Steve and Tom have packed their bags, got theirlaptops primed for high speed editing, and are taking Blockstack.tv to Rimini Italy for Paganello.

They have exclusive backstage access to all the Paga action, interviews with the big names, and with Ultimate loving people having a good time. Most importantly they'll be bringing back a flavour of one of the world's most famous and exciting Ultimate tournaments.

Part 1 of Blockstack.tv in Paganello should be live late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

Check it out: www.blockstack.tv

Games are more fun if there’s something on the line like a cup of beer. Gatorade can be substituted for beer. Boxed wine can be substituted for Gatorade but nothing can replace common sense.

Cups on Sticks - Secure two three-foot durable plastic sticks into the ground a disc-and-a-fist length apart with plastic cups overturned on top of them. Set up another pair directly across about 30 feet away. Two teams of two take turns throwing a disc to try to either knock the cups off the opponent’s sticks (1 point per cup) or get the disc through the sticks cleanly (2 points). If you knock a cup off an opponent’s stick but the cup is caught before it hits the ground you get no points. However, it must be caught one-handed, as the other hand must be holding a beer. Game to 11.

Beer Box - Played 2-on-2 or 3-on-3. A small square demarcated by cones or shoes forms the box. The object is to catch the disc inside the box. You have to reset about 20 yards outside of the box before attempting to score. There are cans or cups of beer as the reset markers. To reset and begin play you must first take a three-second sip of beer at the marker. If you finish the beer, your opponent has to run to the cooler to get another one while your team gets a 3-on-2 power play. You score by catching the disc inside the box.

With permission from Tony Leonardo's book "Ultimate - The Greatest Sport Ever Invented By Man" (link to review)

I suppose it shouldn't have been a total surprise the way the Boracay Dragons A (so-named for the dragon boat races on the island -- a few of the players are dragon rowers) dominated the finals, winning, in effect, 16-5 over Manila's league champion Sexual Chocolate. 16 points because the last goal was an end-zone to end-zone huck which, like Wildwood or those Florida tournaments, is worth 2 points.

The Dragons were fast, deep (roster of 17 i believe) and basically played smart. Their D caused SexChoc to make throwaways which the Dragons converted with efficiency. Game started out 4-0 or 5-0 and was never in doubt.

In semis, Dragons A (White) beat Dragons C (Blue/Yellow), while Dragons B (Silver) lost to Sex Choc 10-9 when the game ended on a one-pointer when the team needed a two-pointer to tie and prolong the game (alas, thrown by me)

In the Important Prizes at the crazy beach after-party, the Manila-based team called Dragon Katol, so named for the local spiral mosquito repellent incense, won the Spirit of the Game, the Party Award and one of their regular player Christian (who played with Boracay Dragons here and was MVP of WBUC in Brazil) won the MVP making it some sort of weird Katol sweep.

Party Details: this tournament was sponsored by a Filipino energy drink, 100 Plus, a number of fine establishments on the beach like the Hey Jude bar, Summer Place bar and grill and Smoke Restaurant, to name a few. Also a TV network/channel sponsored prizes for Spirit/Party and "Top 4 Players" awards which included a compass from the TV show "Lost." Evidently Lost is coming on air here soon.

But the number one sponsor in terms of ubiquitousness was Colt 45, "America's leading premium strong beer." However, we don't have "strong beer" in America, only the more apt designation "malt liquor" a category which Colt 45 probably created too, heck.

Colt 45 is a great and wonderful brew for smashing one's head to mulch for the following day. But it was free.

The finals were pretty colorful: the usual loudspeaker setup, lots of local fans clapping and cheering, all of the teams here, tons of cameras with nice lenses, a TV station was here to do a segment on the tournament and the team (airing March 29th in Manila I was told -- a sports show, nonetheless)

Once again the talk of the day from the Dragons was about how excited they were to bring their game to other tournaments around the world and how psyched they would be to host more traveling players and teams to this tournament. In fact, it appeared that besides a small Singapore team with none of the players from Freakshow, the only travelers here were Jane and I, Izzy and Pierre the French-Canadian handlebar-mustache brothers and two blokes from Regina, Saskatchewan. Truly that will change in the future because it is pretty good times here with lots of free food, free beer, tournament shirt and disc included, parties every night and good competition.

I'm trying to get some pictures up but otherwise go to the official tourney photographers websites:

http://ssshortzzz.multiply.com (not up yet)
http://ogong.multiply.com (not up yet)

More later
Tony

Saturday pool play was divided into two pools, an upper and a lower. The upper pool was six teams. Boracay, a, b, and c, manilla's alabang, dragan kutong (insect repellenent for dragons), and sexual chocolate, also from manilla. The closest and best game of the day was sexual chocolate v. boracay silver (b). With two and three goal leads throughout, silver coudlnt finish it al the end and manilla escaped with a universe-point win at the end.

Boracay white (a) crushed sexual choc. two games later to take command of the pool and of the tournament. Tomorrow the semi-finals will likely be a rematch of sex. choc. and bora silver, while bora white should play bora blue (c, aka the young fast kids).

Truly the young kids here in Boracay have a bright future ahead. They are really receptive to the game and start pretty young -- the 12-year olds were forehand hucking like champions. The deal is: Boracay takes ultimate seriously. They really have a good vibe for the fast action of beach ultimate.

Manila and PUA (Philippines Ultimate Association) also are very psyched with Ultimate here -- several celebrities (Rima and Derrick) in Manila, known as TV and Radio hosts (seriously, random locals passing by the frisbee scene stopped and HAD to get a picture with Derrick on Friday night, and everytime he held up a disc in the pic -- which is pretty rad if you think about it.)

Team Alabang Anonymous is know here for the good times, team Dragon Katon for also making things merry and who can forget the travelers, like Pierre and Israel from... Quebec. Viva Francais.

So you can be rest assured that we are drunk now because the saturday night food and party was swell and now we must get ready to play tomorrow

Pictures will be coming...

T&J

Friday at Boracay

The sand here is quite nice, the beach is fantastic and the teams here feel a bit like they are in paradise.

The international presence is not felt, however. With an always crowded ultimate schedule a lot of Asian ultimate players are saving up their money for Korea or Bali, or still paying for Bangkok Hat and Vietnam Hat.

But the Dragons are psyched to get some love thrown their way and would absolutely love it for more teams and more players to come this way and make this tournament a prime destination tourney. There's no reason why this can't happen: the beach village and the beach itself here are definitely top-notch, the parties promise to be swell and in high style and generally speaking, it's all good.

One drawback simply appears to be that the width of the beach from shorefront property to the sea is shrinking. Therefore, only 4-on-4 action (which i can totally dig coming from Wildwood) and not quite enough for a ton of fields or for 5-on-5. they are working on solutions.

But really it's pretty nice here. The Dragons want to continue their international push after the WBUC in Brazil by going to Paga next year and maybe Oz or the States in the future if they can afford it. But meanwhile they're hoping some kickass teams come this way to so the competition can continue to be amped up

Tony

OK, here's some news from Boracay straight off the bat.

FIRST, the tournament this year is being held about 2 months earlier than normal. The local Filipinos, many of whom play in this tournament, are still in their "work" season and thus attending this tournament is difficult. As a result the tournament is not massively large -- perhaps only 14 teams.

But on the flipside there is some serious beach love here. The Dragons (teams A, B and C) practice ultimate just about any day of the week. Tomorrow the teams gear up for some beach conditioning at 9am. Tomorrow being Friday of course... games are not until Saturday.

Not a lot of traveling disc players have made it to Boracay this year. It is not the easiest tournament to get to, but not the most difficult either. And this place really is a swell beach scene.

The other talk of the scene here is that this weekend may be WINDY which apparently is not common for this tournament, as, again, it is usually help in late April or May.

The teams to beat are the stacked Manila big boys Sexual chocolate and the speed demons of Boracay Dragons (A). Last year Dragons won by 2 in the final.

Tony

You and a friend and a Frisbee...

Dori Yaniv, the organizer of the Israeli BULAFLOW Beach Ultimate tournament just invited me to join the Disc (o) Tech group on LinkedIn. This group combines the passion for Hi-Tech and disc playing. Dori feels like there is a strong correlation between playing disc and working in Hi-Tech. One way to check it is to see how fast this group grows… I joined. What about you?

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/58996/3D628C5F8303