all the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players.

so with photos pending, this past weekend was the montreal ultimate tournament, comedy of errors, where i had the privilege of picking up with a team from good ol' boston, merely players. following a trend of shakespearean themed titles every year, coe is known as a fun summer tournament held in montreal for a multitude of canadian ultimate teams, and a couple us teams based out of boston, mass. this year, the americans consisted of us, the merely players, and flowchart ultimate, a buda summer league team.

within the duration of coe, this was easily the hardest and best i've played ultimate in a long-ass while, and quite easily one of the tournaments i've had the most fun at. it was all for laughs, but competitive enough to push and motivate. all well-spirited, but just as intense. i may have injured myself within the first half of the first game there, but whatever. so much fun, i really didn't care. i didn't sit in the car for a five and a half hour drive to sit on the sidelines and nurse my hamstring...then ankle...then knee. psshhh...i was there to play. compared to what i had been feeling ultimate-wise for the summer so far, this was a breath of fresh air. a truly welcomed, aggressive, productive, ultimate-filled breath of fresh air.

we didn't do quite as well as we'd hoped. going for gold, we ended up fifth after going 6-1 all weekend, with the one loss ending on universe point in a tough game against toronto's monster in the quarterfinals. had it not been for that one loss, we may well have achieved our goal and won the tournament seeing as the winners of coe were the montréal all-stars, who we had beaten solidly on day one 13-9. oh well, at least this still has the team in good standings for the tournament next year.

big thanks to sasha for arranging all this and letting me come along to play with the merely players. it was the competitiveness, intensity and level of play i had been looking for for a long while now. and i'm glad i got a chance to get a taste of it.

next up: wildwood. sweet.