Game-On!
Cart0Login
Written and Submitted by Rob Borges - AKA El Presidente
As some of you may know, November is when the Ultimate Canada Conference happens and this year it was held in Quebec City. Sean Seywright, Corey Draper, Kari Bergmuller, Serena Vandersteen, Jess Benoit and I all attended the conference on behalf of MODS. This was the first time I have ever attended, and I’m really glad I got the chance to go. I met with a lot of people from all over Canada and talked Ultimate the entire weekend.
One of the goals for me at the conference was to talk about Spirit of the Game with as many of the other leagues as possible. Get some insight into what they have been doing to encourage better Spirit, and where they had the most successes. There was even an entire session dedicated to Spirit of the Game, and it came up as part of a few other sessions as well. Ultimate Canada is just as interested in seeing Spirit grow as the leagues are. Unfortunately Canada as a whole has a bad reputation when it comes to this aspect of the sport, and we need that to change.
So my hope was that I could bring back some ideas that our leagues could try out... I am happy to report there were several. I met with the Spirit Working Group a couple of days after I got back and after months of meetings we finally put together a list of suggestions based on everyone’s thoughts for the Board to look over. But that’s not all! I know the Staff has also been looking at ways to encourage better Spirit as well. I am pretty confident when I say Spirit of the Game is going to be a major priority for MODS in 2020 and beyond. I expect we will start to roll out some of these changes early next year, so stay tuned!
The Serious Stuff... I also wanted to take a moment to address some issues that have come up in regards to playing at the indoor facilities. We do not own these facilities and there are rules we HAVE to abide by. Good indoor fields are in short supply here in Winnipeg, and if problems with our membership keep happening we could lose our ability to use them. If that happens it could mean the end of indoor ultimate in the winter for everyone as a result of lost contracts and partnerships. Now I am not saying that this is close to happening, however MODS as an organization will do everything we can to not let it get that far.
We need everyone to remember we are guests at these facilities, please follow the rules. For example, no smoking or vaping inside the facility, I can’t believe I even have to mention that one. Also no spectators at field level, if the person doesn’t have a MODS membership & isn’t signed up for the league, they are not allowed on the field! This includes all our children. I know this isn't easy or pleasant, but this is something I recently had to enforce myself with one of the players on my own team, and I hated having to do it, but we have no choice... If you want a full list of rules for the facilities check out the files below or feel free to reach out to me directly or the staff in the office any time.
