Montreal Jazz

This weekend was my first trip to Canada for the Montreal Jazzfest tournament, which I attended with a group of Columbia High School alumni and two friends of CHS. And a large group of non-ultimate players from Columbia, who helped out with the partying but not with the playing. Coming in to the tournament, I thought that we could do really well, especially with guys who had played at club nationals for Pike and Truck Stop, and college nationals with Colorado and Stanford (well, sort of), and other elite-level college players. Plus, we'd basically all played together in high school and sort of knew each other's playing styles.

The trip started off ominously when we spent approximately four hours going from 15 miles outside of Albany to 15 miles out of Albany. We kept expecting some sort of accident or construction that would explain the ridiculous parking lot that I-87 turned into, but no, apparently New Yorkers just can't drive. Incidentally, we were the only car that ran into this traffic at all - the completely unexpected 1:30 to 5:30 Albany rush. Fortunately, passing through customs was easy enough, despite the skeptical border agent not happy with our answer to the question, "What's your reason for coming to Canada?" "Pleasure." " ... What kind of pleasure?"

We finally arrived at the hotel around 9:30, only to find that we couldn't check into our rooms without a $200 security deposit and a credit card. One of our cars had gotten their earlier and done this for one of the rooms (stupidly put it on a debit card), so we dropped off our bags and hit the town. Montreal is an amazing city - or at least the few blocks of it we got to see were. Our party stretched from our hotel to Crescent Street (several blocks away), which seemed to be the center of the nightlife. We spent several hours there, along with what seemed like all of the young (and some of the old) people in Montreal.

Thankfully, we had a first-round bye and didn't have to be at the fields until 10-ish for our 10:40 game. Two of our three hotel rooms managed to get up in time to eat breakfast, and arrived at the fields around 10:20. Our third car got terrible directions and got lost, and didn't get there until late into the second half. Fortunately, our game was against Canadian Masters team Scotch, who were not in any condition to run with a bunch of young athletes. We had a shutout going until about 10-0, and closed out the game 13-1 with the last car getting there in time to play the final three points. The highlight of the game was definitely the postgame celebration with Scotch, which involved a kilt, a Scottish drinking song, and some delicious Glenlivet Scotch.

Afterwards we had to face a completely different team, the Philly-based team LOVE, composed of a lot of players I'd played against or seen in high school, along with some very athletic guys I didn't recognize. We came out flat, expecting them to roll over like Scotch did, and we quickly got broken twice to go down 0-2. We battled back, converting on offense and trading to about 4-6, when we decided to throw on a trap zone and quickly started to break back. We ended up taking half 7-6, on serve, and extending the lead to 9-6 after the break. Personally, I felt like I improved a lot on the mark during this game, as the pusher in the cup. I only got one point block but consistently forced LOVE to move the disc onto the trap sideline, where we got quite a few D's. They called a smart timeout and started to work the disc better, even throwing a zone of their own, but it was too late and we basically traded out to 13-11, despite getting broken at 12-10.

This was a good, strong game for us, as we beat a team that had practiced together and had some fast receivers that they weren't afraid to huck to. We bounced back after a poor start, and we solidified our trap zone. It was at this point that we realized we had a great chance to actually win the tournament, with a group of players where basically everyone could handle and everyone could get open downfield. We had a bye next, and we all went to get some free food and check out the merchandise - VC had a pair of Stanford shorts in their bargain bin! For shame, VC. I think the bye was bad for my ankle, as it felt really awkward to run afterwards, which made me only play O points in our next game, against "Red Tide".

This was nothing like the Red Tide club team I saw at Boston and beat Brooklyn at CUT. It was eight guys, probably two or three of whom actually played for Red Tide, and one guy in jean shorts and with huge hippie hair. We coasted to 11-2 before giving up three straight goals, then closed them out 13-5. It was a generally uneventful game, except for Evan scoring a goal on a breakside cut past a bidding defender, then rolling the disc to him while he was still on the ground and yelling "Too easy!" But that's Evan for you.

Our crossover game was against Run Silent Run Deep, a team that we'd beaten with Brooklyn at Boston Invite, and a team that has some serious distaste for defense. As such, I don't think we were broken the entire game, and our D line came up with a lot of D's, and their O line just plain turned it over a lot. We won this game 13-5 too, and I didn't play at all, since I wanted to save my ankle for Sunday and it just wasn't worth it to play in a blowout that was over in about 45 minutes (or less). We also confirmed that we would lose Evan for Sunday, with what ended up to be a torn meniscus in his right knee.

Saturday night was a lot of fun. Ridiculous amounts of fun. We didn't play until 11:30 on Sunday, and that meant that there was to be no limit on the Saturday night carousing. We went to the 3 Amigos Mexican restaurant in downtown Montreal and enjoyed some 28 oz. margaritas while seated next to a bachelorette party that kept taking ultimate players and making them eat the candy bracelet/necklace around her wrist/neck. I wouldn't mind going to the wedding (July 27th), but that's the same weekend as Wildwood. Also, who has their wedding on a Friday? Nobody but a group of bridesmaids who want to get their party on for a whole weekend.

We returned to the hotel and continued to party, and I became an old man by enjoying Jack far too much, and then half of the team promptly returned to their beds and passed out. The rest of us hit Crescent St again, first hitting up Karina's, a club with a supposed $10 cover that we managed to get around by threatening to leave (since when does a group of 10 guys threatening to leave ever bother a bouncer?). After a while there, a few of us left and wandered around Crescent again, and I managed to run into a much smaller and more party-going version of the same bachelorette party! Ed and I quickly attached ourselves to them, they loved it, and together we proceeded into the exclusive Club seVen. Thank you domineering hot blonde (maid of honor?), that made the night. We stayed with them for about another 45 minutes in the club before they left, and Ed decided to leave too. I chose to stay, and had a great last hour at the club. Unfortunately, the party ended at 3 am, and I staggered back to the hotel.

At 10 am, my phone alarm (the only one anyone had set) went off, but I turned it off after announcing the time, and we all proceeded to sleep another 15 minutes or so. After a frantic round of packing, we checked out with enough time to get to the fields but not enough time to grab any breakfast. We got there around 11:15, to see one car (the other on-time car from Sunday) there and our opponents (GLUM) tossing and warming up in numbers. Fortunately, they looked old. Unfortunately, they were all in shape and had great throws - this was no pushover Masters team like Scotch. And they looked like this was another tuneup for Canadian Nationals in slightly more than a month.

We started the game with eight players cleated up and fell down two breaks early again, but our other car arrived with us down 2-4 and receiving. We managed to be patient on offense, working it through their zone and clam, and playing hard defense to force a few turns and eventually take the lead. But they came out of halftime a different team, and they worked it on our defense meticulously, with some extremely patient endzone offense, while we started throwing the disc away. That resulted in several breaks for them interspersed with several hard-fought but unsuccessful D points for us. We eventually managed to battle back, pulling downwind at 14-13, but in their typical fashion they worked the disc well and punched it in after a very patient endzone possession.

It was a hard-fought game, it was extremely fun, and I finally managed to "fix" my cutting. I realized that before, I was content to sit in the stack and make my cuts when I thought I was in a good position. But I wasn't ever in a good position for anything more than a swing when I was just sitting in the stack. But midway through the GLUM game, I remembered what Nick Handler and Jit had emphasized for cutters - always keep moving and cycling through the dangerous positions on the field. I began cutting and was open all day on my defender, and all of my clears were just beginnings to new cuts. I touched the disc about every fourth throw after that, and I finally felt good and confident about my cutting, for the first time since SB Invite against UCSC (or, come to think about it, all of the times we played UCSC). It's something I'll take with me for the rest of the summer and into the fall - and I realized that it's one of the things that always made me hate to cover certain players. Even if they weren't the fastest or the best cutters they never stopped moving. And that's what I'm going to bring to my game.

After decleating and being exhausted from the previous nights festivities as well as the 15-13 game we just lost, Q approached us and basically forced us into a consolation game. We agreed to play to 9, and promptly went down 1-6. Q looked a lot stronger than when I played them at Boston Invite, but our team definitely could have beaten them had we not thrown in the towel after the GLUM game. I got to work on my handler defense on that pesky #7 they have, while continuing to experience the joys of being perpetually open. We mustered a little bit of a fightback, but fell 5-9 and began the long trek home. It was largely uneventful, including a particularly uneventful two hour wait in the line at the border.

Overall, this was a great tournament, and Montreal is a fantastic city, despite its funny money and general French-ness. I can't wait to come back next year and to see Montreal without a frisbee tournament in the way.