Life's a Beach
It’s a tired cliché for the title to my first blog entry, but I live in Los Angeles and one thing that makes it so great to live here is the beach. That’s where we were this past weekend, at the beach league playoffs. As I said to a few different people before the last game started, “I wish we could play this one forever.” We were on the beach just south of the Santa Monica pier. It was beautiful blue skies, one of the clearest days of the year and everything from Mt. Baldy to Catalina was visible from our “field.” Temperatures were hovering around 70. And my team, She Sells Seashells by the Seashore, was battling Deeeeeez Nuts for the world’s first ever beach league championship. I’m sure you are dying for the recap.
But before I get to the finals, I’d like throw out a shout to the Los Angeles weather. Ultimate players seem to have an overall aversion to LA. Traffic, crime, smog whatever it might be, people feel like they have an opinion about the place, with or without ever having been here. But if you love to play ultimate, and I mean really love the game enough to need to play all year, this is certainly one of the best places to live. Whatever level you are looking for you can pretty much find 365. Hell, one of my favorite events of the year, Winter League, will get going in less than a month. If you get depressed in winter because you have to play on frozen ground or in snow – or not at all – think about that move to So Cal.
Back to the beach finals and also a little bit about the before mentioned Winter League. These two tourneys were the perfect bookends to another fun year playing ultimate. They both hinged around big plays I made late in the game with all the pressure on me. What were these amazing plays you might be asking yourself? Well, it’s a little embarrassing. Perhaps these plays were a bit unclean or messy. They were not the most spectacular plays I ever made, that is for sure. But I’ve always been a big fan of results, and in the end these were big, huge, late game catches to help secure victory in the finals both times. And both of them bounced off my face.
Back in March in the winter league finals, it was 13-13 when Butta tossed up a quail of a hammer to me. As I went up with two hands like I usually do for hammers, Sandy closed hard and might have got it first, or maybe I bobbled it. Go here to the 27th – 29th photos in the sequence to see the pics:
http://www.stephenchiang.com/WL05/index.html
What isn’t clear from the pictures is I eventually ended up gaining possession by pinning the disc to my face before clamping it in one hand. We score the next point to win 15-13, so it was a big catch.
For the Beach League finals, the face catch came one point later. It was game point and we were working it upwind. While conditions were tough for the Winter League finals with rain, the beach finals were chocked full of wind. All day it had been tough to score upwind, but on game point, as I reached for a throw coming up the line, I bobbled the disc and juggled once, twice, three times. And then as history repeats itself, I pinned the disc against my face as I toed the sideline and fell out of bounds. With my teammate only feet from me on the sidelines laughing their asses off, I stood up, surveyed the field and threw the only upwind hammer of the day to Jeff for the championship.
It was a great day and a great inaugural beach league. Seriously, Los Angeles has its perks. Have a great winter everyone!
But before I get to the finals, I’d like throw out a shout to the Los Angeles weather. Ultimate players seem to have an overall aversion to LA. Traffic, crime, smog whatever it might be, people feel like they have an opinion about the place, with or without ever having been here. But if you love to play ultimate, and I mean really love the game enough to need to play all year, this is certainly one of the best places to live. Whatever level you are looking for you can pretty much find 365. Hell, one of my favorite events of the year, Winter League, will get going in less than a month. If you get depressed in winter because you have to play on frozen ground or in snow – or not at all – think about that move to So Cal.
Back to the beach finals and also a little bit about the before mentioned Winter League. These two tourneys were the perfect bookends to another fun year playing ultimate. They both hinged around big plays I made late in the game with all the pressure on me. What were these amazing plays you might be asking yourself? Well, it’s a little embarrassing. Perhaps these plays were a bit unclean or messy. They were not the most spectacular plays I ever made, that is for sure. But I’ve always been a big fan of results, and in the end these were big, huge, late game catches to help secure victory in the finals both times. And both of them bounced off my face.
Back in March in the winter league finals, it was 13-13 when Butta tossed up a quail of a hammer to me. As I went up with two hands like I usually do for hammers, Sandy closed hard and might have got it first, or maybe I bobbled it. Go here to the 27th – 29th photos in the sequence to see the pics:
http://www.stephenchiang.com/WL05/index.html
What isn’t clear from the pictures is I eventually ended up gaining possession by pinning the disc to my face before clamping it in one hand. We score the next point to win 15-13, so it was a big catch.
For the Beach League finals, the face catch came one point later. It was game point and we were working it upwind. While conditions were tough for the Winter League finals with rain, the beach finals were chocked full of wind. All day it had been tough to score upwind, but on game point, as I reached for a throw coming up the line, I bobbled the disc and juggled once, twice, three times. And then as history repeats itself, I pinned the disc against my face as I toed the sideline and fell out of bounds. With my teammate only feet from me on the sidelines laughing their asses off, I stood up, surveyed the field and threw the only upwind hammer of the day to Jeff for the championship.
It was a great day and a great inaugural beach league. Seriously, Los Angeles has its perks. Have a great winter everyone!
posted by Corey at
10:32 PM
1 Comments:
nice work corey. i think the players who read this blog will now realize what it takes to play elite ultimate...use of the face. so enlightening.
i was worried i was going to have to carry this blog by myself, so thanks for helping out. maybe we'll even write about real ultimate some day (i.e. not beach or mixed).
don't worry folks, i was away from internet for nearly a week and i think i came up with something to write, maybe even two things. of course, they're all lame since it's the offseason.
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greg, at 12/07/2005 6:54 PM
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