the first fifteen minutes of the game, we already had two injuries (leg-related) including bearded Bernard Prieto (Alex knows him) who came back five games later only to be knocked out permanently for the rest of the tournament… so we were already knocked down to 12 players. At the end of the game, another player (one of the beginners) had yet another injury… so being at 11 players, we had little breathing room.

We went to the stadium of the “official” opening game on a boiling day in the Open Division which was to be the fourth-ranked Ragnarok (the top Danish team meaning Doom of the Gods or “end of the cosmos” in Norse mythology) with their fiery red shirts and hellish emblem against the second-ranked French team (but only ranked 20th out of 32 teams) called the Jack’Suns from western France near Nantes. This was my first European Championships (several of my teammates had already been to other notorious frisbee events) and it was just amazing to see the quality of play and fantastic athletic shape of many of these teams. Ragnarok (about 18 players) was filled with guys who were tall, burly and incredibly fast (for their height) versus the versatile and technical but diminutive (almost elf-like in comparison) French team (only 14 players). It was a close game until 6 - 6 then the size and precision of the Danes started to pick apart the French defense and the Jacks eventually lost 17 - 8. If they were the fourth-ranked team, I definitely wanted to see the top three play at some point in the tournament !!

The following day (another beautiful and torrid day), we were to get in the rhythm of having two long games per day and the organizers were not lenient as we had three straight days of 9 AM games followed by either 1 PM or 3 PM slots. That morning we were to face the red-shirted Red Lights and after scoring the first point (a glimmer of hope… and that happened to be our only lead in any game until nearly the end of the tournament !! ), they calmly dissected us and ended up winning 17 - 4… no reasons to go into details (see above) as I will be repetitive. After two losses, we were then to go up against the unknown German teams and we had the afternoon match against Family… of course, we thought that all these teams were beatable (at least in our heads at the beginning of each match) but the Teutons conquered us 17 - 6 and at the end in the team huddle, they “politely” told us that the game “felt” much closer (funnily, in my opinion also).

The next day at 9 AM, we were to go up against the second French team for bottom bragging rights as they had lost their first three matches also. Also Pierre had “political” run-ins with the president of Friz Toi (also the prez of the French Ultimate Federation) as to the legitimacy of the LK team so we just had to win this one… this was to be the first of two horrible days as to weather as we did not see the sun for 48 hours and the rain was often a’pourin… do I have to repeat myself ? We were down 9 to 1 at halftime and our morale was down at the end of our sopping socks… we were able to muster some courage and clawed back to 9 to 8 then traded points to nearly the end when time ran out and we were still down 13 to 12… with the two point cap rule with the first team to 15 being the victor. They scored quickly to make it 14 to 12 and then by miracle we scored the next two points… the game was already getting out of hand due to bad calls, faults, etc and the good “spirit” which all would like to see in frisbee was tenuous as both teams did not want to be in the doghouse. Our miracle fizzled and they won 15 to 14… and our visions of being in the final (already long-doused) had led to a premonition of being last !! That afternoon, we had our last game in the first round against the Farmers which had lost all their games except against Friz Toi so once again, hope glimmered. Under rain and drizzle on an incredibly superb artificial turf, we were tied at 3, then they pulled far ahead then we were eventually tied at 9 before once again we broke down and lost 17 - 11… so a big goose egg after the first round. Our ensuing battle was to at least get out of the doghouse… the same day the Red Lights had beaten Farmers 17 - 4 and the German Family 17 - 6 while OUF had beaten Family 17 - 13.

As the second round started the next morning, we were in a funk… we were to meet all these strong teams and take another beating… while the whole time, dropped and imprecise passes were killing us. It was even embarrassing., and we were wondering why we were even there. I myself played not badly at all but left more time for the young rabbits to run around on our team. Our woman on the team was a handicap as she was lined up across another guy (most of the time), could not run, was stressed out whenever she had the frisbee (she dropped about 50%)… and… wanted to play too often… in my opinion. In the same pecking order, we started off against OUF who were just getting better throughout the tournament and we thought that they would be a shoe-in for the finals (we saw their game against the Red Lights and after being beaten badly in the beginning, they crawled back and eventually lost 16 - 11. We were getting clobbered in the first half again and like many other games, we traded points in the second half and lost even worse than in the first round (17 - 10). Our afternoon game against the Red Lights was unbelievably our best game of the tournament as we were actually up 4 to 2 and then tied at 6… and then they put on the gas to be up 9 to 6 at halftime… my only pride in that game was to have a few good plays in the first few points and the RL put on their best player to cover me for the rest of the game. Once again (is this getting repetitive once again ? ), we almost traded points in the second half and lost 17 - 13… at the end of the tournament, our team had racked up the most points in a single game against RL, one of the only few memorable stats.

The next day we had a 11 AM game versus the Family on another sunny day and after our “success” versus the Red Lights, we thought that we had a “ghost of a chance” but normalcy returned and we scored only one more goal than in the first round and lost 17 - 7. That afternoon was the showdown against Friz Toi and we were down to 10 players as further injuries rocked our team in the prior games… they were at least 16. One of our players even left in the middle of the game having been in disagreement with Emery about E’s player covering. But this was to be our game and we were ahead 9 to 3 at halftime !! We were not even playing that well but their youth and relative inexperience finally helped us. We even outscored them in the second half and ended up winning 17 - 7 (wow, did it feel good to be on the other end of that score) and on goal differential head to head, we were the clear winners to at least not be in the doghouse. All would have been for naught had they beaten the Farmers that morning (FT lost 15 - 14 with an opportunity to win that game). OUF had been crushed earlier in the day by RL 17 - 6 (their team was getting tired by lack of players… and we didn’t have that problem ? ) In their most important game against Family that afternoon for a step in the semi-finals, OUF lost (we were surprised) 17 - 10 propulsing the Family into the finals on Saturday morning with a three goal head-to-head lead versus OUF.

Our final game on Friday afternoon was almost cancelled against the Farmers as the tournament organizers were losing fields to owners who refused to have some of the rain-clogged green patches being eventually destroyed by the players’ cleats. RL even forfeited a game 17 - 0 to Farmers on Thursday as their game was cancelled and RL refused to have two games on Friday (before Saturday’s final). RL even asked Family to have the final Friday afternoon as RL’s best player had to leave Saturday morning for work in Malaysia. Family refused… and despite the player loss, RL took them to the cleaners in the final (we did not see it) 17 - 11, as their depth and experience was just too much… Family had recovered two more fresh players for the final few days and were over 14 players… and that with several players from RL staying until the wee hours of the morning (3 AM) at the Friday night party before their 10 AM final. One of the RL told me that it was OK to stay out and party late and to beat Family the next day, it was all “in the head”.

Back to the Farmers game, we wanted to at least win to separate us in the victory column from Friz Toi and the fact that they beat Friz by only one point helped us out psychologically. Psycho… what ? The Norman Bates killer instinct was not with us and we miserably lost 17 - 11 (the same score as before). OUF pinned down Friz 17 - 10 so each with one victory, we were humbly in fifth place… with no halo over our heads… throughout the week, we had 5 players injured out of the original 14 (but always at least 10 operational in each game), player bickering, hung heads, weak legs, etc… you can just imagine. Except for two games out of ten (against RL and FT), we were just not with it… the moral of the story ? Do not bring inexperienced players, do not accept women who do not have the umph (there are two women signed up on the team), show up with at least 16 healthy players (Alex will say between 20/24), and just plain concentrate. As I told a friend who plays for Ultimate Vibration when he asked me what change in strategy was needed for the second round, I answered “Strategy ? We need the team just to concentrate and catch and throw the frisbee correctly !”

Elsewhere in the tournament, I saw some matches that would amaze even some of the US teams… many of the teams complained in the Open Division as the first round of eight pools of four teams each knocked out already good teams into the second half of the tournament… the Jack’Suns had a brilliant middle of the tournament but then crumbled with their lack of size and player count and eventually beat Wall City on the final day to end in 22nd place. Even though several teams complained about the different divisions, in the end 3 of the top 4 seeds were in the semi-finals including Clapham (from England and ranked # 1 ), the Flying Angels Bern (FAB from Switzerland and # 3 ) and once again Ragnarok. With their weird system, Ragnarok was able to recover as in one of the pools in mid-week, they had two losses in three games… but the most amazing feat had to come from France’s top team (Ultimate Vibration) who was the last team in the semis after having had a chance in the “quarters” against # 2 ranked Sippoo Odd Stars from Finland. I did not see the game but UV won 17 - 14. I saw over half of the Ragnarok/UV semi-final and the French were just too small in size and lost 17 - 12, even though at halftime it was much closer.

The most amazing game was in the middle of the week which should eventually have been the final… top-ranked Clapham versus FAB… just fantastic all the way through and they were tied almost all the way through but Clapham won 17/14… they were eventually to meet again in the semis and I only saw the first half (with FAB leading by 9 to 7) as we had our final game. By hearsay, we heard that FAB at the end had six opportunities to win the game but eventually lost once again 17 - 14 (how is that possible ? ) FAB ended up beating UV 17 - 13 for third place… but kudos to UV as they only lost four games in the entire tournament… to Ragnarok, FAB, Finland’s Liquidisc and… Clapham in the middle of the week.

Out of the original 32 teams, the geographic club diversification across Europe was wide with over 15 countries represented : 6 teams from the UK, 5 from Germany, 5 from Finland (with disappointing final tallies with 6th - Sippoo, 14th - Helsinki Ultimate, 15th - Liquidisc, 26th - Discus, etc… I thought that with their reputations, they would be higher in the rankings…. I include the team names for Alex’ sake), two from Switzerland, France, Russia (28th and 29th) and the Czech Republic (a guy who played with us in Bali several years ago - he wasn’t that good - played with Four Fingers and ended in an incredible 9th place), and one team from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Lithuania and Sweden (represented by Viksjofors IF from the small town of Edsbyn located in the northern forests, right Uncle Lars ? - who ended third in this year’s Swedish Championships - seeded 18th and ending 19th). The surprisingly small contingent from Sweden was surprising always known as a European powerhouse. Last year’s winners over Clapham 19 - 16, Skogshyddan did not return this year rumors having said that due to several key injuries, they did not want to chance a loss in this year’s championships… now is that bogus or what ?

There was a Trading Night in the center of Rostock, an event where team members trade (or sell) T-shirts, sweats, frisbees, team socks, underwear, or whatever on Wednesday night. We went and the LK sold the entire imported stock of team frisbees (we could not trade or sell our two different hued custom-made Gaia-fabricated team shirts with the lizard logo). There was a magician who pulled off some fun stunts with his woman assistant otherwise it was mostly an imbibing fest with four bars, a VJ (video jockey) with two screens… we did not hang out that long…

The night before most of the finals, there was the Goodbye Party at a far away beach in which you either hopped on a ferry boat (especially for the tournament) or had to drive for about 30 minutes. We took the last boat at about 9:15 PM and there was a live band (Soultrain) with two guys posing as the Blues Brothers and two accompanying nuns… the bar/kiosks on the beach were filled with German Rostocker Pils beers (several of the German brands were definitely not tasty), vodka Red Bulls (RB being a powerful energy drink actually outlawed in France), etc. The first LK wave (including me) returned to our van at the port on special public buses which were packed… we were in bed at 2:30 AM. The second round ended up in the paddock after 4 AM and as the buses ran out, people were shepherded into expensive taxis. There were “casualties” even early in the night as several players (“girls” and “boys”) drank too much and ended praying to the ivory throne or riding the porcelain bus (or rainbow yawning ? ) without making it to the local “john”.

Our only other highlight was on Tuesday afternoon, one of the fields we played on was right next to the beach so we were able to swim (only four of us) as part of a nude (or partially) beach… always a pleasure since my last foray on the southern coast of France (near St Tropez) over ten years ago… two of the players joined in the fun and bathed with the family jewels en plein air… the girl on our team felt a bit embarrassed and left for a snack at the snack kiosk… we returned there after our last game against the Farmers…

But back to frisbee (finals), I already mentioned the final score for the Masters Division. On Friday night before the official tournament party, the Co-ed final (at least three women on the field at all times) was to take place and for the first time in history, a French team was represented. The Friselis (# 3 team in France and ranked # 4) were shored up by some very good French women players and they went undefeated until the final as did the other contestant UFO (# 3) from Finland in two pools of sixteen teams in total. Using the same time and first to 17 (unless capped… when it becomes complicated), everyone was expecting an exciting and good game… partially under drizzle while the crowded stadium (we were protected by the overhanging roof), we watched what turned out to be the most exciting of the four finals… the two teams traded points up to 11 and then UFO broke ahead 15 to 11… the crowd was almost packing their bags and getting their beer paunches ready for the party when Friselis came storming back to tie it up at 15… then they were eventually tied at 17 when time ran out meaning that the first team to win would have to go to 19 by at least two points or to the maximum of 21 points (complicated, non ? ) I don’t remember which of the two teams had most of the point advantage but the game was won 21 to 20 by… the Friselis !! We saw several guy Friselis (Alex, Greg who you have met is their leader) who showed up for the party with shaved heads due to prior promises or wagers.

The next day, we showed up at 11 AM at the same stadium for the women’s finals between UK’s perennial powerhouse Bliss (ranked # 1) and Germany’s # 4 Jinx (they had a woman about 7 feet tall who looked like a man… maybe an offspring from those Stazi-controlled beefed-up athletes of the past) in also two pools of eight teams each. The previous day I had seen the end of the semi-finals between Bliss and E6 (ranked 3rd) from Sweden… and what a downer for E6. They were leading 16 to 15 and eventually lost 17 to 16 with the turnover of the century as at 16 - 16, one of the handlers bungled a pass and threw it away in front of her teammate as she didn’t move… just incredible !! The final was underway and it was a tough fight at the beginning… I left to get food while Jinx was up 13 to 11 and the food line was a bit long… and as I was nearing the stand, I heard final clapping (literally 10 minutes later) and upon return saw that Jinx had won 17 - 11… what a crush !!

All were psyched for the men’s final, as the impressive Clapham were to go face to face with the monstrous rogues of Ragnarok. Funnily enough, Clapham seemed to have a few American key players… and showed up with 19 for the tournament. Only the captain got injured (shoulder) in the middle of the week and could not play for the rest of the tournament but he was out on the field (arm in sling) leading the impressive warm up for the team. The game started off well (with actually quite a few turnovers… unheard of in the World Championships, n’est-ce pas Alex ? ) and we were all looking forward to a battle. My teammates and I bet a euro each on the final score and the number of hucks (or long powerful throws down the field) in case of a tie on the score and I voted Clapham as a winner by 18 to 16. Well, the teams were tied at 9 near halftime but then the efficiency and tactics of Clapham went under cruise control and they led 16 to 11. All were expecting the revival of Ragnarok à la co-ed game and they squirmed back 16 to 13. I lost my bet as Clapham won 17 - 13 but at least I was not far off in the number of hucks despite the powerful wind at times (but a beautiful day) as I guessed 23 and there were 21 in all. Clapham eventually won the Open Spirit of the Game Award, rare for the champion as many winners try to pull out all stops to win, thus breaching that fine line of fair play (but according to the Award speech, the Clapham captain announced with pride that fair play… besides good and tough field play… was their benchmark. Kudos !! We ourselves had given Farmers the best score over the tournament and they eventually won the Masters Spirit and as second and third were announced, clearly LK was not in there… most likely having received a crushing grade from Friz Toi. Well that was the end of the tournament… fun was not had by all but it was an enriching experience… we left the next morning and took over ten hours to get back to Paris as we whipped through Germany (the highways avoided most of the towns and cities), Belgium and northern France with two gas pit-stops. For those of you interested in more details, the website is http://www.eucc2005.org/ .

In conclusion, Pierre, our President, had illusions of grandeur as to the outcome of the LK in the tournament… but as the “mierda” hits the fan, reality strikes… as some of you know, the World Championships will be held in Perth, Australia in November 2006… and Pierre would like to go… normally there will be a Masters tournament in France in October of this year as to who would eventually represent France. But I know the conclusion already.. we have the potential to have a stronger team in October but even if OUF wins, half of their team member at 30 years old will be ineligible for Perth play as the playing age will be jumping next year… anyway France will have problems getting any Masters to go as the budget will be outrageous (people will be staying much more than a week due to the distance), there is no school vacation in November as many of the veterans are Dads… so they will have to muster up any person who can afford it and get the time off… only to be destroyed by the global powerhouses… oh, what fun !!!