28. Will you retire to masters men, or co-ed?....Or is the ladder co-ed, then masters? Well, I’m old enough and wise enough to know to “never say never” – but I really don’t have any plans to retire to co-ed or Masters. Co-ed is a different sport altogether and not one that suits my particular athletic interests at this point in my life. While I have played in the odd tournament here and there, I can’t envision committing a complete season to playing other than perhaps for the novelty of playing with my daughters which is not entirely inconceivable since my eldest has played the past two seasons with OJ –(the Ottawa competitive Juniors program). I figure I’ve already missed the


boat in terms of being a big impact player at the Masters level since I have been eligible for 2+years now. Since I won’t be the youngest guy out there – I might as well continue to be one of the oldest guys in Open :>) Seriously though, as long as I feel I can contribute in a meaningful way at the Open level, then that’s where I will play. When I can’t do that anymore, maybe I’ll give Masters a look, or maybe that will be impetus to try out my next sport – Lacrosse looks interesting….


29. How much does training play into your game? Do you just practise with the team, or do you train outside of the Ultimate team practices? Training is critical for me. I joke about my age, but in seriousness – if I wasn’t in the gym 5 days a week then I wouldn’t stand a chance in keeping up with guys up to 15 years younger than me. So, yeah I work out pretty hard in addition to twice weekly team practices.


30. What about nutrition? Eating what you want, or eating responsibly? I try to eat responsibly, but I could do better here and hope to reduce my sugar intake going forward – as one teammate put it – I am a recovering pop-a-holic – but nowhere near as bad as Ken ;>). 31. What really irks you about the sport? (Ie. No refs, or cheating calls?) The sport itself is great. When I first started playing I had a real challenge adjusting to the “no refs” aspect of it. But I’ve grown to appreciate the self-governance and implied


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mutual respect for your opponents that has eroded from many other officiated sports. This may not be popular with some readers, but the only thing that really irritates me about Ultimate is the goofier facets that mostly appear in and around non- competitive “fun tournaments” such as singing, cheers, spirit games, men running around in dresses and other unmentionable stuff that just isn’t my thing and really draws away from the whole “Ultimate as sport” aspect that is personally attractive to me. Luckily, this stuff doesn’t really present itself at the tournaments Phoenix attends.


32. What do you love the most about the sport? There just aren’t that many options available to someone my age to get that competitive fix Ultimate provides, and to be able to parlay that into attending a World Championship such as WUCC in Prague this past summer is incomparable.


Ultimate Canada Magazine — www.canadianultimate.com


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