Winter 98-99

Lots of speculation on players over the winter. The biggest, of couse, was the rumour that Dave Boardman was heading back to town. We had seen what the best had to offer and were bringing back our whole nucleus of players plus possibly adding some new players. Andre Strausmanus, Dave B. and a controversial (in my opinion) Joe sezario. (I know I spelled it wrong). It wasn't that Joe isn't a good player, I just did not like him....not even a little. He and I were paired as defensive throwers,so I just thought of him as I did my old high school doubles partner who I also did not like. We play together, we don't need to like each other.
That whole year was a bit fuzzy.
I remember winning at cooler....I think that was the year we almost lost to BAT, but they gaffed the winning goal.
We had a close one in the finals and lost to furious by one. First time experiencing playing against crook and Mike Grant and really noticing who they were. I didn't really notice them the year before.

Natties 98 cont...

We did have a chance to make semis having lost to DoG and Furious if DoG beats the Condors and then we beat them. (our loss to DoG was not very memorable. I think we lost pretty bad.) DoG pulled out a close one to condors with Greff owning the disc all the way down the field against the wind and pushing it in for the winning goal. We got to play for semis against Condors in our final pool play game(at the time there were only 12 teams at club nationals). We got trounced. They were clearly much better than we were. This then was our last game. There was no play down. At that time, it was party on for most of us....mfb leading the charge. We drank beer at the fields and more at the hotel. Marty willie dan ruen rusta and I went to siesta key beach (as we never saw the beach up until then) for some disc throwing fun. Marty was well past the point of intoxicated. We were pretty sure he couldn't keep it up and would pass out any time....he never did. He chased me around the beach telling me he could lift me over his head to prove he was not drunk.... When Jonathan Shep showed up in his speedo we felt it was time to go. Willie fished marty out of the water and we were off to the hotel. The Borg were eating in a small bar/restaurant over the water. As we approached them, Sox said we should come and join them and then seeing the state of a boisterously drunk marty he added "don't bring him." Of course when we got up to our room we convinced Marty that Sox was hoping that he would go eat with them, so only MFB went down to join the borg. We all laughed about it. The party was a good time...more naked bodies than I have ever seen at one event. That is about all I remember from 1998. It was a very fun year. Oh, DoG won in the finals against Condors.

Nationals 1998

To be sure, we had very little idea of what to expect from nationals. We had no experience in the format and no experience in where to stay. Most of us flew in together and rented cars to get from Tampa to Sarasota. I recall seeing tons of frisbee players in the Tampa airport. Either that or there was a gypsie convention going on. We had booked our stay in the official hotel which was on some little harbor inlet. I stayed with Dan Ruen Rusta and Marty (along with his Reo speedwagon discs). We were excited for our first game against Furious George. We had never played them or seen them before just like most of the teams here. It is just incredible the first time I stepped onto the polo grounds. It was as flat as I have ever seen. The grass was about a quarter inch thick absolutely even. We warm up, listen to the national anthem in the growing humidity of the Florida morning and get ready to play. The game was close all the way. I can recall getting a d on one of the handlers to give us the chance to win down the stretch, but we turned it over. Seng, I believe got another point block, but again we were thwarted (I think Paco was stalled at their 20). We lost a close one. Our next game was against the Florida Refugees. They hadn't heard of us and thought they would run over us. Wrong. We outran and out played them. This was a team that made some terrible calls. I had a ho D block from behind that caught nothing but disc and a foul was called.....WHAT! He stuck by it and actually was mad that I questioned him. He never got the disc again. It never was close. I know we beat Philly Rage (with andre strausmanus), red tide again (with Kenny Dobbyns....not playing his most intense frisbee) That game sticks out, one because of the legend of kenny, and two because of their strategy. It was a very windy upwind downwind game. They would move it to midfield going downwind and throw a blade/hammer to the endzone to a woefully far behind Dobbyns. Then he (with me on him) would lay it out about 10 yards away and thunk on the ground. Then they would try to stop us from going upwind. Paco had his forehand humming. It literally was cutting through the big wind going about 50 yards easy absolutley flat. After about 4 of these resulting in goals they called out. "Make that guy throw his backhand....no forehand." Now, anyone who knows Paco well would chuckle a bit here because his backhand will go another 20 yards with good shape. They had no chance. I did get to D Kenny from behind in the game (and got a picture of it to prove). As usual, our love connection crew sang a rousing cheer for them at the end of the game (Red Tide sung to Rawhide). They loved it.

Regional finals

No question the most fun and memorable game ever for me. I know it wasn't the biggest game I will ever play, but nothing really compared. We started off fast. I can't remember the scores, but I remember getting a ho block from behind on Howard and him calling foul. Crowd booing, me wanting to throttle him, then a funny thing happened. Steve said "Mark, calm down, he is thinking about it." Howard overturned his call. We had the disc on their 20 or so. Two points later, I foot blocked Howard. Our team was rolling. We had the "Love Connection" of dan ruen and Russ adams and whoever else they could recruit cheering loudly with arms around each other. We could not be stopped. Dave Boardman was their only highlight catching a few in the endzone. The game was a huge party for all of the minneapolis players and sidelines. 15-7 I am pretty sure was the score. Regional champs. That team I had watched a couple of years earlier fell to a much better team....us. The beginning of a long standing winning tradition for Minneapolis Sub-Zero. We all hung around the field watching the backdoor game and getting soused. luck had it that I did not have to drive home.

Regional semis...Madison

We got to the fields for another nice day of ultimate weather. We knew Madison had also made it to the Semi's and we would have to play them again. In this year's format, the two teams in the finals finished 1,2, so that meant with 3 bids, this was the game to go. I remember running our warm-up lap around the polo fields with Tross and he was smiling broadly saying it was the best team we could play because they absolutely knew that they could not beat us. As we got into our stretch circle, there was a loose confidence in our team. Sox was hamming it up with his version of a dance move called the "sunrise, sunset," and we all laughed at him. (at this point ironically, I started to consider Sox one of my good friends on the team.) He grows on you for better or worse. Chipper on the madison side was screaming at his players. He was throwing a coniption saying "look at them in their fancy uniforms with numbers, no way can we beat them" in a sarcastic tone. He was right. We pulled away just before half and never looked back. I am not certain who played Z in the other semi, but I think it was BAT...Tim? Anyway, Z won that semi, so we had our rematch. A chance to get that giant gorilla off our backs.

Regionals 1998

Probably the most fun I ever had at any tournament. I don't think it is even close. Chicago got placed in our pool as they had a strange beat in their section which actually worked in our favor in the end. The scene was Naperville polo grounds. The weather...great. We played some nobody team in the first round and then it was a match-up with chicago Z. The one thing I remember was that we got some D's early and Grady threw them away trying to score too early. It was like if we want to win and quick! We didn't. They beat us pretty good, but not because they were a better team. They had confidence and we shot ourselves in the foot too many times.
Anyway quarters rolled around on saturday evening and we were matched up with Pumphouse 5. For some reason all of our jitters were gone and we were extremely confident. No kidding, they started with the disc and were quickly down 3-0 not ever getting the disc out of their own endzone. Keep in mind that it was not windy. We were just that much faster and more aggressive. I don't remember how badly we were beating them at the time, but their strategy literally being called from the sidelines was "knock their throwers down." Just blatantly outright cheating being yelled from their captains, but just like Madison they never would be in our league again. We absolutely crushed them like 15-5, I think.
That eve was spent on the fields for most our team. We partied, played jump through the hula-hoop and generally whooped it up. We were playing madison in the game to go in the morning! Cooter once again broke with the Borg and partied with us much to the chagrin of Sox who had to drive 45 minutes to the spaghetti factory (where Cooter dominated Betsy and her 3 in the tree to win a bet between ryder mfb and myself) to pick cooter up. 45 minutes he barked as we all laughed.

Beautiful day!

75 and sunny!

1998

Indeed, Mark Enright (Paco) had decided to stay intown instead of traveling to play with Z. This was a huge boost to our team as he was a guy who has been there and is an incredible athlete. He is the type of guy that one can watch what he does and never be able to reproduce it.
One more member of Z, Steve Steury, came to join our team that year. He ran for captain and won. This was a good thing in my eyes as he had the authority of also being somewhere only paco and Tross had been on our team. There were a ton of players out this year for tryouts, so it was a very nervous time for me as I believed I was firmly on the bubble. I had played and worked hard all winter long in preparation for this year. I distinctly remember Turtle and Tross calling me "bubble-boy" while on the line at Bethel indoor.
I can't exactly remember when we made cuts that year, but I think it was after the Boston tournament. The team, because of Tross, had secured a bid in the elite pool at the Boston invitational tournament (easterns). We had not earned it, but they believed Tross that we were an up and coming team. This was another huge step for me. To travel by plane to play a tournament..... I had decided that I would go. At the time, Marty Bakko, Dan Rydel and I hung out a lot together. We called ourselves the 'Web'. Kind of to affront the Borg. Now, I was kind of in a pissy way a bit that week as my girlfriend kari had broken up with me, so I was really ready to get on the field and stir it up. Marty met Ryder and I at the airport and after a bit of chiding by Ryder and me, he let us know that he was feeling a little outside the web. We all had a good laugh. Boston was a fun town as really the only town I had been to really on my own accord. We started at Cheers and I continued to drain one beer after another until I found myself at fort devens in the morning(which is about 2 hours drive away from Boston) in all my clothes wrapped in the window curtain. I was young, however and this did not affect the aggression with which I went out to play. I remember little from the tournament except playing DoG for the first time (getting a deep poach d on them on the first point). The extreme confidence they played with. We lost big to them. We also lost a close one to the hounds, but fared well at the tournament overall. I do remember playing Pumphouse boys.....we still hated them. We beat them ( a big step to gaining the confidence to go to natties in the fall). There was a guy imparticular who I despised, a Matt Wadenpool, I believe. He was a dirty and arrogant player, so of course we clashed on the field. I remember him saying that "this is how it is played at nationals" like he knew because he had been there but had been beat bad every game. It was that I am elite and you are not tone that fired me up the rest of the game. Florida ended up winning the tournament, but we had played against national caliber teams and that is what mattered.
We had some fun that tournament. Cooter stayed and played cards with me, omar and Marty. For that we dubbed him Hugh as the first of the Borg to venture out. They were such a close knit group that it really was an important step in team unity. I complained a lot about the band on Saturday night and so Marty named me the little bitch, which still sticks as either Butch or Bitch.
We practiced hard that year and early. No one seemed to get burned out. We were all too excited as it was clear that we were apart of the best team any of us (Tross Steury and Paco aside) had ever been on. We played a man offense that was basically predicated on jamming it up the forehand side and when that bogged to get it to what we called the "soviet" or red side. Two handlers man, buddy, soviet man buddy and finisher. We basically cleared a ton of room and tried to score on very few throws to very open men. It worked. Nobody in the central had seen anything like this and so we got to the finals of Cooler only to lose to the Finnish national team that was in the area to play worlds. We would have beat them, we were better than they were, but we were less focused because it was cool to play against another country.
Tune-up tournament bids were made and we were overlooked in the elite pool. We still didn't have the props to be known as a nationals team. We played in the B pool and ran the table beating ring of fire, Philly rage and red tide. All three nationals teams of the recent past. The pools crossed over, so we did get to play some of the elite teams and won every game. We had some incredible offensive talent and a relentless D. I remember being on the starting D with Randy Russ and Seng and of course, Paco(who caught more D's from behind than anyone I have ever seen). We could outrun almost anyone. The Turtle started to get a lot of respect with his deep game, so guys would let him have a 20 yard under without barely cutting. It was a very exciting time to be in Minneapolis ultimate. Steve Steury kept getting emails from around the frisbee country giving our team nice props. We couldn't wait for sectionals. I remember what Tross had said to Madison "we will use it next year and we will kill you with it" and we did. We steamrolled Madison. They would not be in our league again until 2001.
Now we had a single purpose.....nationals in Sarasota. First we had to finish top three at regionals. A deed we had never achieved in the history of Minnesota.

Tross

shortly prior to chicago Tune-up tournament, a new player moved to minneapolis. His name was Matt Lawler, but people called him Tross. He played at the time with DoG, the best team in the nation. They were dominant, so with Tross came a lot of foreign ideas that were met with skepticism amongst mostly the older players. Turtle immediately bought into what Tross was teaching, so the team reluctantly followed. Now to say Tross was an alfa male is a slight understatement. He went about 6-3 220. He was incredibly opinionated and anyone who didn't follow his ultimate schematic was a veritable idiot and he was not above telling them this. He would show pain in his face, rub his hat on his head and tell us all "It's just so simple." He once said that in a way, he brought the team together by giving them a single purpose they could agree on. That they all hated him. He would laugh.
So, with about two weeks to go before the fall season, we switched our offense to this "Man/buddy" style offense. It was confusing to everyone and with some guys (pete imparticular) not doing it when he was on the field, it was a house of cards. We had no dump swing. It was get it to Turtle at all cost. Everyone else clear space. See, this is how we interpreted it because it was so foreign.
sectional came and we coasted to the finals as usual. There was nobody to challenge in our section(still isn't) besides Madison, so we always meet in the finals. They killed us. I think we got two or three points in a very rainy, muddy game in Milwaukee. I was standing next to Turtle and Tross when a madison guy asked us what we were doing. It was obvious that it doesn't work, why do you keep running this offense? Tross looked at him and in his normal dead pan, slightly condescending manner said confidently "We will us it next year and we will kill you with it. "
I missed regionals in Kentucky that year as I had a wedding I was in, but as usual, we lost the game to go. Not sure who all we played, but we lost another game to go against the buttholes from Pumphouse 5. Cincy team. That ended 1997, but we again were so excited about the next year and what it could bring. Rumours of Paco possibly leaving Z and joining our team were circling minneapolis ultimate.

1997 continues

It didn't take the Carleton contingent long to decide what they wanted to do about Pete being captain. They had a coup. Sox would be captain of the team of Carleton boys and everyone else who wanted to play at the highest Minneapolis level. This ordered by Lord Lonsdorf from his throne in Boston. Sox would keep some of the existing older talent and some of the younger more green players and make a new team. This put me in a bad way. I loathed Sox, but really wanted to play with this new team.
There were cuts made right away that reverberated at the time through Minneapolis club ultimate. Brian Corradi who cared some that he was cut and Frank Peterson. Frank is a different kind of guy. He has great talent and undoubtedly was the most talented handler we had at the time, and maybe ever had. His mental stability was of balsa wood, however. Frank had to be coddled. He had to be told how great he was at a regular interval, and one could not fervently disagree with him or he would take his ball and go home. Anyone who knows Sox knows that he is not a coddler. Frank took the cut incredibly hard. To this day, Frank despises anyone who had anything remotely to do or were associated with this move.
Anyway, the coup being over, I was kept on the squad, my brother was cut. He still gives Turtle some heck for this. Cutting him from Boston. I played with a chip on my shoulder. Defense hard and mean. I felt I had to prove myself to this Carleton "Borg." as they were known.
We struggled for awhile to find a good name for the team. Cooter wanted "leather tuscadero." money shot was thrown out. Finally we came to the conclusion that we just had to pick a name and if we stood by this name, over time it would be known like the DoG's and Z's of ultimate. We picked "Sub-Zero" which amused Chicago as they were still the team we had never beat and we picked a team that could be shortened to "Sub-Z." They took it as we were still placing ourselves below them.
Sox came up with the offense called the bowtie. we would cut in down the sidelines and clear through the middle in an X formation. Restacking about 30-40 yards pinned to the sidelines. It seemed good at the time, but that was because we had no idea how to play at the elite level. We had an offense that was designed to complete 15 to 20 passes to score. We had good players and fared pretty well in the central region, but that wasn't saying a lot. There really was only one team that ever made a splash recently at nationals and that was Chicago Z. The other teams just picked up the table scraps, went to nationals if they got a bid and got trounced. We still weren't in the top 2 or 3 in our region and would have to crack that to get to natties. I can't remember how we did overall at tournaments. I do remember that we lost to Z at Cooler. That was the game Howard got mad and jumped on my back. I said I played hard and mean. A high swill went up, he and I were the only two that had a shot. He dropped it and called foul...the crowd bood him heavily. Howard got very angry at this and was fueled by Cooter telling him it was the worst call he had ever seen. He was very angry at this point. Howard was a better offensive player than I was by leagues. I was aggressive and mean and fast, however. He now was going to get the disc and show me up at all cost. The disc was checked in, he charged at me. I slung him to the ground. His fury bore him to his feet and onto my back. "He's out of control, get him off the field," Cooter yelled. We both exited the field. We lost the game, but it was the beginning of many meetings between myself and Howard.

Spring 1997

1997 Genesis of Sub-Zero
1997 was an interesting year. New Carleton grads were coming in and planning on staying in minneapolis. Carleton in 1996 had gone to the finals in the college scene, so there were a few very good players planning on making the team in minneapolis a juggernaut. The two names being tossed around were Eric lonsdorf and a Cooter. I remembered Eric from watching him at nationals in blaine in 1996 and also gaurding him at one of the tournaments that year with Buddha. I had no idea who Cooter was. Eric (Turtle) was out to practice early that year at Fort Snelling. We had generally 10-12 players out in the early spring. When most of the team started to come to practice getting into mid may/june, Turtle was off galavanting on the east coast. Our team was a mixture of older players newer carleton guys and a few who didn't fit either discription(notably me Tony and Phil Krause). The older players and the newer Carleton guys had differing ideas of how a team should run. There were strong personalities on both sides of the board. Sox mostly for the Carleton boys (he was a personality of one). Pete Erebo and Frank Peterson on the older, we know how ultimate should be played, guys.
Sometime in the spring, I don't remember when exactly, but we voted for captain. I ran along with Sox and Pete Erebo. I didn't think or want to win, I just wanted my say that I didn't want Sox to win either. The vote went for Pete which I was happy with at the time, but maybe it wasn't such a good vote. I liked Pete and all, but he was perenially late and scattered. A lot of thoughts, but no real momentum to get them done. Apparently this did not sit well with the Carleton boys as Turtle was about to return from Boston and they had their way of wanting to win.

1996 Blue Ox- chilly/trash

There was a lot of excitement in minneapolis as usual starting the season in 1996. Buddha Boys were now of the past and a new team was starting to take shape. It was to be headed by Dan "Turbo" Turlow and David Boardman. They sent out an email indicating that they were intent on building a winning team. A goal of nationals was laid out. Then they moved away. Dave to chicago and Dan....Atlanta I think. We had already started try-outs and there were about 40 guys out to make this minneapolis squad. A power vacuum was created and out of this a certain Grady Hannah and Wade Bove became captains. If I could pick two less stable guys, I would really struggle. They named the team Blue-Ox. Their offense was formed and it was called "the wobbly H." I dropped out and played for the basically B-squad team trash along with a few of my former chill buddies and brother Tony. We named the team Chilly-Trash. We played the local tournament aquatennial (beating CUT was our best win) and sectionals which was in Winona that year. A bunch of the old trash guys came out to play sectionals, and it became a bit of a spirit fest. Excuse me while I wipe the vomit from the keyboard. We got crushed by most teams. In the end, I went over to hang out with Ryder, (who formed a rag-tag older guy team, ) on the sidelines of Blue-ox vs Madison, drank beer and heckled. Madison had broken up into a college team and club team, so ended up not having enough guys to beat Ox. Blue ox goes on to win sectionals and not make nationals(the story of minneapolis ultimate to form).

Minneapolis Ultimate/ Buddha Boys

I still remember that first Sunday of Buddha. We played close to the U of M St. Paul campus on the corner of Cleveland and Larpenter. Everyone was very welcoming. Guys I remember being there were Pete, Tom Suk, Wade Bove, Dan Turlow, Dave Boardman,Marty Bakko, Fritz Bussman, Rocket, Mike Pfaffinger, Eric Enge (the last time I will play with him until 2001), Dan Rydel, Derrick Wallace. There may have been a few others. The only play I remember was a come from behind D on Dave Boardman. I knew he was by far the best player out there, so that earned me some respect from the players out there. Little did I know how hard it would be to get another one of those.
So from then on, I still went to sticky, but was now a Buddha Boy. Practice with them was great. Everyone had skill that I wanted to possess. I learned from them all in some respect. I am not a tall guy, so I knew speed and scrappiness will be my best ally. Fritz was the epitome of this, so I watched and learned from him. Tom had quick pivots and fakes that I tried to glean. And in my back pocket was the mean angry intensity that my father had given me.
After one of the practices, we all went out for pizza. The talk was about going to the Chicago tournament in a couple of weeks. How we were all getting there and such. I was nervous. Chicago? I had never really ventured out of the state really on my own. My family didn't travel and this made me quite uneasy. Dan Rydel asked me if I was going and with whom. I didn't know either answer. Finally, Chris Hickman stepped in and said he was going to drive and I could go with him. I reluctantly said that I would. (this really was the beginning of a great thirst for travel that will hopefully never be quenched)
I met up with Chris at his house. He was also taking a couple of guys I had never met. One Grady Hannah and his friend Tim. It was an interesting trip. First we dropped Grady and tim off at some mall. They said they would find their way from there. Then we proceeded to lose our way and cirle Chicago on the loop about 4 times. I vaguely remember the tournament itself. I do recall being down to Lemon which was the current team from the Cincy area, I believe. We had a great comeback and won. They were a "Nationals caliber team" apparently. I really had no idea who they were as this was my first real tournament. We were in the B pool, I think. There was this elite pool which Pete took me over to see. We watched a team from san francisco called Double Happiness. I watched how these guys threw and caught. I realized we had a long long way to go to get to this level. It was like college to pro level.
Later in the year we went to Madison to play sectionals. My first. We got to the finals and lost to Madison. They had Ron Kubalanza, Chipper, rubis,BenJammin,( who in the semis after beating carleton, walked into their post-game circle, spiked a disc, flipped them all off and said "Fuck you, Carleton") and a very young Will Henry. This was the team we would battle with (right now in anonymity as neither team would be close to a nationals elite team)for years to come.
Regionals was in Minneapolis Blaine fields this year. I could not understand why our team was so convinced that we had no shot at winning. We had our final practice on silver lake road which we mostly goofed around. I could not fathom why we weren't preparing to win at the time. I really only remember one game. It was against the indiana team. They are a very chippy and unspirited team (meaning anything and everything to win) one guy even broke Dave B's hand and contested the foul! Anyway, this was the end of 1995 Minneapolis ultimate. Z ended up winning the region for the like 10th year in a row. Lemon took second. Both teams would go to this mythical Nationals tournament where teams like double happiness and DoG will play(teams I watched in the elite pool at the chicago tournament.)

My history of minneapolis ultimate/ The sticky year

Ultimate started for me in 1995 when my brother Tony brought me to a local pick-up game called "Sticky fingers." It was a group that was fueled by the family Kane. Mort, Janet and Michael. At this time the only thing I could do was run fast. So I did. I ran all over the place mostly running down Michael Kane's Backhand hucks. To this day, Michael had one of the craziest long hucks I have seen. We played every wed or thursday night in St. Louis park, and again on the weekend, I believe. The guys who played sticky were all above the average pick-up game at the time. Some had played with the former "elite" team, the Terrepins, some were current members of the Buddha Boys. Tapper with the strong forehand, Andrew with a penchant for breaking his own ankles, Tall redhead Tim, Greg Williams who had played masters ultimate forever, Tom Suk who inspired me to become a better player, Pete Erebo who took me under his wing and brought me to Buddha Boys sunday practice, Frank Peterson a guy if he had his head together was a tremendous handler, Tobie, Rick Hammond, Phil Krause, and a bunch more young talents and older solid players. We had a great time and played long into the twighlight. Greg and Pete even got a team together called "Chill" and we played the local Aquatennial tournament. I had never seen an ultimate tournament before and wasn't sure what to think until I got there. I can vaguely remember our games, but I clearly remember watching Buddha, Z, and Go Dog Go play. I was mezmerized. How the pull sailed the full 70 yards, how the handlers (joe cesario from Z in particular) swung the disc with low forehands across the field. Paco from Z leaping over everyone to grab discs. I knew I wanted to play at this level.
With this in mind, I went to every frisbee game I could find. I was a going into my senior year at dental school in minneapolis, so mostly I was doing clinical stuff. This meant plenty of evening and weekend freetime. I played everyday. I started to love to play defense. Friday nights was league night at Fort Snelling. The only thing I remember is being able to get come from behind D's on people at will (keep in mind most of these players were pick-up as well, but that was my level at the time so I was excited about each D) Greg Williams dubbed me the "Shark" and still calls me that today. Pete and Greg worked with me constantly. They would throw discs hard at me to learn to catch better. Pete taught me how to adjust to the wind with my throws. I had a pretty strong 30-40 yard consistant forhand even back then because of years of playing and teaching tennis. After a few weeks, Pete thought I was ready to come to Sunday Buddha practice. I was extremely excited.