Worlds in Perth

This week the World Ultimate Club Championship took place in Perth Australia.

Results and final standings on the tournament website: http://www.wucc2006.org/

Some considerations from someone who did not go and followed on and off what what going on from a distance:

Initially the general feeling was that this was not going to be a tournament that represents the best of ultimate around the world. For most teams in North America and Europe it’s very expensive to get to Australia and mid-November is not the ideal time of the year to take 1-2 weeks off work or University. Many Americans have already used up all their holidays for UPA sectionals nationals.

The result is that the tournament would have represented who could afford to go rather than the best teams throughout the world.

On the other hand, it gave the chance to Asian and Australian teams to show their worth. They normally have the same cost problems in coming to Europe and North America.

I have the feeling that the average level was probable lower than at other WUCCs, but at the top end of each division there were some really strong teams.

Buzz Bullet, in particular, have spanked pretty much everyone, showing that in Japan they really know what they are doing.

Apparently the Spirit was bad, especially by European standards. I have seen an email on itadisc by Davide Morri (aka Il Migliore), one of Italy’s strongest players, complaining that the amount of fouls and dodgy calls was simply insane. He was playing with Ultimate Vibration, a team from Paris that is infamous around Europe exactly for poor spirit.

One last thing. It was really difficult to follow what was going on. The tournament website was rubbish: no clips, no blogs, no match reports. The results of individual games were made available via www.scoreomatic.com, the least usable website ever.

Some stories from British teams here:
- DiFranco's Blog
- LTD Release Blog