The Hammers are back!

I remember our first game of the season last year at Graves Oakley it was so cold and windy it was hard to even catch the disc. Last night thank goodness it was sunny and warm; although I am pretty sure the bugs got a good feed off us.

We were a bit rusty out there for our first game but we managed to sneak in a win over the Dodgeball whiny pants team. We had a great lead heading into the second half but then our cuts kinda became nonexistent and it became harder to get open. However, I think we will come together as a team as the season plays out. We always do :)

Luckily one of their better guys (but most annoying and intense guys!) will be sitting on the sidelines for a little bit with a broken leg (not as a result of last night’s game! Don’t worry we didn’t hurt any of them! He came that way, I swear. ) We only had to listen to him yell to his team from his chair as opposed to being a douche on the field.

Despite the bugs we had a great game with a few highlights of the evening.

1. Scott bring along his buddy Joey who turned out to be the STAR of the game 
2. Husband to wife (Chris to Aimee) throw, ending in a one handed catch, to grab another point for the hammers!
3. Joey towering over everyone effortlessly catching the disc, resulting in many points
4. We had a few layout attempts! Lynda, and Greg for sure 
5. Sick defense skills! Slap the disc down!!! Colleen, Jen, Jay and Scott 
6. Me managing to throw it into the hands of the gal playing D on me. Not only once but TWICE! (maybe not a highlight…..) 

 The Muskol Insect Repellent player of the game has to go to Joey, our new founded Ringer!

The only question I have from last night’s game is “Where was my player of the game beer!!??”

-Captain

Fin?

Welp – that’s a wrap on the season, y’all. Despite our best efforts at getting younger and healthier and millennial-er through recruitment (Hi Froggy, Biggie and Armsy), this season really exposed the Hammers’ collective age and fragility and bone density and muscle resilience and immune system and professional/parental responsibility issues (Hi everybody else). Thus, we limped to the finish line, grumbling about phantom foul calls and dumb rules and lack of respect and flavoured water and weird new-fangled gadgets and young punks on our lawns. But, fuck it, we still competed and cheered and chased it all with celebratory post-game beers and grease. I still love it.

So, we lost last night. But goddamn it was close – we came within seconds of overcoming a few weird calls and a six-point deficit in the second half. The turning point had to be the arrival of our now not-so-secret-weapon Greg, who managed to sneak undefended into the end zone for a few easy ones. Down by one on the line, awaiting pull, the surging Hammers were shocked to hear our green opponents (CLEARLY SCARED SHITLESS), call the game. It was a disappointing loss, technically, but an incredibly satisfying moral victory.

Holy shit, the highlights. There were so many. Once we broke that cup, the Gregor to Captain to Wheeler to Honey to Biggie to Bunny to Cruddick daisy chain* was a thing of beauty to behold. I think we pulled that off four or five times. As for the specifics, please behold this series of images and GIFs, representing how I will hitherto recall these events:

Honey (Lebron)’s Official Bag of Hammers PLAY OF THE YEAR, OMFG!

Cruddick lays out!

Bunny takes out a week of work frustrations on the disk with a raging celebration!

AA and Biggie’s near miss!

The time that dude on the other team absolutely decimated his female teammate in the endzone!

Their Littlefinger-esque captain was shaken:

The Armview Crazy-Ass Feature Burger with Kettle Chips and Weird Cheese (that nobody ordered) Player of the Game is Gregor for the stellar handling all night (heck, all season). And for having the balls to call that guy NOT IN, mere moments after calmly picking up his own incomplete pass to continue the play. Brass ones :)

But THIS CAN’T BE IT. Captain has circulated an email proposing a date of 1-Oct for our end-of-year BBQ. Let’s do this.

I miss you already,
-AA
xo

*may not be appropriate metaphor

Can you hear the thunder?

That's the sound of the Hammers coming for you Sharky, and/or the sound of crappy English heavy metal.  Luckily the literal thunder (both the weather and hard rock varieties) stayed away and we were merely subjected to oppressive humidity.   The metaphorical thunder on the other hand was very much present. We were awesome. That's pretty much it. Offense - check. Defense - check. Face catches, dolphin catches, and reach around catches - sadly lacking. Actual catches,  great cuts,  passes that went to intended targets, and points - check check check and 12x check. We didn't quite finish them on points (sorry Armsy!) but we did dominate and played very well as a team.  And Greg got a point.  And as always it was a very enjoyable and relaxed game against Sharky and crew.

Now, on to more serious matters. I'd like to take a minute and talk about pets and how they are trying to kill us all. I submit exhibit A:

Recently, one of our very own was stricken with mono, putting his poor, helpless spleen in grave danger:

My knowledge of anatomy is pretty much limited to things on the outside, but I'm 90% sure AA's spleen is the blue one.

Some will have you believe mono is caused by a virus, some will tell you it is called "Epstein-Barr", and some will say it can be cured by modern medicine.  I tell you they are all wrong.  Think about the symptoms: fatigue, lethargy, weakness.  Who else displays all these traits on a daily basis?  That's right, THE COMMON HOUSE-CAT.

I'm cute, I'm lazy, and I'm gonna PUT YOU TO SLEEP bitches!!!

AA may have been concerned about spreading this "virus" to family and pets, but he got it wrong.  It's the pets trying to turn us all into a bunch of feckless, lazy bums.  If they had their way, we'd all be draped over our desks at work, limbs dangling, only changing position to lick our own asses and chase bugs.  Not a bad life (except the hairballs of course), but still, I would prefer not to have to use the washroom in a box of gravel.

Point is, keep an eye on those furry bastards, and keep your spleens covered!

What cats dream about - straight shot to the spleen!

Jammed!

I don’t know what the final score was, but we won. Handily, I believe. In ANOTHER frigging wind storm.

This game saw the return of Biggie; and the emergence of Sally as a deep threat; and a Wheeler hat trick (I think); and two super nice spares who, if you squinted, looked just like Hammers anyway; and another one of Armsy’s ha-ha-thought-you-had-the-disc-but-I-reached-in-and-took-that-shit-right-from-in-front-of-you, play of the year-type catches – sending the sidelines, rightfully, into hysteria. Bender, Captain, Honey, Bunny – thumbs up, everyone. Way to run out those long long loooong (long) points.

FYI, our opponents won this month’s HURL Spirit award – and in general, I’d have to agree that they were mostly cool, give or take a sideline drill sergeant and a cranky, beefy guy who thought he was JJ Watt (Dan knows who I mean). And they had a tiny guy called Bruno (!?), which I hope (dear god I hope) was not an ironic nickname.

The Lower Deck Parking Lot Patio Beer player of the game would have to be Colleen/Wheeler for her offense, and her ability to maintain tight d-coverage while keeping a bird flipped to her own sideline (lol). An additional tip-of-the-cap would have to go to Armsy’s aforementioned disc robbery (I think that guy is still looking around for it… somebody check the field), and a fantastic save from Biggie (albeit one for which she did not have to lay out, unfortunately).

Thanks again to everyone who came out! I can’t help but notice that our numbers are dwindling, somewhat… Hammer Men, let’s get those knees and ankles wrapped up – playoffs are upcoming, and I’d sure like to be able to field a team *pouty face*

*forced smile*

Many kisses,
AA

Really, Everything Is Okay

Tension. Compliments forced through tight smiles. Quiet contrarian cheers. Empty displays of spirit. Internalized screaming. Fck, there was so much subtext to this game (at least in my mind) that it could have been scripted by David Lynch, which I suppose would make me (or Cruddick) the dancing midget, Tim the stoic police sheriff, and Wheeler’s Uncle D this guy?

Maybe? Where was I?

True, we lost. But trust me when I say it could have gone so much worse. Despite my pre-game pleas for spirit, I couldn’t help but sarcastically shout along to our opponent’s crazy loud “UP!” calls, drawing immediate side-eyes from my mark and regrets from my inner Ultimate hippy (typically suppressed). Thankfully, shit didn’t continue to devolve from there – really, the only “incident” was Pelch’s uncontested sideline foul that drew a snotty retort from its recipient. I like to think that both sides were trying to avoid the relative unpleasantness from our last meeting. I won’t lie – I really wasn’t looking forward to this game, but it was fine. IT WAS FINE! Fun, too.

Despite all of the above, and frankly – the final score, I think we played quite well. Sans handlers Coach and Bender, we still managed to move the disc really really well, and mounted something of a comeback before half to make it close. Tim and Armsy were on fire, Bunny and Pelch were everywhere, Sally and Captain handled like pros, Honey and Wheeler really took advantage of the weak female coverage, and Cruddick continued to kill it on those initial cuts. Apologies to everyone whom I missed with my wonky throws (WHY DO I KEEP TRYING TO HANDLE?!).

Wheeler’s near circus catch (with her eyes closed!) scored her a Mike’s Hard Spirit Cran – right out from under Captain’s expecting hands, lol! I’ll award the Hal-Con Final Fantasy Cosplay Photo Booth Player Of The Game to both Bunny and Tim, who frankly killed it. Honorable mentions to everyone else. :)

Kisses, everybody. Sorry for the weak, disjointed blog – all of this pretending to be nice is exhausting!
Also, go check out Mulholland Drive. It’s awesome.
-AA

PS: Get well soon, Coach Dan!

SUCK IT, SHARKEY!

Don't let the title of this blog fool you. That was arguably the most fun and most friendly game of ultimate! AA -- you would have thoroughly enjoyed yourself. Were they not the nicest, most polite bunch? I was asked by 3 different female players whether my stuffed finger was ok. One even pointed out potholes in the field so that I wouldn't misstep and hurt myself. Who does this? The inDISCtructibles, I guess. It's always good times playing Sharkey's team. And it's even better times when we waste them. Suck it, Sharkey. Ok, perhaps some bitterness lingers from him leaving our team to forge his own - and he's not even good to boot...but I digress. 

Anyway, enough about them, let's talk Hammers! 


We were AAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAZING! We were on fire while on D. Greg's insane air-defying leaps to smack down that disc were sick. Jenn played some solid D as per usually. And we musn't forget Honey and Cruddick's awesome throw downs themselves. Offensively, props go to Greg and Chippy (did i just give myself, props? Why yes i did) for running out all of those nice long passes and for adding some always fun screaming to the mix. Cruddick, Honey and Bunny for advancing the disc up the field so well with those short passes. Lots of great one-handed snatches by Becks, Scott, Jay and others.  

The Sweaty-Mess, Crunchy-Grass Playa of the game goes to Zoe Watson, the cutest and most chill baby fan we've ever had watch our games! Was that a cop out? Sorry gang, you were ALL fabulous out there. So the cute baby wins.

xo chippy

28 MINUTES LATER

Twenty-eight minutes.

It took twenty-eight minutes to play the final “point”, which ended sans score, with Coach laying prone on his back with a twisted ankle, being stared down by two armies of swarthy soccer studs and their whistle-happy referees. Somewhere in those 28 minutes there was a contested defensive foul (?!) which led to some confused sideline shouting over the wind, wherein everyone was trying to say the same thing, loudly. Yes, the wind. Obviously it was the wind – blowing our passes and their passes all over the goddamn place, interrupting our admittedly SOLID disc movement for most of the game with a sudden upward gust reminding us who the EFF is in charge (but not quite drowning out the sideline shouting from their shouty sideline coach).

Defense. Last night’s game saw a ton of awesome D. I was kind of distracted by my kids, but I’m pretty sure everyone had a chance to reject SOMETHING. Bender, Tim, Coach, Sally, Chippy, Armsy, Froggy, Greg (etc etc etc) – I’m pretty sure I saw all y’all bat down a few errant passes with authouritae. And our no-brainer zone defense, vocally championed by Colleen, wonderful. I’d have to think that on a less unsettled night, we’d have torn through that team by 10 points.

The Patrick Swayze Memorial She’s Like The Wind Player of the Game goes to Scott/Froggy for several games worth of perfect cuts, and for a near circus rescue catch that, if successful, surely would rival Greg’s two face catches for play of the year. From my side of the field, it almost looked like Scott was trying to reproduce the Ace Ventura rhino birth scene, but y’know, with a frisbee. Great game, dude.

And now – a tangent! This is, I think, the most Cape Breton story I’ve ever heard. Terri was traveling home from a CB funeral yesterday when her Mom lays this one on her: her Great Uncle Neely passed away about a decade ago. At Neely’s funeral, a Great Aunt approached Neely’s son (let’s call him Little John, as a regionally accurate nickname) and said that Neely wasn’t his father, as his Mom was pregnant when they were married with someone else’s child. Let’s call him Big John. Stunned, Little John decided to get in touch with Big John, but Big John denied that he was the father, “impossible, it’s not me”.

Several years pass, and Big John passes away. Still kinda shaken by the thought that Neely wasn’t his Dad, Little John reaches out to Big John’s son. After something of a discussion, Little John sends along his photo. “Holy jeez, you look more like my dad than I do!” was apparently the reaction. Excited that he may have confirmed his lineage, Little John and Big John’s son agree to have their DNA tested, only the tests came back negative, because… BIG JOHN’S SON WAS NOT REALLY BIG JOHN’S SON, because his mother was ALSO pregnant with someone else’s kid before they got married.

Rural. Cape. Breton. Folks.

(As an aside, turns out that DNA tests with Big John’s daughters confirmed that Little John was his son, whereas the actual lineage of the other “son” remains a Nova Scotia mystery).

Kisses,
AA