New Player Info
Okay, so you've heard great things about Ultimate, and you think you'd like to give it a try. Maybe you have a bunch of friends who are keen, and so you can even put a whole new team together. But where do you start? What do you have to do? Who do you call? Well, hopefully, we can answer a few of those questions here.
The first thing you should do is read our frequently asked questions (FAQ). If you still have questions after that you can get in touch with us. There are a couple of ways of doing that, as you'll see on our contact page.
"What IS Ultimate, anyways?"
Ah... the eternal question...
Well, you can get a feel for the rules of the game by looking at Ultimate in Ten Simple Rules... but in order to properly play the game, you'll need to become reasonably familiar with the UPA Rules of Ultimate, 11th Edition. There is also lots of general information at the UPA site, and there are plenty of good reference links on our links page (we really recommend The Ultimate Handbook for meaty, stick-to-the-ribs articles and tutorials).
Ultimate in Halifax
Now... Ultimate never stops in this fair city of ours. Just when one season comes to an end, the next rises up like a phoenix from the ashes (nice simile, eh?). What permutation it is in can simply depend on the time of year.
Summer League
Ahhh... the balmy months of June through August. The days are long, the sun is hot, and it feels like there is never a moment when discs are not in the air. With the constant growth of Ultimate in Halifax, HURL found itself in an unprecedented situation in the summer of 2002: two summer leagues. The summer of 2003 saw this grow to even more to three leagues. Tuesday nights offered the 6 team competitive A division, Thursday nights B division, and Sunday nights featured the C division along with pick-up games. With all the team practices, pick-up games, and tournaments, summer is a great time to be an Ultimate player in Halifax.
Fall League
HURL introduced it's first Fall League in 2001, running September-October on Thursdays and Sundays, with a whopping ten teams participating. The fall league has continued on every fall since then, with the addition of night games under the lights and games on the all-season turf at the new Mainland Commons.
Winter Indoor League
It's Canada. It gets cold. It gets really cold. But does that stop the disc? No way! So what do we do? We move it indoors! Running from November through into March, the indoor league has been a great way for the real keeners to keep themeselves in the game... and to completely forget how to throw in the wind.
Tournaments
And if all of that doesn't satisfy you... if you just can't get enough... well then... maybe tournaments are for you. One day, two days, up to four days of Ultimate; 3 to 5 games in a day; playing competitive Ultimate against teams from across Canada and the US. You can play in Halifax's very own Catch 'N' Release tournament, or you can find yourself traipsing across the country and continent (and occasionally the world) to a whole slew of tournaments with one of Halifax's several touring teams. And the scary thing is, the more tournaments you play in, the more you want to go to. Pure adrenaline addiction.
So, did we answer all your questions? Errr... probably not. But there are plenty of people willing to help you out, just contact us and help will be on the way!
See you on the field soon!
