Good topic. I agree that the level of competition has been great - I've enjoyed every game this season, actually, although I wish we had won more! Overall I think the men have been better players than the women. I would venture a guess that we have had superior lady matchups all season, although I know we've played teams missing players on tourney weekends, etc. We've certainly had the women on the other teams under control most of the season (knock on wood, there's still tomorrow and the tournament).

We had one woman who never showed up, which was disappointing. She actually signed up with another female player, who got injured earlier in the season, so I know they weren't gaming the system. Still, it's annoying that people, male or female, sign up for spring league but feel no sense of commitment. Maybe it's because her buddy got hurt and she was scared of Baker. ;-)

That said, we always had tons of women - I think last weekend was the first time we've played savage. Go ladies! And they've all been fun to play with. We utilized the 4/3 offense chooses option a few times, and it was nice to switch it up.

I guess we'll see how summer league goes. It should be a much bigger league, and I hope the 4/3 thing doesn't restrict the number of teams.

Speaking of which, is signup today? Better get on that.

competitive league? that seems lame. i would think if you want to play 'competitive' ultimate you play club.

i dont know but i am guessing either everyone will sign up for it or no one will. seems kind of lame to try and pull out all the club / competitive players and make it impossible for them to play that and regular old summer league.

Gary, do you think, it would be substantially different if the roster ratio was different? My personal experience has been that we run into the same issues when the leagues are 5:2. Proportionally speaking, you have the same probability of having female no-shows--more or less. I agree that there might be incidents of false registering under the new system. Of course, you still have to pay the registration fee for two people which is somewhat of deterrent.

I'll give you the theory behind Competitive League from my perspective. Mr. Baker is actually running it and may have a different perspective in practice but the concept stems from the work the board did earlier this year to analyze our offerings. Based primarily on a review of other large Ultimate communities (Boston, Madison, Atlanta, etc...) and the survey results, we concluded that a divisional approach was worth trying. We've always had Thursday league as a sort of beginner league but we've never had a competitive tier before and there was a lot of demand for it registered in the survey.

The idea behind making it one day week is that it works better for club players because they typically have practices as well and playing a 2 day/week league can be very draining and result in a lot of absenteeism. We're hoping this results in more parity in the CUSL league and more consistent attendance. Speaking from my own experience, I've been on two summer league teams in past where if the Machine guys showed up we won, if they didn't we lost. Will competitive league bleed all the talent out of Monday/Wednesday league (CUSL)??? Personally, I don't think so. I think/hope we end up with a true intermediate level league populated by people who are there to have fun, play hard, and teach. It's debatable... I understand--but that’s the theory.

Open League is confusing... and we probably deserve a little critsism there. This is going to be a funnel league. It might not even happen if we have sufficient women to not have to cut a lot of dudes. In other words, you can't directly register for it.

Tacking on late here..

Posted By: ms. ultimateOverall I think the men have been better players than the women

I would venture a guess that we have had superior lady matchups all season

Did help your record? I'm guessing not.

There was an abortive re-attempt to try tackling the whole rating thing again before summer. The best course it turned out was to shelve that until the fall, but something that came up was that the ratings scales are the same for both genders. The best women are 20s and the best men are 20s. However, a team with 4 guys from Machine and 3 random women will handily beat a team with 4 women from Nemesis and 3 random guys. Trounce even. Inescapable biological reality.

Steve Frankel rightly pointed out that the team construction process for Summer separates men's and women's totals for teams so should avoid problems with this. For spring though, there's a single point cap, right? When a point for a woman is not worth the same as a point for a man on the field....

(Monday) comp. league was done with captains and straight draft. So ratings were just informational.

You could take whoever you wanted I believe. So bad teams are the fault of your captain. Sorry