As called

When the Hounds last played on real grass, we finished last summer's regular season with a tie against the 7th-best-team-in-the-country (and eventual Monday champs) Big Hammers. This capped 9-4-2 season which saw us rise from 14th to 4th in the Monday Ladder.  

Of course, since then we won the Monday Winter Competitive Indoor League...not too shabby.

This year it looks like we're going into the season amongst the top-ranked teams (are the seedings accurate, or are the 1-5 teams random?  If so, we're 2nd to Mandrew.). I guess this means we're not that "young, up-and-coming team" anymore...

This year TUC is separating the Comp from the Int/Rec teams, so we have 13 other teams in our division.  Here is what my in-depth research has turned up:

Mandrew - After winning the whole enchilada the past few years, they lost to Big Hammers in the finals last year.  They are the team to beat, but they are also a year older from last year.  If they were dogs, that might mean more since 1 human year is like 7 dog years.  Of course, we're also a year older than last year, so I guess that doesn't really mean anything.  They beat us twice last year, so let's try to do better, ok?

Ninjastars_Mon - We played them last year and didn't do too well.  Tough team to call this year; it'll depend which of their Monsters (if any) come out from week to week.

Disc Horde - We also played them twice last year (and won, woo-hoo!), but they look like they've picked up some pretty good players, so we'll have to watch out for them.

Ventura Wu - This is all I can think of when I see the name "Ventura"...

Let's (figuratively) beat them like that...

kookaburras - Someone was once impressed because I knew that a Kookaburra is an

Australian bird.  The only reason I knew was because I played cricket in high school and Kookaburra is a cricket equipment company with a bird as their logo.

By the way, tea time is very under-appreciated in sports.  We should definitely bring it in to the ultimate scene.  Screw spirit games...I want tea time...

El Kabong - Another team we played last year who appears to have picked up some new players.  Luckily guitars are not accepted on the ultimate field.

D.I.R.T. - A true up-and-coming team; Toronto's Juniors squad.  Sure, they may be young, fast, fit, athletic, have a coach...um...but at least we can go out for beers afterwards before having to go home to families/jobs/responsibilities.  Yeah, take that, DIRT; we know you're jealous of us.

4D - The last of the teams that we played last summer, and another team that will likely be better than last year.  

B.O.M. (Barrel of Monkeys) - According to Wikipedia: "One monkey arouses a great deal of amusement. Two or more then double the interest and amusement. If one were to release a barrel full of monkeys, we must suppose that their antics would become hilariously comical."  

Let's be sure to kick their hilariously comical asses.

As an aside, if I were a monkey and stuck in a barrel with a bunch of other poop-flingers, hilariously comical is probably not the best term to describe how I would feel about my situation.

Superfreaks - I don't know anything about this team, but the name reminds me of the time my family drove across the country so my sister could take part in some sort of kiddie-beauty pageant.  It was quite the experience and even though she didn't win, but she tried her best and afterwards my family was closer than ever.  Luckily there were some cameras there to capture the moment:

Flick Fu - The best comment from Zen tryouts belongs to Andrew H, who recalled when we killed Flick Fu in the Winter 2007 league that we played at Varsity: "The Hounds totally should become a touring team."  What do you think, Simon?  

Anyway, I don't know if we could use the Hounds name to tour...we might have to come up with another name.  Let me check my hair dryer to see if I can think of one...

5E - Are these guys making fun of 4D?  If so, that's awesome.  If not, meh...

Oxygen Hazard - Is this team made up of the martians

from Mars Attacks?  Is that why Oxygen is a hazard?  If that's the case, then I'm more concerned about their ray guns than anything they can actually do on the field.  Did you see those things?  If you get shot, you get disintegrated immediately.  That would totally suck.

Alright, so that's everyone that we could be playing this summer.  I figure the teams that we'll really have to look out for are Mandrew, Disc Horde and Ninjastars.  Of course, we'll see how things play out when the games begin.

Also of note is the pending return of Pierre in late June.  Let's be sure to be at the top of the ladder when he returns.

A few questions going into the season:

1) What's going on with the Mandrew game?  Are we taking the default, or going to reschedule?

2) Are we getting uniforms?  For VC shirts, I'm a Men's Small.  Just sayin'...

3) For those who are touring; will we let tournaments tire us out for Hounds games?  Let's all agree not to let that happen, okay?  Okay.