I just found out that Bozeman’s neighboring Ultimate team, the Mental Toss Flycoons from Missoula, Montana beat Shazam Remains 15 to 11 for the Club Ultimate National Championship in the mixed division earlier today.
In case you aren’t totally familiar with competitive club Ultimate in the states, there are three divisions, Mixed (co-ed), Open (basically Men), and Women’s. The Club Championship, a four day tournament held once a year in Sarasota, Flordia and, has teams from all over. The two other teams to win national championships were Jam (Open Division) and Fury (Women’s Division), both from San Francisco. Shazam, the team the Flycoons beat in the finals, is from Seattle, Washington.
Montana Ultimate is the bomb! We (the Bozos) played the Flycoons in September and lost a close game 13-10. The Flycoons are a spirited team with some excellent chemistry. They play super hard every point, but still seem to manage to have fun, which I definitely appreciate. For some teams, an intense desire to win can block out what is great about Ultimate.
Beating a team from Seattle is especially impressive, given that Seattle is one of the premier cities for Ultimate in the nation and therefore have a much bigger pool of talent to pick from than Missoula.
Another key feature of their National Championship is that no less than three local Bozeman Ultimate superstars, Emily Kimmel, Camas Key, and Dominic Benincasa joined the team late in the season and helped bring this one back to Montana.
Oh yeah, not only did The Flycoons win a National Championship, they did it in impressive style. With seven wins and only one loss over all four days, against some of the best teams in the nation. They won their last three games (where a single loss eliminates you) 15-5, 15-11, 15-11.
As a tribute I scoured the archives for a couple more pictures of their game against us at sectionals. (Pictures already posted can be viewed here)
**Update** For a much more in-depth account of the tournament see Flycoon player Tim Murray’s blog here
