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Championship Series
Regulation play, sanctioned in the United States by the UPA, occurs at the college (open & women's divisions), club (open, women's, mixed (co-ed), and masters divisions) and youth (boys & girls divisions) levels, with annual championships in all divisions. Top teams from the championship series compete in semi-annual world championships regulated by the WFDF, made up of national flying disc organizations and federations from about 50 countries. Recreational leagues have become widespread, and range in organization and size. There have been a small number of children's leagues. The largest and first known pre-highschool league was started in 1993 by Mary Lowry, Joe Bisignano, and Jeff Jorgenson in Seattle, Washington. In 2005, the DiscNW Middle School Spring League had over 450 players on 30 mixed teams. Large high school leagues are also becoming common. The largest one is the DiscNW High School Spring League. It has both mixed and single gender divisions with over 30 teams total. The largest adult league is the Ottawa-Carleton Ultimate Association, with 350 teams and over 4000 active members in 2005, located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
High School
High School division teams have also gained popularity and awareness in the past few years. Tournaments at the high school level of play range from tournaments hosted by local teams to tournaments at a national level. The UPA also hosts a national Junior's club team tournament and sends a representative team to the World Junior Ultimate Championships, held every two years. At a lower level, the UPA has also sanctioned organized statewide tournaments in 16 states.
Club TournamentsNumerous tournaments are organized by local clubs and Ultimate societies across North America and the world. SotG maintains a list of tournaments for Canada. |
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College
There are over 600 college Ultimate teams in North America and the number of teams is steadily growing. Separated into Open (nearly 450 teams) and Women's (around 200 teams) Divisions, teams compete in the UPA Championship series during the Spring. The series consists of 3 tournaments: Sectionals, Regionals, and Nationals. Each year, the sectional and regional champions advance to Nationals to compete for the Championship title in May.
UPA Club Tournaments
UPA Club Ultimate consists of Open, Women's, Masters, Juniors, and Mixed divisions.
Pick-up GamesIn the spirit of Ultimate's egalitarian roots, there are many types of pick-up. Often this consists of tournaments played outside the championship circuit, including hat tournaments, in which teams are selected on the day of play by picking names out of a hat are generally held over a weekend, affording players several games during the day as well as the chance to socialize and party at night. Pick-up leagues also exist, hosting weekly pick-up games that may be played on arbitrary week nights. In addition, less formal games of pick-up are frequent in parks and fields across the globe. In all these types of pick-up games it will not be uncommon to have as participants the same people who play on nationally or globally competitive teams. Newcomers are always welcomed at pick-up games or whenever people are simply throwing, and enthusiastic players will sideline themselves to spend time teaching beginners the throws and maneuvers necessary to play. |
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Hat tournaments are common in the Ultimate circuit. They are tournaments where players join individually rather than as a team. The tournament organisers form teams by randomly taking the names of the participants from a hat. In practice, in most tournaments, the organisers do not actually use a hat, but form teams taking into account skill, experience, sex, age, height, and fitness level of the players in the attempt to form teams of even strength. A player provides this information when he or she signs up to enter the tournament. Hat tournaments have a strong emphasis on having fun, socialising, partying, and meeting other players. Players of all levels take part to such events from world-class players to complete beginners. Hat tournaments (and sometimes also regular tournaments) often have a theme, such as: wild west, aliens, pirates, superheroes, etc. The organisers may even name teams according to a theme, such as: beer varieties, movie characters, and so forth.
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