See you on the flip side...

http://club2005.upa.org/

Playing within yourself

It's such a cliche, but most phrases that end up there have some truth. I've never been the go-to guy on any team, college or club (offensively at least). Of course, I only played two years of college, one of which was the 6-12 months after an ACL reconstruction. I then land on Zero where I joined an army of D-line cutters. The point? I love D-line and cutting but if you approach practice the way you should (as it they were tourneys), then when is the time to push the boundaries? Especially towards the end of the season, you want to practice closely to your nationals behavior. I guess that makes the beginning of the season the experimental time by default. And don't tell me that rec leagues are the answer because I'm not concerned about my throws to garbage cuts.

As demonstrated by my old cross-the-river friends at Carleton, an army is good only as long as you have a few to lead them. In college, the talent pool is more shallow (shallower?) and the turnaround quick. In club, your leaders can stick around for 8-10 years if things play out right. However, that transition seems to be accompanied by a auto-qualify drop (auto semis to auto quarters, ie DoG and Condors, not meant as a jab like most others do nowadays) or an outright disassembly (NYNY, Windy, Z).

This meandering leads me back to my original point: playing within yourself is probably good for the team, but if you're always PWY (sorry, I work in insurance and acronyms are a way of life), when do you push it and improve?

Briefly...

Tall has put up some nice shots including Champs

and Velocity (caption being "F, that guy is fast.")

Miscellaneous

The rain was too much and the numbers were too small. No Goaltimate or shtick last night.

Reports from RSD...there's a thread going around about the best deeps, which means that people are posting mainly about their own teammates that have the "biggest ups you've ever seen!!!!!!!!!!!". Someone actually took the time to reference Matt Berkseth, but spelled it wrong. It's close enough that I could almost take half credit, but we all know that doesn't apply to me.

Threads like that just provide more evidence that either you're a big name (MG, Kittridge, Nord, Chase, Lugsdin, etc) or your own teammates have to hype you to get your name out. Call it a lack of media, an old boys club, or whatever. Yes, great talent should be immediately recognized. Obviously. Those who can most effectively evaluate talent (and therefore are less likely to exaggerate) are those that are very good themselves.

Probably another reason not to read RSD...for those that maintain some of the best deeps play for a mixed team named Whor$hack. If you say so.

PS "Beware Boardman." Indeed.

The End is Near

Well we've qualified for Nationals, I've got a ticket and time off work. Wednesday night practices are scaling down (just in # of those participating), and hopefully we don't lose focus. I do love hard scrimmaging, but playing games like shtick (running-allowed disc-related game much like capture-the-flag except the goal is to set the disc in a small square on your opponents side without getting tagged) are incredible fun. Reminds me of elementary school and staying after to play dodgeball, CTF, and random other "super-sports", as we called them. I'd throw Goaltimate in that grouping as a good break from the norm as well. I do miss my contact sports.

Central Region Champs

15-8 and we did with some flourish. Fouling wasn't out of control and most went uncontested. No yelling or taunting worth noting. Our O line was spectacular (ie wasn't broken all game). 6 tournament titles isn't something to sneeze at, but given the strength of said tourneys, we'll most likely end up around 9th.

Side note: Matty B beat me in Fantasy Ultimate in the CLX - Flaming Moe game-to-go. He chose negative Berseth(aka Delaware), and I had negative Norgard. Normally, Paul would have come through for me in grand fashion, but Delaware went on an unrivlaed waterjug kicking spree/tantrum. It was like Matt hit the slots, and the money just kept on coming.

He does it again

From The Sports Guy:
"Some other questions: Does Charles Rogers exist solely to make Detroit fans feel better about the Darko Milicic Era? Is Joey Harrington the Freddie Prinze Jr. of the NFL, or is it the other way around? ... Wouldn't you feel 10 times better about the Joey Harrington Era if he just changed his first name to 'Joe?' And does anyone else feel the Mike Williams Roto Breakout Week coming on?"

Why randomly post a dig at Michigan? Because Central Regionals is this weekend, it deflects attention away from Green Bay, and there's a decent chance Timmy may read this.