Shanghai Ultimate

Our first weekend in Shanghai happened to coincide with the Shanghai Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. Shanghai’s expat community has built a strong Ultimate community that hosts pick-up & league games and an annual tournament that draws teams from around SE Asia. The Shanghai fielded three of the 16 teams in the tournament. I played for the third string Shanghai Pirates. Seven one-hour games in two days was the most intense workout I have had in a long time. We went three and four for the tournament, which was enough to win one of the consolation brackets. More importantly we had a great time.

Ultimate prides itself on simplicity and sportsmanship. There are no referees. Fouls and rule violations are called by players on the field. If the call is contested the disc is brought back and the throw is replayed.

Despite its overall simplicity, competitive Ultimate involves a tremendous amount of strategy, athleticism, and teamwork. There are positions (handler, mid, deep, wing), zone and man to man defenses, spread and stack offenses, and plenty of specialized terms, most of them intuitive, like: huck, break, flick, backhand, hammer, kick-block, hot, and cup.

Diving catches and blocks are frequent and spectacular. The success of a team is very much dependent on its ability to utilize all of its players and match up well with the opposing team.

In the end though, it is the spirit of the game that is most enjoyable. The idea that everyone should have fun reigns supreme. After each of our tournament games each team would devise a rousing cheer to honor the opposing side. Usually our cheers involved some creative usage of Chinese and references to Pirates drinking rum in the end-zone – AARRRRR.