Open Final Preview
The Open final will be played by the American teams Revolver and Sockeye at Discraft field (#24) at 2:00 on Saturday afternoon. The game will be broadcasted and recorded for playback on the internet at www.strizna.cz.
We asked a few questions of the teams:
1. What was your team's focus in preparing for the WUCC?
2. In what games has your team had its toughest moments so far?
3. What have been your biggest adjustments to play in this tourney?
4. What are your impressions of the tournament overall?
5. Why should the spectators root for your team?
I talked with #21 Dave Bestock, a long-time player for sockeye and handler on the offensive team.
1. In training, we were hitting the track, and preparing for the long grind that this tournament is. I think emotionally it's really hard to get ready for something like this, where it's day after day, with the distractions and all the teams. It's a challenge, but we were [at least] trying to prepare ourselves physically. And one of our big emphases this year has been on having fun.
2. It's always tough to lose, so getting that Revolver [Power Pool play] game called short for lightening, where we lost 13-10 to them, was hard. I think these mornings are tough, getting mentally prepared to play. And honestly, our team has some of its hardest moments, rising up during some of the easier games. We show up when it's big time, but there's a lot of games to play throughout, and showing up and having a positive attitude and working hard in all of the games is a challenge.
3. Definitely the rules are quite different and we made an effort to get everyone to look at those. The field size is different – we've played on some really narrow fields and had to adjust our offense to make space for our cutters. And one of the great things about worlds is you see all these different styles of play, and you have to make those adjustments on the fly in terms of what defense you are playing and what are they are doing that's working.
4. I love playing Worlds. This is my third Worlds. It's so great, a game I started playing in high school, to come and play teams from around the world. It's just such a treat and an honor.
5. We have fun. And we show it. We celebrate the good things we do. In this last game, we made it a point, when the other team made a big play, to continue to have a smile on our face. Mostly to lift ourselves up, but it's an honor to be on these fields, and to be in these games. And I hope that we show what I know to be true for our team, which is we're doing it because we love it. And we love playing for fans, and we love the support when we get it.
I talked to #23 Mike Payne, one of the four captains of Revolver and player since it started 5 years ago.
1. We have the double challenge, like other US and Canadian teams, of preparing first for Worlds and club championships in the US. Our focus has been on a double-peak, for both of those tournaments. We started really early by conditioning and practicing as a team.
2. The toughest moments seem to have been off the field, the logistical challenges of being in Prague. We've had some transportation challenges with shuttles and taxis and things like that. We had a couple of hasty warm-ups, that challenged us mentally to stay focused. We're challenged by the hotel and eating situation which aren't optimal. Frankly a lot of the challenges for us have been distractions; I think for the most part we've overcome them on the field.
Two on-the-field things. One, playing against Sockeye [in pool play], it's hard to play against a team that knows you so well, you're never going to beat them by a lot if they've got talent. And then the Buzz Bullets in the semifinal, [who] play a completely different style of ultimate from any other top team in the world. I think we were challenged to play good defense on them and stop their flow.
3. We haven't made any big adjustments to our game since we got here.
4. A tournament like this is always awesome, just because you have so many people coming together. You get to meet a lot of new people, you get to see a lot of different styles of play, you get to see multiple divisions at the highest level. I do think that it is possible that Prague was not the best place, because some of the infrastructure seems to be difficult to deal with. I know the tournament organizers did a huge amount of work and I fully recognize that, but sometimes you just run into a setting that is hard to manage. So WFDF can think three times instead of twice about where to hold the next one.
I think the quality of play has been lower than I expected. I think part of that is you have a lot of teams that prepare for the double peak, like we did, and it's really hard to manage. I think that you see some US teams saving it for the fall; maybe the same is true for Canada.
5. When Revolver was started five years ago by three guys, the principle of the team that it was founded on was having fun with each other, having respect for your opponents, and giving young players in the Bay Area a place to develop. We've tried really hard in the last five years to make it not as much about winning, but more about playing the right style of ultimate so that we respect each other, and so that we demonstrate to the rest of the Ultimate community that you can have a group of guys who play for the right reasons and project the right attitude and still can win.
The Czech organizing committee has decided to donate CZK 1 for every point scored at Worlds 2010 to Ultimate Peace from merchandise sales. Here is a counter to track how many points have been scored. 
