how are the legs :) a couple of big thank yous to go out to all the 72 players that traveled from: Belfast, Belgium, Bristol, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh, Galway, Glasgow, Liverpool, Oxford, Sligo and Strathclyde to make up the 8 teams.......this gave the tourni a really cool vib....and was really appreciated by all. so here are the final placings and tourni stats.

well done on everyone finding all the venues as it was the majority of peoples 1st time at them, a couple of appologies for the delay / lack of captains pack on the friday nite, teams ,and schedule!

we didn't quite realise it took so long to pick 8 even teams and get them typed up, which by the time it was done, we / I still managed to pick an all-star team in the shape of count rugen and poor old d-man worked his cotten socks off making "winners" a better team by the end of the week-end. -respect

Pre - Tourni

so it all began with pick-up in botanic park.... this place is was designed for ultimate pitch sized, surrounded by 30metre leafy wind ommiting trees, wedged between a glasshouse and a museum, where beautiful people come to watch even more beautiful people play ultimate and life is bliss...

this happened from 2.30-5.30 on friday, and then we headed out to foo kin all you can eat noodle bar...sweet.

all except crazy who managed to miss us all and wandered arround the bars of belfast till 7.30 when we...came to his rescue in katie dailys.

Spring & Airbake

great name for a venue, congrats to all who found it 1st time...belfast is still littered with bugs on lamp posts! with simon (bug) on the decks and along with kevin (jetset) we had some quality tunes all night......

S a t u r d a y

so we hoped for 80 players at boht ( we were optimist) and we got 72 (you didn't let us down:) so we stuck with the plan A :

8 team round robin, quarters, semis, and final schedule.
saturday teams played 6 40minute games.
sunday teams played 3 75minutes games with 2 point caps.

this turned out to be death by ultimate...and i will probably never be allowed near a tourni scheule again :) but being good sports everyone got on with it in some rather fetching poor taste outfits.....
we started badly with out enough time for captains meeting...which is a shame cos i was really looking forward to that :)

At this point i would recite to you the game scores etc. however as we were tight on numbers everyone involved in running the tourni on the day played pretty much non-stop on saturday and all i can say is it was beautiful... misty... still... mild.. and... dry....

teams quickly worked out who was who, as well as who did what last nite.... count rugen ended the day unbeaten, with pistachio on one loss to count rugen.

teams gelled as the day went on and perhaps tired a little to ....240minutes of ultimate in one day is hard.. but we still managed a break in the schedule to see ireland get a good kicking in the rugby, dave (ucc) was the only happy man in belfast!

after a quick hose down in the industrial elephant cleaning style shower room we headed to the parlour, we foo kined as many noodles down our necks and walked into the parlour where we all fell alseep till about 9.30 :)

after "most" of us had tickets for shine in queens students union we headed over and the party began, it what turned out to be a funky little venue. with a no one uni/club dominating the event there was a sweet little mix of merry hat players...parting hard.

the sign of tough schedule is when dcu players ask you to take them home at 12.30 cos they are tired :)). paddy's day was catching up with all of us, so all headed home with the intention of playing hide and seek!!

did if forget sharking - much was done........... with special mentions going out
to katie for giving ben a maaassiivvveeee hickie!! which won sharking.

s u n d a y

another misty affair with...slight cross wind... and later a little sunshine a little late but i still got a sun tan:) rob / dave / steve stole the day with a fine 3 way out fit theme.. teams finished their round robins....had a break..... once our we worked out the math the long games started, with the marathon games.

causalities - tadgh (ucc) twisted knee, dan (ucc) offensive layout into the corner on a low disc with derek (glasgow) providing great D (on all three flying discs :) outcome - accidental dislocated shoulder - but full marks for commitment guys, after some scoreing some high quality drugs, and not fancying any of the belfast nurses dan was back on the side line to see his Count Rugen in final!

for many this was an introduction into an outdoor tourni, and even more a hat tourni, so there was a real happy to be here playing vib...which was real nice unfortunately i really can't recall much except team 3 decided to play zone against us in th 1st game which ment each point lasted 20 minutes, until link (dcu) found some boots and in 30 seconds wondering what the fuss was about! game ended 3-0 and was soooo tight it was crazy lots pistachio d's in our end-zone.... derek (glasgow) and some of his team we using the beer before the 1st game approach and it nearly worked, with an impressive zone game.

Pistachio vs team 1

this was killer with pistachio racing 8-2 in 20 minutes, imaging it would be over in 40 mins. but after 1/2 time "Michael Jackson baby sat me" pulled it right back and pistachio only just won it about winning it on character , 15 - 12 long after all the other games were over 15-12 to put them into the final.

any other team reports put them out there.......

Final belfast hat 05 final

Count Rugen Vs Pistachio

This was a high quality game, and was easilly the best co-ed outdoor team i've played against... both teams had improved a lot since their meeting in the round robbin where Count Rugen won 12-6. The teams were even at 4v4 when count rugen scored twice.

pistachio called a timeout to eat some nuts... but it didn't help count rugen scored twice again and by half time it was 8-4. pistachio then a matched the count in scoring ...13-8 ....2 point hard cap....finished.....15-10 pistachio the count were the well deserved tourni winners.

special mentions are not really fair as both teams ran their socks off, the spirit of this game was perfectly encapsulated for me what hat was about: quality ultimate with new friends, who agreed on calls, playing with a smile in
the sun!!!

it turned out to be a nice wee warm up for dub 05 next month...hope to see ya'll there (9-10 April)

sorry team best team name prize got left by the wayside a little but top 3 names seem to have taken the top 3 spots so all is well...

and a big wet kiss to the bugs who put people up :Nathan, Simon, Simon's Girlfriend, and John for putting people up.

simon the dj
ob - schedule, scores, captains pack, and things electrical
Keith - entries, teams, accomodation,
and everyone who smiled