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.

Another season, another recap

The "Fall" season came to an end on Monday with the Hounds on the bad end of a 21-20 score to TURD.  We took advantage of some quick (and uncharacteristic) turnovers close to TURD's endzone, but were unable to maintain that lead.  We had some trouble when we tended to hold onto the disc too long, but when we moved it quickly we were more successful than Bonnie paying off her student loan.  After the sweet start, TURD used their deep threats to come back and take the lead.  We were able to keep it close for most of the game, but a furious comeback resulted in the Hounds coming up just one point short in the 3rd place game.

So, we finished the Fall Season with a 4-6 record.  While we'd rather be on the sunny side of .500, we can look at the positives of beating the "elite" Bush League All-stars in the quarterfinals (which guaranteed our final 4th placing), having two somewhat solid games against the Sofa Kings, defeating the solid Disciples of Love to start the season, and giving Monster and TURD legitimate scares.

Christian has ideas, he's drunk, and he bleeps the Prom Queen

At least one Hound won something on Monday...Christian's blog, Idea Drunk, won the Best Business/Finance Blog category for the Canadian Blog Awards.  You may recall Christian soliciting your votes by his "Hey, look at my drunk friend" campaign, which no doubt had as deep an impact as that movie...what was it called again...?  Oh yeah, Armageddon.

Of course, if there's no "Best Ultimate Team Blog" category, then it's really hard to take these awards seriously.  

(OK, I made this joke already on Idea Drunk, but I think it's funny so I'm using it again)

You don't look like Tanaka

Why is it that I feel like we're Frank Dux trying to compete at the Kumite?  We thought we had arrived to Elite, ready to kick some ass (or, at least try to), only to have our acceptance questioned.  I would have hoped that crushing the brick that is the Bush League All-Stars (in the quarterfinals!) would have been enough, but apparently not.

[Did you notice my Hong Kong doppelganger?  No, not Dux's weaselly tour guide...]

TUC thinks we should use this opportunity to develop our team, although I must say that it's tough to seriously develop while playing Indoor 6's; it's not exactly the same game that we play in the Summer.

There is a small light at the end of the tunnel though, and they mentioned that they keep an eye on the competition, so maybe if we play well we'll get a chance to go up against some of the top teams.  Although to be honest, I'm about as skeptical of that happening as I am when I received that email from the Honourable Henry Mbenga promising me untold riches if I help him to transfer millions of dollars from Nigeria.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to use this "opportunity" to prove that we belong in the top division.  Let's continue to play hard for 60 minutes each Monday and get that +/- as high as we can.  

We better have some socials at some point this season

Did you get the latest issue of Layout?  Apparently BMO is coming down a teensy bit earlier than they originally thought, which means we could have some Friday games at the end of the season.  If we get stuck in Competitive for the whole season, we'll have Friday games on March 28th and April 4th.  This will also means that the break between Winter and Spring games will be over a month and a half!  Be prepared ready for some practices so we avoid getting rusty.

The original flying disc

This year's Pie Plate (note: PDF) came out recently and the Hounds could be found throughout:

• Page 3 - Honoured as one of nine teams who maintained a perfect perfect spirit point record from the Sumer.  Oh yeah, we were also perfect in the Fall!  Take that, bitches!  I mean...uh...[English accent] nice play, my good sport.
• Page 7 - A picture of a dashing young gentleman exhibiting perfect form on a flick.
• Page 9 - Pictures of winning teams including Monday Champs Big Hammers (Lyanne and Nat...although this picture was from the Mid-Season Tournament...Lyanne and Nat weren't on the Monday Hammers...they were on a better team on Mondays); Tuesday Champs I'm Idahucker (Chris and Nat, not pictured: Christian at V-Fest); and Sunday Fall Champs Red October (super-sub Marc).

They had hard copies of Pie Plate available at BMO on Monday; perhaps they will have them there this Monday, if you want a paper copy to read while you're watching MASH and playing with your hula hoop.

Phew, that was a long one...