Blockstack.tv

Post Vancouver

2008-10-01T13:27:00.001+01:00

Life after WUGC 2008

It's been more than a month since we've been back from Worlds and it's flown by just as quickly as the event itself. The memories are vivid highlights of the week.

* Ground breaking webcasting we did with Ultivillage
* Match Diesel smashing his fists on the walls of the commentator booth in frustration/excitement (and then not exactly admitting this on his blog)
* My being in a hot tub with two sexy but completely vacant women on my birthday while spraying
Allison and our expensive camera with cheap Champagne for 'effect' and somehow not getting sh*t for it.

There's too much more to mention.

The entire year leading up to WUGC2008 is a blur. Blockstack.tv started partly as an excuse to go to Vancouver and watch the worlds best players play the game we play. Who wouldn't want that? Tom and I talked about Lookflynews.com that Tom and I did for WUGC 2004 in Turku. Back then Tom went alone with a rather large group of volunteers including some now GB stars like Caesar, Brummie, Danny Hoyle and more. I stayed home and did editing :(. We thought we'd update the delivery method and reduce the man-power this time. Our purpose would be to create some video podcasts of our time there to give people a real feel for the event. I thought... 'I would enjoy that if I wasn't there.' Great! We had enough forethought this time to start early, actually learn how to do video editing, learn how to properly use a microphone and camera, and try to build up some viewers in advance so we weren't just there suddenly doing all this work recording and reporting and editing for 10 viewers a day. Tom and I found our areas of expertise, him mostly in front of the camera and myself mostly on editing and camera work. It all worked really well producing an Unplanned/Fantasy Football meets Waynes World style of show.

Fast-fowarding ahead to just over a week prior to WUGC, Tom and I were bricking it because we'd had no response from the WUGC staff in spite of contacting them well in advance. Tom had been turned down for the official announcers job (yes the guy, 2nd only to Tony Leonardo, who has done more event and Ultimate related commentary and public speaking than anyone in the world was looked off) and we thought this was going to end up being completely guerilla coverage with no support at all.
Enter Ultivillage. Patrick (Dick) Cloutier emails us and he's watched the commentary trailer kindly made for Tom by Si Williams and loved it. He doesn't know boo about me but wants us together to do commentary on the first ever webcast for the show-game between Canada and Great Britain!!! Whoah! We've got contacts, we've got free broadband, we've got VIP access and media passes. We're in.

What a week it was! I highly recommend going to an event like Worlds as a spectator. You've got the highest quality Ultimate being played non-stop to an extent that you can't possible watch all the games you want. Vancouver was beautiful and made me slightly homesick for the first time in years and the event itself was executed as smooth as you could hope for and more.

This may sound ridiculous or obvious but BlockStack has a tendency to make it all up as we go along. We thought for this though, we'd get some real planning in. Not to be. Once again we found ourselves pouring over the schedule each morning at the all you can eat buffet breakfast (sweet!) and planning the day which was loosely around key games. Unlike other events, at first we weren't allowed to film games because of the Ultivillage DVD deal. We were going to have to be more creative for sure. In spite of the additional pressure, most of the planning went to into the bin and we were filming primarily using distraction as our guide. If our attention was gathered by something then surely viewers would want to see this. Brilliant. Distractions plus big games = podcast: and we did this daily, spending most of our evenings at the computers editing hours of video into 30 minute shows while the ladies fetched food and drink. Credit to our ladies Alli and Catrin for putting up with all this.

So all is going well and suddenly Ultivillage come to us with a proposition. Do commentary on new daily webcasts from the show pitch and also for all 6 finals on Friday and Saturday. YEAH!!! Whoah hold on! How will we do the podcast if we're webcasting the whole time? With Difficulty. We brought in a few friends (Chris and June) to join the regular crew helping to film some stuff for us in the final days. Perfect! We did the commentary and it was a blast! Tom and I came up with new techniques for double teaming the play by play when you only get a semi-correct roster 5 minutes before. This largely consisted of one of us starting it off and forging on until we didn't know/remember a name and using a description and a switch of commentator. "HUGE SWING ACROSS THE BACK TO THE GIRL IN THE DISTINCTIVE YELLOW CAP... ...MELANIE HILL WHO MAKES A GREAT BID ON A DISC TROUBLED BY THE WIND"). It was great.

Sitting in the sun shine talking crap about your favourite sport with a good buddy, watching some great games, all the time receiving emails from around the world telling you what a great job you were doing. It's hard to imagine things working out better. We'll post some of our favourite emails in a future blog post. But rest assured if you did email us that we read every email that came in and almost all of them made us smile.

Unfortunately our finals episode did suffer in the end because of our own lack of attention to filming and especially our lack of editing time for it. Two days of finals footage and we had to check out of the compound the day after only giving about 6 hours editing time max. Not enough.

We're calling it a big fat success. I can't believe we haven't celebrated what we've accomplished yet. Two guys knowing nothing about modern video editing, camera work, how to podcast or even how to present a tv show ended up with VIP media passes at WUGC 2008, being
the faces and voices of the first EVER Ultimate webcasts with Ultivillage and released daily shows from the event with tight editing and interviews with all the top players in the World!

We're a little pleased with ourselves at the moment. This is the reason for what I said in the beginning. It's been a while since BlockStack has popped up and is enjoying a much needed break.

To put some perspective on the what we've accomplish and the price of it, here's some stats on the show so far
Total number of Shows: 8 in Vancouver, 2 in Copenhagen, 4 in Paganello, plus 6 on the sofa.
Hours of footage recorded: 55
Hours spent editing (appoximately): 160
Money spent on equipment: £2000 +- £100
Money spent on travel: £2,000+ each
Most watched show: WUGC 2008 - Monday Masterstroke (Ep 4) http://blip.tv/file/1146898
Total views (all shows): 38,000 and counting

We just need some time off to gather our thoughts, restock the holiday time and save some money and maybe take a nice bath. We'll be back.

Day 2 - Columbia is the new Japan

2008-08-04T06:51:00.002+01:00

We've made it through the first day of proper play and what a day it was. At a first glance, outside of the showcase matches, the schedule looked as if it was going to provide a series of expected results that would be far from news worthy. How wrong could that have been!

Columbia was the team to beat today. We personally witnessed the Columbian junior women's team defeat the USA junior women's team by a 3 point margin with full pitch rush celebrations for each and every point while simultaneously the Aussie junior girls took away the Canadian scalp. Those two victories left the junior girls division wide open.

In the open division we saw GB face off against the Columbian Open team and as tipped by Brian Gisel the tournament director for WUGC, they were more than a surprise package for the brits. In a controversial match filled with little disagreements the GB men offered a rocky start which the quick to go airbourne Columbians enjoyed. Great Britain tightened it up stretching the points difference at the tail end of the game to end it 11-7 in their favour. The left feeling a bit rattled, and more determined to return on Monday in force.

The New Zealand women's team seem to be taking advantage of what appears to be a mis-seeding (14th) by taking down everything in their path. They're going to continue to upset teams on their way to a potential quarter final.

Good news for us today was that Ultivillage seem keen to extend their webcast service by adding live webcasts each night from the Spirit Enclosure pitch showgames. That'll be a huge benefit to those at home and should be great fun for us as they want BlockStack back on the commentary. Spread the good word about that and register for UVTv asap at www.Ultivillage.com.

Don't get me wrong here, we did some many expected results from, Japan destroying the Netherlands to USA's Sockeye taking Finland to school.

All in all a great day. We found the beer garden, talked with loads of people for the podcast and even got permission to film ultimate for the show again. Ep3 should be great.

Day one round up

2008-08-03T05:19:00.005+01:00

What a great first day. Highlights include:-

Bangra lessons with 4000 people all doing the moves at the same time
20 Mexican waves
4 hour live web cast literally watched around the world
Philipino dancers
Parade of Athletes

Giving out an email address to the people watching the webcast wasn't something we had planned, it just seemed like a good idea. It turned out to be one of the best things about the opening day, for me personally.

Being able to get the instant feedback from people enjoying your work from Columbia, Dominican Republic, Malaysia, Netherlands, Great Britain, Australia, as well as right across Canada and the USA, was amazing. It really made the experience.

The opening game between GB and Canada was good fun to watch. I think GB surprised a few people. They certainly took points from Canada with some ease when things clicked.
Both teams made quite a few errors, GB just made a few more. Canada won 17-15.

Canadian handler Kira Frew and utility player Brandon Wong were the stand out players. GB had great performances from Mark Davin and Anna Wilkes, but there were no weak links. If GB eliminate the mistakes they can do amazing things.

Send us your comments if you saw the webcast.

Journey to Vancouver

2008-08-02T15:36:00.003+01:00

Travelling has become less enjoyable for me lately, not quite sure what it is but I think it's a combination of, tiredness, crampedness, dread at what I might have forgotten or might go wrong, and massive guilt about the amount of carbon I'm releasing.

I was tired, and I was terribly worried about the US immigration, but after a drive down to London, a Taxi to terminal 4, check in, a drink and some duty free shopping, we crossed the threshold to board our flight to Seattle and settled into NWA's comfy and well appointed seats. Each seat had it's own media player so you could pick from around 30 movies to watch at your leisure, pause and rewind too.

When NWA released "Straight out of Compton" I thought they could do no better. But since Ice Cube and the boys have started their airline they've gone from strength to strength.

The real fun started when we got to the US border. For those who haven't visited the USA in the last 5 years, they now use both fingerprints and a photo of your face to make sure they know who you are. When Cat (my wife) scanned her finger the computer raised it's eyebrow a little and went hummm. Soon we had a large red card stuffed into Cat's passport and were sent to go and sit in the naughty kids room with the other dodgy looking characters.

Security Officer Webb found the situation quite amusing which is a good job really or we might have just been turned around. The story goes like this. Last time we visited the USA was in August last year, we travelled with my Brother and his wife Clare. At the immigration desk Cat and Clare's finger prints and photo had been mixed up. So when we arrived at Tacoma International Cat scanned her finger, and a crack anti terror squad was put on high alert. It took a bit of explaining and a photo of Clare on my phone to convince Officer Webb that we weren't a threat to National security and it was in fact one of his Boston based colleagues that had ballsed up royally.

Our stay in Seattle was brief but very enjoyable. Our hosts Al and Xumin, are friends of Steve and Alli, and made us all feel very welcome. We had a trip to an American Dinner, and a drive around Redmond, home of Microsoft. I have a love hate relationship with Microsoft, but it was very cool to see the campus.

We entered a Top Gear style race from Seattle to Vancouver. Steve and Alli were catching one bus and we were on another. Both buses were timed to leave and arrive within 10 minutes of each other so we had a "loser buys the beer" bet which we lost by such a massive amount that Steve was already supping his third pint with a smug Jeremy Clarkson face on when we arrived.

Our Quick Shuttle to Vancouver was neither quick or capable of orbiting the earth, but give me chance to have a good chat with John Liddicoat from Australia open. Fascinating to hear his opinion on Aussie chances, Japanese threat, North American tactics etc.

UBC is a dream university Campus, watch the show for a guided tour. There is secure Wifi everywhere and kick ass net access in every room. A better venue for our needs is hard to imagine.

Last night we had more sushi than 4 people could eat, for $49 dollars. That's ridiculous. Awesome value.

Its a big day today, I'm so excited to see GB Mixed play Canada. We are also doing the commentary and interviews for the live webcast on Ultivillage. You need to register but that's free.

Tom

New Blockstack.tv Website live

2008-07-31T00:11:00.003+01:00

The new Blockstack.tv website is released on the world. Check it out and if you find anything wrong, put it in a comment and we'll fix it. We're hoping the new site will allow you to keep up with all things Blockstack.tv much more easily.

Myself and Steve have been working very hard in preparation for the trip to Canada. Steve has got some awesome gear for us to wear and I've been sweating over a hot laptop make the new site. We're a good team. We've also got some "things we prepared earlier" which we hope you enjoy on the shows. We've also got CanterburyNZ back to help us out with some more sponsorship.

We've got a great set up in Vancouver. We're going to be right in the middle of the action with a base in the athletes village. We're also going to be working really closely with the guys from Ultivillage so you'll get to see some of their awesome coverage on the show.

Here's hoping everything goes well out there.
Tom

PS. Myself and my wife will be travelling by car and camping around BC for the week after the tournament, if you have any advice or tips on things to see and do please leave a comment.

Blockstack in Vancouver

2008-07-21T12:32:00.011+01:00

Blockstack TV having been making plans to go to WUGC2008 in Vancouver for what seems like years now. To be honest the whole project has been building up to the World Championships this August. Both myself and Steve have been to a few big championships, they are always so exciting and this one looks like it's going to be one of the best ever.

We just hope we can bring you a flavour of what it's like to be out there

Our coverage will include:

Daily podcasts from the players village
Results from all the GB teams
Interviews with major players and teams throughout the tournament
Atmosphere from the players village
Myself and Steve inimitable style and sense of humour

Get a taste of what we are all about.

Anja Haman interview about GB Women trip to USA

2008-06-27T15:27:00.007+01:00

The other day I heard that GB Women, had beaten Canada women while in a recent tour of North America. I had to find out more.

The original idea was to record a phone call with Anja Haman (GB Women player and coach) and video me on the phone, then edit it down to a sensible size and include it in the next show.

As it turned out, we chatted for a bit too long and syncing it with the video would have been impossible. Plus the sound quality was very average.

However the content is interesting, you can listen to the interview on mp3.

You can find out more about Anja and the other GB women at www.gbwomensultimate.com. Check out those lovely photos.

Steve on the Couch

2008-06-22T14:28:00.002+01:00

Just for all the kids out there who may have watched Episode #5 and thought, those guys are absolutely smashed and are filming themselves rambling on about Ultimate, please drink responsibly.

We're not saying that alcohol is cool and that drinking lots of it prior to doing anything is a great idea. It just happens to be that it works rather well prior to filming a internet TV show or even filming the same episode of an internet TV show for the 3rd or 4th time.

Really though this show was such a pain in the butt, yet at the same time a complete party to make. I would have loved it if Take 1 had worked. As it was, the night pressed on and what is normally around 2 beers/glass of wine for a show became 4...then 6 and now as a result I get to see how silly I look/act when I'm drunk watching this episode completely sober. I'm my drunk self's sober friend, slightly embarrassed yet thoroughly entertained.

All that said the entire blockstack experience so far has been a riot! Paga was insane, Copenhagen was awesome and the regular couch shows are more fun that we had imagined it would be. Also much much more work. Thanks for watching and expect some pretty outrageous stuff in the future.

-Steve

Adventures in Podcasting

2008-06-05T19:18:00.000+01:00

Occasionally the rollercoaster ride that is Blockstack TV, takes a dip. The dip was the realisation that we had made another dud. The first recording of Episode 5 was so bad that even with 10 minutes chopped off the end it was still unwatchable. YAWN.

Problems included:

Too much self indulgent banality
Me and Steve fighting to have the last word (Steve usually winning)
No energy
We look bored
Even Clary wasn't very funny

Sometimes it may not seem like it but we do want to be professional in some ways, so we made the tough and time consuming decision to film it again.

That was last night at my house . Here's how it went.

Tom goes to post office to fetch new adapters to simplify mic cabling
Steve arrives with the rest of the crew
Test new mic adapters - thumbs up
Put camera on charge
Talk about loads of stuff, none of it related to show (iMac, growing tomatoes, blah blah blah)
Drink
New member of crew arrives
Have nice meal, more drink
Call Clary
Mic up and plan show (Do you think we should have done this earlier???)
10.45pm start recording show
11.20pm Battery goes flat
Check video to see where it got too, realise there was no sound all night!
Decide that we are going to do this thing if it kills us, more drink
Some crew goes home, rest of crew concede that staying over is unavoidable and get stuck into more drink
12.15am Start recording show take 3
Nail it
1.30am Play Star Wars Lego on XBOX 360
2.00am Go to bed

Of course for every dip in the rollercoaster there is a high point too. The episode is good, Clary is brilliant, we had great fun making it.

I'm editing this one so look out for it coming up very soon.

Also you can now subscribe to the show through iTunes.

Making of Episode 4

2008-04-10T22:21:00.007+01:00

The making of episode 4 has been a bit of an odd affair. Firstly it's important to note that it was filmed before Paganello, so there are a few mentions of Paga being in the future, obviously it is now in the past. We had to record an intro in a pub after practice to explain the problem, which Steve is going to strap on to the front of the show.

Episode 4 features our new agony Ultimate uncle, Clary. Clary is the oldest living Ultimate player, we manage to call him on the show and ask him about an incident from last years EUCF. Clary has to break off from his bathtime to speak to us, but it's well worth while. Got an Ultimate conundrum? Maybe Clary can help, what he lacks in tact he makes up for in wisdom. Send us an email with your problem and we'll put it to Clary next time we speak to him.

There's also a heap of exciting sofa based chat, photo news, some emails, and my photography section which I hope you find useful. If you have further questions about photography
then feel free to send them in, if we think that answering them in the show will be useful then we'll do just that.

One of the things we've learnt from Paganello is that simple is good. Our one mic, one camera solution didn't give is much scope for messing around with fancy camera angles, but it did mean we were fast. Easy to set up (approx 90 secs), and easy to move around (only one cable).
By contrast our home sofa set up involves two wireless mics, two receivers, a mic mixer, numerous cables and things that need to be plugged in and several batteries that can run out. It take us about 45 minutes to set up and we do a ten minute sound check before every episode, even then we have issues. As you can see from this episode where both my mic and Steve's mic take it in turns to go dead. We may well be trading down to a simple cheaper wired mic solution in the future, probably before Episode 5.

Blockstack at Paganello Review

2008-03-27T12:24:00.003Z

I've finished cleaning sand out of my bag. I've had some sleep. I've reflected on the amazing time we had. I've even watched the 4 days of coverage from the Rimini sands.

Both Steve and myself worked our socks off all week. We had less sleep than anyone. During the finals we commentated on all 4 games. We were still defrosting Steve's hands an hour after we left the beach and you may notice that some of the camera work is a little shaky due to shivering.

With everything considered I think we did a decent job of capturing the character and atmosphere of the event, but our opinion is not really that important. What is important is what you the viewers thought of it.

Get your commenting fingers ready and bust out your feedback.

What was your favourite bit?
Did any of it bore you?
What did you want to see more of?
Did you get a feel for the tournament?

If you could also include in your feedback whether you were at Paganello 2008 and where you are from it would really help us.

Paganello TV...4 days to go

2008-03-17T19:00:00.004Z

Friday will mark the release of Paga TV Episode 1, straight from the beaches of Rimini Italy!

With Paganello being probably the best beach tournament in the world, this is both an intimidating venture for us as it'll be the first time we'll be knocking out episodes with only hours of editing time, AND, we'll be very susceptible to adverse weather. I've checked weather.co.uk and found that it looks like rain almost every day. Not good.

All that said it'll still make for some good viewing. People don't want to see others lounging about on sun drenched beaches sending mocking text messages to those still home saying 'wish u wer here ha ha'. Viewers want to see adversity. I've been to a Paga with howling winds, 5-10 deg temperatures and while we bonded as a team, I don't recall being so cold while playing before or since. This time in addition to my own health, I've got a few thousand pounds of video and audio equipment to protect as well. Hmmm....

Right...so all that said we're going to get some great footage regardless of the conditions of the play, the players and the scene and at the very least it can't be anything but entertaining.

Episode #2 - The Making of

2008-02-13T12:18:00.003Z

Little do the viewers know but there are actually two complete versions of Episode #2. Both of them cover the same material. The first one we recorded on the Thursday before the release was meant to be 30 to 45 minutes long as we'd tried to learn from the massive over-run on Episode #1 and cut down our skeleton significantly.

Well...the bevy for the originally E2 was Capirinhas from Brazil! We chatting way too long about these, Tom went on and on about his snowboarding holiday and generally we just rambled about nonsense way too much. The reason being...our precious crew wasn't there for this one. It was a full DIY podcast for Tom and I and we screwed it all up.

To quote Tom after watching the editing version (already cut from 75 minutes to 50 minutes) " I just keep saying the same thing as you using different words! ".

Rather than release it we decided to bin it keeping only the advert for 'Ultimate BlockStack' we shot at the very end of that Thursday (lookout for more stuff like this in future episodes!). There was so many things wrong with it. Even the sound was crap again.

So...Sunday night we brought in the crew and trimmed down the schedule with actual times and hit it again. We also decided on filming photonews as a separate thing because of the laptop lag. That was a good idea. Having the crew to wave at us when we were faffing, going off topic or running out of time was so helpful. I think it really rocked. We switched drinks to a nice Banrock Station wine as well which we thought was a great environmental move until we filmed it and realised mid discussion it had a massive carbon footprint. Oops. Oh well. So we nailed a 30 min episode on the nose. Lets hope we can keep it up and speed up the editing as well!

BlockStack does GB Open

2008-01-25T23:31:00.001Z

GB D again
Originally uploaded by BlockStackSteve

I went down to the GB Open practice that took place at Loughborough University with the plan to film some practice stuff, maybe get a bit of action on film to, with some clever editing , give those who watch the clip a bit of a scare and also get some interviews with the players we can use as profiles on the show.

Well the first thing that went wrong was I got there later than I wanted and nobody was there! Thankfully there were tons of bags and discs all over the artificial turf pitch indicating I at least had the right pitch. Oh yeah they were practising on this high-tech artificial turf. Take a close look at any of the pics and tell me it doesn't look like grass. It was pretty sweet stuff. The give away was it was probably the only grass in England at the moment that wasn't flooded.

So, eventually they returned to the pitch after a bit of a team talk inside the nearby warmth of a meeting room. I then managed to get a few early interviews with a couple of the guys based on a bit of a script we'd written for them to answer.

The Script:
This was the plan...we'll right some questions on a piece of paper, they could read them all in advance, and then deliver the answers to the camera without pressure, cool and calm. Right? Not so much, however, some of the reactions I got were great, some were almost professional and others were near on autistic but nevertheless entertaining.

Afterwards I was excited and ready to film some action and was promptly told they were going to play offence vs defence and that I couldn't film it. : (. Bollocks. I can only imagine this was because they were aware of the vast appeal of BlockStack and simple knew that teams like Sockeye, Furious and Skogs would be glued to the broadcast looking for the Achilles heal of the GB team. Well because I know that all good players do watch the podcast on a regular basis this was a well founded precaution. So I didn't film. I did take a few good profile shots and out of about 250 crap pics I managed to scrape a few good ones as well. Thank goodness I brought my camera otherwise I'd have just be there getting very cold and wet. Afterwards I got a few good snaps and a couple more interviews, enough to make it worthwhile.

Personally it was superb because although I couldn't film the tactics of the open team I did get to watch and learn. So, look for the new book from BlockStack soon to hit good Ultimate shops near you 'How to Play Ultimate like Great Britain Open' and of course watch BlockStack Episode three for the GB Open featurette.

Episode 1: The Making of....

2008-01-11T11:28:00.001Z

titleimage
Originally uploaded by BlockStackSteve

Hosts: Steve Giguere and Tom Styles
Crew: Allison Baron and Cat Styles
Camera: JVC Everio MG505 3CCD Harddisk Video Camera.
Sound: Cheap wireless tie clip mics and a mixer.
Subjects: Photo News, Christmas gifts (The Powerball), Ultimatum, The Top 5 Ultimate Frisbee things of 2007 in the UK and the Great Barr Crawl Tournament.

Behind the Scenes:
We filmed this over the holidays. We had planned on filming it on New Years Eve and then ended up doing it just prior with the idea that we'd pretend it was New Years Eve but that didn't really work out. This was the first episode and we really wanted it to go off in a single take. That is the plan for most of the episodes so this isn't any clever editing and you can a real feel for the 'anything goes' aspect of it. The problem was our skeleton of a plan for it didn't take into account the ramblings that inevitably followed which made our plan of 30 to 45 mins extend into over an hour. Oops. As a result we release it in two parts.

We had all sorts of technical problems with the sound. First we had bought two wireless mics. We then found out the frequency of the wireless could not be adjusted so we could only use one at a time. We had an idea to get a two to one input jack and put both mics into one unit. Great right! Wrong. The mics had a special screw it connection so the whole time we're talking we're one wrong move from the whole sound contraption falling apart. That's mainly why we're trying not to move very suddenly the whole time.

The last issue really was the lighting. What you can't see is ever light in my house piled around us and aimed straight at the couch. The camera is placed just right so it seems to clip out all of them. The camera was actually the only thing that worked really well. I highly recommend it.

What else....the freakin dog kept trying to jump on us...the crew forgot to turn off their mobile phones so I had to filter out that...'dit...ditadit...ditadit....' sound thoughout the first half of the video. LOTS of white balance work and hiss and humm removal required on the sound but I think it turned out ok.

Oh one last issue was my mic was facing the wrong direction almost the whole time. You could hear me ok but not good enough.

Lessons learned: Sound is critical. We're getting another mic at a different frequency (this is getting expensive now) and we'll do more sound checks next time. Also...going on for over an hour combined with mulled wine = more rambling. We've got a better idea of how long things take now so we'll be doing shorted episodes more often.

We've got over 200 views on each part so far...hooray!
Steve

WCBU The final wrap-up

2007-12-22T20:09:00.001Z

Snorkling at the reef in Maceio
Originally uploaded by BlockStackSteve

Hello,

So on a personal note...we lost. The GB Masters fought hard to come back from 5-8 down to make it 9-8. We felt good for the win and inspired even more so by the women's team giving us a quality breast wave complete with Union Jack nipplies after each point. All that said, GB and the USA were very evenly matched and as the game swung back and forth, the timing favoured them as it ended in the cap with them taking it 11-9. Tragic in one sense but triumphant in another as we know we did very well against them and they were a great bunch of guys to lose to. USA did sympathise as they lost in the final in 2004 to Austria after a tough one. Perhaps that means it's ours in 2011.

The GB Women...what can I say about them. They were top class performers on pitch and off. I made a lot of new friends on this trip, many of which were on this team and I was extremely proud to be playing GB as they took took revenge for our loss by winning by 3 over the US team. Going into the final each team had a win against each other but I believe this time the better team won. GB had it all together and had the spirit going for them as well.

The medal award itself was really well done. I'll get a picture of it online in my flickr area in a moment. The women's gold version was a gold medal on a green string (very Brasil). Something cool enough that you could wear out and not just put on a trophy shelf.

I'm sorry that this entry took so long. To summarise quickly what happened that day,
1. lost the final to USA by 10:30.
2. Partied with the USA for a bit and then with the GB Mixed team cheering on the Women
3. Drank too much Cachaca from a can and memory loss begins here abouts...
4. Had to rush to Bus Station to get tickets back to Pipa that night because there was only 4 left. It's a miracle this happened at all but thanks goes to Anna Shipman for alerting me to the urgency of the situation.
5. Return to event with women winning gold and to watch the Aussies beat the fan favouriate Phillipines to take gold in the open division
6. More beer...swimming in the sea...a nap and almost missed my bus to Pipa. No internet in Pipa, sorry.

I did try to write an entry back at the hotel but you really should see it. Perhaps I should post it because it really is a pile of drunken jibberish.

Well done to all teams at WCBU and all players who stepped up to represent their country. There's part of me that want's WCBU to take on the same level as WUGC but at the same time, I hope that each countries top grass players still concentrate on there not so sandy area of expertise so that that Beach World Championship stays the big competitive chill-out party that it is.

Thanks Brasil and thanks to Patrick for another success.

Brazil Results

2007-12-17T09:29:00.000Z

Well it sounds like it's been an awesome tournament at the World Beach Ultimate Championships in Brazil. I've just got off the phone with Steve, who's chillaxing after a hard week in the soft Brazilian sand. Unfortunately he's in a place with no internet connection. So here's the results as far as we know them.

GB Women Gold - Yep that's right GOLD as in "always believe in your soul, you've got the power to ... etc.". They defeated the USA in the final. Come on ladies - Awesome work.

GB Masters Silver - as in Hi HO Lining. They lost in the cap to the USA, in a very hard fought game.

GB Open 4th - as in May the 4th be with you.

GB Mixed 7th - yep,

Scotland Mixed 11th

Ireland Mixed ??

Post any other information in the comments, also if you have an congratulations for the teams, then comment me up.

Today's Results

2007-12-15T21:34:00.000Z

It was a massive day for GB all around.

GB Women clinched an appearance in the final finishing at the top of their group and avoiding a 2-3 semi final late today. The semi was between the Aussies and USA. I didn't see much of it however I do know that the US team was too much for Aussies and will be facing GB Women tomorrow. They have already played twice with each taking a victory. As you can imagine it's early to bed tonight for the ladies.

GB Masters pulled some energy out of their arses to defeat Portugal today to put them 3rd in the group and subsequently defeat...I say defeat...whup is when I mean, the Canadian Masters 7-2 in the 2v3 semi final to put them into the Masters final tomorrow against USA in the second USA - GB final. The play in the Canada - GB semi was incredible. One point lasted 25 minutes with as many turnovers from each side and some massive play from both teams. I was on for that point. We all chalked up some killer D stats and showed that we had the legs to last and gave the US team watching a real scare. Last time when GB faced the US team it was a sudden death defeat for GB. It'll be different tomorrow (I hope).

GB Mixed have done very well at the event. Had they been able to gel and work on their consistency a bit more I think they could have contended quite a bit more. That said they finished today in 7th position in the Mixed division narrowly loosing a series of matches, each by only a few points. The position does not reflect the level of play from this team and respect must be given for their hard work. They were at a point only a few points away from the final in the game against Austria.

GB Open. This is a rather tragic tale. These guys have worked their asses off to be here and have shown by defeating the Aussies early in the tournament that they have got the balls and the heart to take it all the way. The tragic bit was loosing captain Dave Pichler today to illness leaving them without him for their semi rematch against the Australians and possibly contributing to their loss to them this time around. They played a hard fought match against the USA Open team but in the end the leaderless squad with stunning performances from Sicko and Caesar were still not enough. GB Open, 4th.

The Phillipines

2007-12-15T21:17:00.000Z

I first caught the Philippines playing against...I can't even remember who now. It was insane. Basically a bunch of hyper buff 5'5 average height guys and one girl (lets be clear about that because she's as part of the team as anyone) are storming through the top teams at this event! They play a fast paced, unhindered by conventional tactics style of play that is tearing the place apart and building a huge fan following at the same time. Their latest results being a win over the GB Open team who, while looking quite good, could not handle the speed of the Phillipines squad on turn-overs, and a win over the USA team in the semis putting them into what is sure to be a killer final against the Aussies tomorrow.

They seem to have a 'plinko' style of play, for those who have watched the A&B videos 127 times like I have that involve passing and running like a bullet into position.

I did think of stories I'd heard about the Buzz Bullets in Perth and they're unconventional style. Perhaps the far east have developed the game to a new level having reverse engineered the western tactics. Typical but consistent and effective here. Everyone is really excited to see more from them. I think it's a good time to mention that the GB Masters played them this morning and put up a 11-7 scoreline against them. Ok maybe they weren't pulling out all of the stops but it made us feel good.

The team made a request to mention their tournament next March. Look it up online and go, they'll be happy to help you with accommodations and flights as well.

GB Women POTD (Point of the Day)

2007-12-15T18:45:00.000Z

I thought in line with Felix and Ultivillage's COTD (clip of the day) I'd put together a point of the day for you. It's GB Women v USA Women. To give you an idea of the tight game and the effort required to score each point I've chosen one point I thought was exceptional to video blog. Enjoy.

Video Blog - The Disco Party

2007-12-14T10:56:00.000Z

After complaining a bit about the Hawaiian party we still put the effort into going to the Disco Party. This required a taxi to take us to a remote(ish) club only to find out the door man was charging R20$ to get in. This wasn't part of the plan so a small protest gathered outside and proved to be one of the highlights of the event as the players indulged into trying a bit of Capoeira (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capoeira) with the Brasil team and ended in a party that could not be stopped. I'm proud to have been part of the 8 strong GB team who represented there.

Corrected...yet again

2007-12-14T10:19:00.000Z

It seems there is a giant white board with results on it right next to the burger bar area attached to the arena pitch fence. It's just me who is a 'tad disappointing'. I'm recognising my mistakes and moving on.

Corrected...results are on BULA Blog

2007-12-14T10:18:00.000Z

I was correct last night and found that the scores are in fact on the bula blog (http://www.beachultimate.org/blog/) in details and the current state is coped below.

World Championships scores and standings

Schedule (.pdf) | Leave comments

Last modified:Friday, 14-Dec-2007 05:13:45 EST

**Mixed Divison**
	AT	BR	CA	CH	DE	ES	GB	IE	Pc	Sc	US	Pts
AT	X	13-4		8-9		6-12		8-5			1-13	4
BR	4-13	X	4-7	6-10		2-12		2-15				0
CA		7-4	X		6-16	6-10		2-9		7-8		2
CH	9-8	10-6		X			5-8	6-9			5-14	4
DE			16-6		X	9-6	13-2		12-4	16-3		10
ES	12-6	12-2	10-6		6-9	X	10-3					8
GB				8-5	2-13	3-10	X		14-6	15-9	3-13	6
IE	5-8	15-2	9-2	9-6				X	9-8		6-8	8
Pc					4-12		6-14	8-9	X	9-2	6-12	2
Sc			8-7		3-16		9-15		2-9	X	3-13	2
US	13-1			14-5			13-3	8-6	12-6	13-3	X	12

Pc = Peace Team. Sc = Scotland

**Open + Master Divison***
	AU	BR	Ci	GB	PH	US	BR	CA	GB	PT	US	Pts
AU	X		21-4	10-11		11-7	20-4		14-1		14-4	7
BR		X			8-18	8-9	7-4			14-4	6-8	2
Ci	4-21		X	3-15	5-8		10-11	7-12	7-10			0
GB	11-10		15-3	X			15-3	13-1	18-4	17-3		8
PH		18-8	8-5		X	10-8		13-4		15-9		8
US	7-11	9-8			8-10	X	11-4				11-6	4
BR	4-20	4-7	11-10	3-15		4-11	X				6-8	1
CA			12-7	1-13	4-13			X	10-7	8-5		5
GB	1-14		10-7	4-18				7-10	X		10-11	1
PT		4-14		3-17	9-15			5-8		X	7-13	0
US	4-14	8-6				6-11	8-6		11-10	13-7	X	7

*Top left is Open division. Bottom right is Master's division. A win within a division is 2 points. A win against other division is 1 point. After combined round-robin, play-off within divisions. Ci = Currier Island

**Womens Divison**
	AU	BR	Ci	GB	US	AU	BR	Ci	GB	US	Pts
AU	X	10-3	13-2	2-13	3-11	X	9-8				6
BR	3-10	X		3-14	0-15	8-9	X				0
Ci	2-13		X	0-18	3-13			X	1-13		0
GB	13-2	14-3	18-0	X	9-5			13-1	X		10
US	11-3	15-0	13-3	5-9	X					X	6

Ci = Currier Island

Posted by Patrick at December 1, 2007 10:46 PM
Comments (50) | Permalink

WCBU Day 2 Results

2007-12-13T21:15:00.000Z

GB Women

The boring news first. GB Women have stomped just about everyone. The real competition appears to still be coming from the USA and from the Aussies however having beat all of the competition thus far they are feeling rather confident. We'll see how confident tonight at the Disco party.

GB Open

The big news. The boys pulled off a massive victory against the Aussie open team ( that thrashed the Masters yesterday ) in a massive sudden death finish. Thrash from the Open team commented that it was all about massive D. The open were doing a good job however the D line really stepped up their game for this one and it paid off. Well done. They also clocked in some easy victories against the remaining Masters division teams, Brasil and Portugal. They are confident that the GB Masters will do a number on those teams as well. That said, they thought GB Masters would defeat USA and Canada. On to...

GB Masters

The Masters basically had a poor day. They lost a tough one to the USA team 11-10 in sudden death (or maybe it was 10-9). After some hard D and a some solid but missed layout D attempts the US team snuck the final point home. Great spirit has dominated the Masters division and although the loss was tough it was a great match. The game today against Canada showed the Masters feeling a bit weathered...literally. It was 35deg in the shade and sunny today. Perhaps a bit of over exposure or maybe even sweaty hands were part of the equation but Canada took over the game just past half to win 11-6 (or close to that). Jamie Rogers was the exception sending some clinical long discs to Wayne Davey. The rest of the team however put disc to sand, unforced too many times to hope for a victory. The encouraging end to take from this was that the GB Masters can play and will play much better. Brazil and Portugal are on the cards tomorrow. This is it if there is to be a chance for the final.

GB Mixed

Highs and lows are what the Mixed team are all about. They played magnificiently against the Swiss Mixed team today with an impressive 8-5 win from behind. Somebody comment on this if I've got that part really wrong. At times they look like a team destined for the final, and others, well my mother used to say if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
I watched their game against the German Mixed team who are tipped again for the final to repeat their Gold performance in 2004. This team is basically the team that played at EUC this summer. They performed well there and are showing here that they are World Class. A game to watch will be USA/Germany. (Photo: Gary Lloyd bids against a strong German Squad against a beautiful backdrop of Maceio).

Scotland

I missed out on them yesterday for which I apologise. I don't have any contacts on that team to keep me informed however I can say that they do look good at times. Yesterday their game against GB was hot! They lost it but it was a killer performance and left me impressed with the thought that they would end this event with a respectable placing.

Ireland

Same as above...they looked outstanding today playing against the USA mixed team. I don't know the result. I'll make some effort tomorrow to give some results on them.

The Tournament...

what I'm finding a tad disappointing is that it's difficult to get results. In Portugal there was a large white board out with daily results on it. Here there isn't any recognisable headquarters to so much as ask a question about the event. Scores are submitted to the scorekeepers who disappear somewhere and the blog or event website doesn't seem to have anything current on it.

Last night was the first party of the event and was a Hawaiian theme. That said, the bar staff could not keep up, the Hawaiian theme was simply a prearranged idea with little effort at the party itself to accent this choice so it was effectively a bunch of people dressed funny in a bar. Tonight is the 'Disco' party. I don't imagine it'll be more than a DJ playing disco music. Even so, I think I'll be pretty happy with that.

Opening Ceremony Video Blog

2007-12-12T22:28:00.000Z

A picture is worth a thousand words