Masters WUGC NOMADS PASSING THE TORCH BY DAVE P.
The Nomad tribe started back in 1991 and has grown into an amazing brotherhood. It took us many years before we had any success in terms of winning tournaments but we have always had great leadership and a unique drive and synergy which have fortunately allowed us to achieve our primary goals. We had played at World Clubs in Maddison in ’93 and in Vancouver in ’97, but we had never had the honour of donning the maple leaf to represent Canada. Our odyssey really started at Flower Bowl in June of 2011 where we were really testing ourselves to see if we could still play and in fact how many of us would be standing after that weekend. We won the open division which propelled us to Ottawa for Nationals which was truly competitive with four really solid teams at the top end all battling to go to Japan. To be honest after we won we had
to gather our tribe and test our resolve to make the pilgrammage to Osaka. We
gathered a few extra key guys who were already on the peripheral of our brotherhood and we set forth to train like we never have before. Robin Bauer from Calgary played great for us in Japan and used his professional skills as a trainer to guide us and get us physically ready. As Nomads, we have always been spread out and rely on self-training within our local cells as well as a few key gatherings, whether it be Flower Bowl in Vancouver or Frisbee Golf on Pender Island to ensure we are all on the same page and so we can fine tune our planning. We had scrimmages against Furious George and Blackfish and Gauntlet to also ensure we were as ready as we could be for what lied ahead. A key recruit for us Jeff Cruickshank. Jeff
redesigned our playbook to include such things as a split stack and really put
together a quick scoring offense. Biff and “Al-Bob” stepped up to prepare our D line and off we went. Eight countries were represented in the
Masters Division and much like Ottawa 2011 Nationals, there were four teams really vying for the GOLD; There were the hosts Japan who had a subsidized training program and were in top shape, the USA (Surly from Minnesota) who has won 3 of the 4 last UPAs and are headed to Florida again for Nationals this October) and the Aussies whom were much like us – a very well established Club team that had many successes in Australia and were very tight as a group. The Aussies proved formidable for many and in fact only lost one game in their round robin to us 17-7. It was perhaps our best game of the tournament and they had some key unforced errors. Support wise, Joey
Houssain was instrumental in securing an amazing local Physio crew who flew the Maple Leaf from their tent and were an incredible phsyio/massage/medical support team for us all. We lost a few guys to
injury, most notably Jeff Cruikshank during the Great Britain game, who blew his Achilles and had to fly home a couple of days later. Jeff’s calibre of play was extremely high and the
20 Ultimate Canada Magazine —
www.canadianultimate.com
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