On July 24th and 25th 19 Teams from 5 playing divisions went to Burnaby Lake Park to take part in the 2004 British Columbia Ultimate Championships. This years tournament was a huge leap forward from the 2003 event which saw just 5 teams in 1 division.

The idea of this tournament is to present teams from all over BC with a “local” tournament that will attract the best teams BC (and therefore the World) has to offer, along with many up and coming squads that can gain valuable experience and track their progress towards Nationals from year to year.

With CUPA set to lower the number of teams in the Open and Mixed divisions to just 12 teams in 2005, and next years CUC being the qualification tournament for WUCC 2006, being held in Perth, AUS, we should continue to see interest in this event grow.

But back to 2004. This year the Open, Womens, Masters and Juniors divisions were playing for seeding at CUC, as all teams did qualify, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some great games.

Women's Division

With the last minute withdraw of Victoria’s Reef, there was only 1 game and 2 teams in this division. Hussy managed to recover from a slow start and win the game (and the title of 2004 Womens Champions) while Okanagan Bushfire showed up and captured the BC#2 seed at Nationals. Reef will be seeded #3 from the province.

Women

1. Hussy
2. Bushfire
3. Reef

Open Division

The big game here was the always interesting Nomads vs the newly formed team Empire Ultimate. After an enthusiastic game the Nomads short bench may have been the difference and Empire won out, capturing the BC Title and with it, the #1 seed at Nationals. The Nomads, who will certainly have more bodies in August, came second with VOID from Vancouver rounding out the 3 teams going to Nationals from BC.

Since the end of the tournament, an Open team from Winnipeg has dropped out of CUC 2004 which has opened the door for the Sofa Kings of the Okanagan Region to add a 4th team from BC.

1. Empire Ultimate
2. Nomads
3. Void
4. Sofa Kings

Masters Division

Setting the way back machine to 1995, the members of VertiGold have reformed to take another run at Canadian Ultimate glory. Along with The Eddies, GRIND and the Negligents, BC will have an unprecedented 4 teams in the Masters division of Nationals this year.

At the end of a long, hot day, the BC Championships came down to the Eddies coming back from a second half deficit to defeat the 2003 Champs GRIND 15-12. VertiGold was 3rd with the Negligents placing 4th.

1. Eddies
2. GRIND
3. VertiGold
4. Negligents

Juniors Division

As with the Masters, the Juniors have managed to get together 4 teams to qualify for CUC 2004. We should all be looking forward to some great results from these teams, and looking out for these players at a league near you soon.

Deep Threat, or the BC All-Star team won the event, followed by the teams from Vancouver, Surrey and lastly Abbotsford.

1. BC AllStars (Deep Threat)
2. Vancouver
3. Surrey
4. Abbotsford

Mixed Division

In what proved to be the most interesting division on paper and on the field, the Mixed division saw 6 teams looking for 5 spots at Nationals. The play in this division was incredibly close, with no team going undefeated and all teams winning at least 1 game.

At the top, last years runner’s up BoneSaw once again tasted Silver when they lost their last game to the young guns of Team Fisher Price. TFP had earlier lost to Idle Hands and managed to come back and squeak one out 13-12 vs Joyride, so they did not run away with this tournament.

As for Idle Hands, they squandered a chance at the #2 seed by losing a tough game at the end of the day to JoyRide, a team that needed to win the game in order to get into Nationals. Idle ended the day #3, with JoyRide #4.

With 4 spots secured, the final spot was decided when Vancouver’s Dragoon managed to beat Victoria’s Ferrell 13-10, sending the team from the Island back home without a ticket to CUC 2004.

1. Team Fisher Price (Was Deep 6)
2. BoneSaw
3. Idle Hands
4. JoyRide
5. Dragoon
6. Ferrel (Did not qualify for CUC 2004)

It was a great weekend, and I look forward to another great tournament in 2005.