2007 University games

Report snippets from the Uni Games website...

Reach the Ultimate high

What's brimming with more spirit than a tray of shots at the local student watering hole?
The Uni Games Ultimate competition of course.

Advocating the "spirit of the game", competitors braved blustery conditions in Christchurch to hurl the frisbee-like disc around the Ilam fields. Players apply the athletic endurance of soccer and the aerial passing skills of netball and American football whilst controlling the game by self-refereeing.

Faced with windy conditions Canterbury A turned up the heat in the afternoon game against AUT. It was a resounding 15-6 win by the red and blacks through a combination of accurate passing and cohesive playing.

Although the Canterbury side comes into the competition as first seed Tournament Manager Michael Connolly says based on the play so far it looks like it will be an Auckland Victoria final.

A must see event, he says, is the exhibition game on Thursday which will showcase New Zealand universities top players.

Canterbury team star player Hannan Stephenson was the open division top scorer in the World Ultimate Club Championships held in Perth last year. The 23-year-old Engineering Management masters student first challenged himself to Ultimate four years ago when he decided to join a "random club" at university.

"I was like a dog, I ran and fetched. It's great – fun and fast and there are no refs."

AUT Sport and Recreation student Carl Edwards has just started playing Ultimate.
"It's, fast-paced and strategic and you get to see a different side of the sport with the self-refereeing. I'd recommend anyone give it a try".

Ultimate introduces new handicap

A unique handicap system seems to have been introduced into Ultimate this year by the mad-cap guys at Massey University.

If the sport wasn't already challenging enough with its aerial passing and endless running around, the team decided to make it that little bit tougher by taping water bottles to their hands so they could only play one-handed.

The jury is out on whether this technique will catch on but it certainly made for an interesting specatcle and ensured a drink was never far from hand. Check out more photos on the USNZ's website.

Pre event info

The 2007 Uni Games will be held Christchurch from Tuesday 10 – Friday 13 April and of course Ultimate will be one of the 28 Sports.

We are keen to see the continued development of the Ultimate competition. Unfortunately in 2006 in Wellington (6 teams) we were unable to replicate the record number of team entries as we received in the North Shore in 2005 (9 teams). In 2005 the Ultimate was right up there with the larger competitions but in 2006 slipped well back again.

We believe that we require NZU feedback, support and assistance if we are to replicate and exceed the numbers of 2005 in Christchurch in 2006. Below are some key areas that we need assistance with, these include;

Appointment of an experienced Competition Manager for the 2007 event (who isn’t a competitor or directly involved with the team management, see position description attached)

Assistance with the promotion of the event (Event added to NZU event calendar, University Games section on your website updated, distributed of information to all NZU regions and clubs)

Assistance with promoting event to Australian Universities through your Australian counterpart (USNZ have invited Australian Universities to compete and have received many inquiries about other sports, but currently none from Ultimate, it would be great to get some teams)

Any other development ideas and assistance

We are very keen to hear from anyone in the NZ Ultimate community so we can begin to work towards some of the above, and ensure that both the 2007 Uni Games Ulitmate competition and future competitions are a huge success.

Position description (.doc 96k)

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,