Closing The Gap

Hey team,

Great, fun game last night - despite the loss. What a difference it makes, playing a team of comparable skill and sportsmanship.

Perhaps inspired by the much-anticipated re-emergence of founding Hammer Derek Land, whose HURL lineage traces all the way back to the pre-BoH team "XXX" (Vin Diesel and/or pornography and/or moonshine associations unclear), or perhaps feeling more like a team with our fancy new numbered duds, or perhaps responding to the enthusiastic cheering of one Oliver McAfee - we were able to score 10 points (some very impressive), nearly closing a three point gap before coming up just short at the end.

Confidence. Hands. Legs. Effort. It's all coming together. IT'S ALL HAPPENING!

Nods to Chantal, as Freeman's BBQ Chicken Pizza Player Of The Game, for her series of snags and successful dumps (heh heh - of the Frisbee), which are all the more impressive considering this is apparently her first foray of sports of any kind. Huzzah! Consolation nods to Derek for his precision bombs, which soared unaffected by both the wind and his 10-month break from the game; to Deidre for some quality handling, and to Mighty Mike for his scoring ability and effort - ripping his hat off in dramatic showy fashion whilst running down a long end-zone bomb (there was audible gasping… from me).

Conversely, thumbs down to Maria for providing medical attention to an injured opponent, thereby sqhashing any chance of leaving them short-handed. I'm kidding of course. Related: our spirit score has been upgraded from "green checkbox" to "yellow star", meaning… ?

Great game everybody - see you all next week!
Kisses,
-AA

Damn Gingers

Every year there is at least one game from which I feel the need to apologize soon after. Last night was that (hopefully) one game. This is that apology: sorry.

In the touchy-feely, self-policing universe of Ultimate Frisbee, all actions and interactions need to be carried out through a smile and a giggle, with a handshake and a high-five and a "good job, good effort" - even when a 16-player squad featuring half-a-dozen slumming touring players is relentlessly pummeling your team into the ground, without concession nor acknowledgement nor pity (and further, switching to zone defence, against the wind, while boasting a score of at least 12-0). No, even in these situations, etiquette suggests that you do not grumble loudly on the field, or whine to your fellow team-mates, or sulk off the field with slumping shoulders and a pout after every point against like a spoiled angsty teen who didn't get that new X-box game (or whatever angsty teens are into thee days) - as I did last night, with my kids watching no less! I promise I will not subject y'all to this behaviour again this year, and likewise, hopefully the HURL schedule-bot does not match us up against Moon Dolphin and their lanky ginger douche again, neither.

But enough about me and my hang-ups.

On the positive side, Jim broke our long-standing goose-egg by perfectly timing and out-jumping an end-zone full of players (yay!); I saw some great snags from Mike and Jean and Nick; collectively (I don't want to leave anyone out) we seemed to be moving and playing better as a team; and Greg - FUCKING GREG - I'm gonna give Cruddick a long awkward kiss on the mouth for sending Greg our way. Again, as we gain more confidence, and as the winds die down (enough already!) - the wins will come, and then we get the power, and then we get the women!

Thanks, all. And thanks for the good turnout at the Ship Victory for some tasty Consolation Nachos (vice Victory Fries), with extra thanks to Maria for not pummeling and eating our pokey, texting server (apparently Consolation Nachos are hand ground and baked from scratch, in Arizona, and delivered via pack mule).

Next week - we ride in our spanky new unis!
-AA

BoH 2012: First Impressions

Hey all, hope your legs and backs are demangled and still functioning properly this morning.

To start, I just want to briefly re-live what may be the Bag Of Hammers' play of the year: newb Jean Pelletier's diving, thundering, barrel-rolling circus catch at mid-field, to save a wind-blown mis-throw from the clutches of the bearded, bewildered opposing captain (who, BTW, was cited as the individual responsible for the early retirement of our ex-Captain). The guy never saw it coming, although he surely must have heard it. The catch left Jean in a heap, between the disk and the ground, with his shorts stripped down his thighs and his upper torso thoroughly grass-stained - and it left me guffawing in dis-belief (I'm still chuckling to myself). To use a term that gets thrown around far too often, but is certainly apt in this case, it was epic.

See also: Mike's own impressive suite of circus catches, Jim laying out for errant (sorry!) and deep end-zone passes at least 5 times, end-zone snags from Nick and Becky and Deidre (I think?), and a series of advancing passes that happened so quickly that I wasn't able to yell out to "slow down" (but hey, the shit worked). And, ladies and gentlemen of the 2012 Bag Of Hammers Recreational Ultimate Frisbee and Social Drinking club, it is plays like these that will likely define our success this year: big effort and athleticism, to be tempered with some refinement and direction from our wiley vets. The wins will come as we gain our confidence (and the winds die down, and we settle into our appropriate tier), and if the wins don't come, at least y'all got to run around in the open air for an hour or so.

 As for the "refinement and direction to be provided by our wiley vets", while I attempted my best Dan McAffee impression to start the game off - it will be shown to be no substitute for the real thing. It actually brought back some stomach-knotting memories from school, where my objective as a TA was to stay 1-2 classes ahead of those snotty engineering students and hope that they don't ask any questions. So thank yous for not asking any tough questions and exposing me for the Ultimate fraud that I are. Next week, I will come prepared with a Ray Lewis motivational speech.

Huzzah!
-Aaron

PS: big thanks again to Becky for picking up the slack and getting this team together!

PPS: big un-thanks to the crotchety, tattooed hipster server at Freeman's who nearly lost her shit on us after the debit machine took ill. Lynn, as Mayor of Freeman's, could you please take care of this. Ahthankyou.

Hamertime('s up)!

Hey all,

Just a couple thoughts now that the season's over. I'd submit them to the Hammerblog, but I haven't been able to post this year. I guess it's Aaron's passive/aggressive way of giving himself full creative control, much like he's passively engineered the makeup of the team as he saw fit via his (somewhat) subtle recruiting methods [ed -- the promise of fame and fortune only goes so far!].

Congrats on a great year. I have a great time with all y'all and hope you can say the same.

The playoffs were awesome in spite of the 1-2 record. Everyone played great. Our losses were competitive, our opposition was generally likeable and the win against the Fist Pumps was the perfect way to end the season. We ran into only one douchebag all day (and his own team didn't like him either) and had a blast running around in the sun for a few hours. Good times.

Aaron & Chris, hope Ottawa was great. Would've been a better tourney had you attended. We'd also have more pics. I think Erin has a couple post-tourney pictures from our venture to the Armview. Maybe we can Hammerblog the fuck out of those?

I guess the only bit of business remaining is the end-of-year party. I've previously cajoled Derek into hosting, but Michelle has offered to do the same. Derek has a lake, Michelle has a dance floor. Maybe they can leg wrestle for the honour of hosting.

Either way looking forward to seeing everyone before I hide in a cave over the winter...

Word up!
Timmy

The Penultimate

Not much to write about tonight - she was a cautious and tentative game, with both teams (or at least us) playing out of obligation, saving some energy for the weekend and trying not to roll our ankles (or worse) on the slippery Dartmouth turf. There were still some flashes of Hammers greatness - Dan saving a wayward toss, Aimee and Erin's tenacious D, big runs from Matt and Michelle, Becky taking the opposition's unsolicited (and potentially wrong) rule tutorials in stride, etc. The Ship Victory "Aaron's Victory Fries" (C) player of the game goes to Derek for his spirited, well-timed, everyone-was-thinking-it call from the sidelines to end the game. You may have saved us from pneumonia, or at the very least, a mild sniffle.

Blessed be.

Speaking of the weekend - I are truly bummed I cannot be there to run with y'all. May you have a great day, a show those Fist Pumps what is the what. Best of luck!

Motivation:

I can't wait to hear how it went.

Godspeed!
-AA

Aboot Last Night

Er, I'll get to it tonight after the kids are in bed.

In the meantime, the following was in my inbox last night when I got home as a gift for Derek et al. from Maria, whom we should all thank for her part in helping us out this season...

Thanks, yo!

Epic Collapse (Redux)

To summarize: epic start, epic throws from Derek, epic catches by Becky... cue epic collapse, epic exhaustion, epic sighs... then epic beer, okay pizza, and epic(?) boy band sing-alongs. The less said about that game the better. So, following that a picture is worth a thousand words, here are 16,000 words re: Bag Of Hammers 2011.

Also, see a few more years of Hammer action here.

See y'all next week. Rest up, my pretties.
-AA