casual ultimate » paganello 2008 - part 1

the games are starting in four minutes… march 20, 2008, approximately 7pm - scandal has converged to the hotel Milton in rimini, italy and are waiting patiently in a first floor hallway, excited to see for the first time what the titcombs have in store for this year’s dress code. as has come to be expected, scandal was the best-dressed team at the tournament. the in-game uniform: collared polo shirts (made from the latest technical fiber) in pink and baby blue, paired with plaid shorts (again, technical) in blue and brown. the pre-game warm-up attire: an argyle print longsleeve shirt, and a pair of linen-type pants. the off-the-field attire: a sweater vest, a black sportcoat, and some aviator sunglasses to protect us from the glare from the paparazzi camera flashes. we are dressed for success.

the games are starting in one minute… march 20, 2008, approximately 11pm – scandal has put some food in its belly, and heads for the opening party on the beach. time for the paga-rookies to pay their team dues, acting as wine stewards fighting through the crowd to scoop up the cups of (free) red wine being dispensed from behind a row of tables. the rookies prove to be exceptionally good at their job, which led to some personnel/roster issues the following day, but we’ll get to that later. soon enough, the crowd tires of wine and sand and the cold evening air, and the party moves across the street to the paga staple, a place where the beer flows like wine, and the people flock like the salmon of capistrano; a little place called - the barge. setting the tone for the weekend, car bombs are ordered by the dozen, and most of scandal is out well into the early morning hours.

the time is running… but, unfortunately, many on scandal are not, despite our rather late first round start time of 11:30am. it seems our rookies started us off with a little too much wine, and we all finished the job with plenty of car bombs. but our savvy leader, having been through this before, assembled a team of 16 players, ensuring that we could afford to be down a few players at various times on the weekend. so day one begins with yours truly watching (i use that term loosely) from the sidelines, and i wasn’t the only one to suffer this fate. despite the self-handicapping, scandal takes care of a young british team, super mannschaft, with a score of 14-3. mannschaft had been talking a whole bunch of shit the night previous on the beach, but they couldn’t back it up on the pitch. probably because their jerseys didn’t feature a large phallus. next game starts in a couple hours, so we’ve got time to head back to hotel to deal with some incidents at the hotel for which we’re being held accountable. a meeting with the hotel manager, and one player eviction later, we’re free to take much needed naps to sleep off some hangovers. [that situation sounds worse than it was; basically, one player was asked to leave the hotel as an example to everyone that the hotel was doing something about the incident. but the manager was very reasonable with the whole situation; he made a reservation at a hotel around the corner, paid for it (as we had already paid for our rooms), and allowed the player to still come over to the hotel to hang out and eat breakfast.]

the rest of day one plays as expected – we beat the other teams (10-7 and 13-2 respectively), while playing hungover and missing a few guys. i played game 2, but not really in game 3, as my pounding headache returned later in the afternoon. awesome.

friday night comes and goes, and is generally low-key for most. that was both a planned thing to do, as saturday’s games determine whether a team plays up to 1-8 bracket or not, and the natural side-effect of the entire team getting completely shit-housed the night before. but, the night is not completely free from scandalous activity, as one teammate does not return to the hotel that night, and when he does show up the next day, he is without half his clothing and does not have a wallet. these items are delivered to him later that day by the object of the previous night’s affection. most of the team, and a lot of the tournament, has the good fortune to witness this exchange as it occurs in the front row of the stadium bleachers. comedy ensues.

saturday, scandal picks up where is left off, winning it’s first two games 15-4 and 13-5. in the first game, i realized i might be a better thrower when i have a hangover. despite feeling much better this day, i was chucking up pure garbage; whereas the previous day i threw a couple goals and no turnovers. awesome. that 13-5 game was our first of four games played on the arena field, and we used that opportunity to show the rest of tournament that we were for real. freespeed, our opponent, is a solid team and having beaten us in a previous year, thought they might be able to do it again. we answered that question by getting out to a 5-0 lead and never looked back. as the afternoon rolls into evening, scandal plays its final game of the day, a potential trap game against a fiery bologna team. for the first time in 6 games, scandal finds itself trailing by one for a span of a couple points. the italians are playing well, connecting on some well contested hucks, and scandal is off our game a bit. but one mark of a good team is being able to win despite not playing its best, and we were able to do just that, winning our closest game of the weekend 10-9. scandal is in the quarters. have fun tonight kids, but not too much, tomorrow morning we play sexxxspensive; then it’s on to quarterfinals.

saturday night’s party is back at the club, la otro mundo, after a few year hiatus. scandal scores a booth to chill in while the freestyle competition is going on. this party is, frankly, rather boring, so we leave. we go hit up the two brother’s gelato place , and head back to the barge, our home away from home.

scandal is up for an early game (9am) sunday morning, and we’re greeted by a cold, windy, and occasionally rainy, italian spring day. our first game is a placement game versus sexxxspensive; winner gets the better seed in the quarterfinals. given our history with this team, especially after the events of last year, they have no chance against us. no team with a sexxxspensive player on it will ever beat a team that i am on. its not going to happen. anyway, scandal proves that weather will not hold us back, and we beat the euro all-star squad 9-6. the weather continues to go downhill as the day goes on, with our quarterfinal game against hardfisch (germans?) a zone-heavy, super windy game. our offense plays great, working hard up-wind, scoring after having to complete a few dozen passes; and they do it point after point. we may not have been broken that game, which is a real accomplishment in that wind. scandal wins 12-6, with the final goal coming minutes after the real heavy rain started falling. soaking wet, but feeling great to have that monkey off our backs, we pack up our stuff and head for the shelter of the big tent. scandal is in the semis.

4:40pm sunday; it’s cold, windy, and raining hard. sexxxspensive is beating up on no tsu oh in the first semi-final of the open division. scandal is huddled together in the main tent, trying to be warm and dry, yet still somehow prepare for the upcoming game that starts in 20 minutes. sexxxspensive has just beaten no tsu oh to earn a spot in the final game. and then the we hear that familiar jingle.. the games are starting in four minutes… our semi-final game has been moved up 10 minutes, but no one had the courtesy to let us know. but it cold and pouring rain outside, no one wants to go out there until we absolutely have to, still, we have to warm-up somehow. well, there’s a crappy band playing on stage.. dance warm-up. and so it goes. scandal dances around while the young brits, huck & sea, are out doing a proper warm-up of running and throwing. the games are starting in one minute.. we finally head outside and put 5 on the line. the second semi is under way. the kids from england play a hard fought game, but scandal is better, playing a superb game as if we were playing in the sun while the brits were stuck in the rain. we continue our streak of convincing victories, winning this game by a score of 14-7, and taking the second spot in the open final. holy shit.

scandal, you’ve just won your way into the finals of paganello, you’re cold and soaking wet, what are you going to do now? we’re going to the barge! what better way to recover your body after a hard day of playing than by dividing up for boat races of jager bombs versus car bombs? yeah, i can’t think of anything better either, bottoms up; tomorrow you’re playing for a world championship…