Windmill Windup Was Wonderful

Part I

OK, so for the first of the more eurocentric blog posts, I've decided to write about a topic that most my (American) readers understand as well or better than myself: the sport of ultimate frisbee. Particularly, I'll write about Windmill Windup 2008.

Windmill Windup is one of Europe's premier tournaments, for many different reasons:

• The organization was amazing. We'll begin with a look inside the team bags: Inside, a large number of goodies could be found, as well as the tournament manual, a useful tool to have as it included information not only on game times and locations, but on the city itself, the night activities at the tournament, food options, bicycle rental (it's Holland, after all, and they ride their bikes more than Kobe rides his teammates), etc. One of the goodies was a tournament disc..... for each player. Being as that the design is sweet - the profile of an Asian elephant with a bomb strapped to the back - and available in a bunch of colors, that was a kind keepsake. Moreover, the organizers had purchased a number of pre-rolled joints for each team, a gift that was supplemented by...... a Windmill! Now, if you don't know what a Windmill is, please picture a traditional four-bladed windmill; next, replace each of the blades with a joint, all of which are lit simultaneously and must be rotated (like a windmill) while smoking so they burn evenly. Those things are tough to make, and it turned out ours didn't work very well when the team fired it up during the final (we weren't playing). However, as it turned out the most impressive aspect was that one guy had made all of them, and he was given a well-deserved special tournament shoutout the night before. If you consider there were close to 50 teams, each team got one, meaning he rolled 4 joints for every team, plus 50 connectors, not to mention rolling filters, prepping everything - rumor has it he took time off work in Copenhagen, flew down a week ahead of time and got it done. The man is a champ, and if you ever meet a lookalike of Kep's friend Utah with blond hair, make sure you congratulate him on a job well done. And for you professional recruiters out there, the Cuban cigar factories should hire this guy. It still boggles my mind that one person did all of that...


• The tournament had also moved from its traditional spot, and despite this the facilities were impressive: massive amounts of fields, both natural and artificial, with nearby showers and camping on-site, as well as a huge Oktoberfest-tent that could fit nearly all the players (1000+) for the nightly parties made up the main site. Inside this tent til whatever time I went to bed (3? 4? 5? No one knew what time things had ended the night before) you could also purchase more sophisticated foods during the day, and I don't believe their beer tap ever was turned off, as it seemed to run whenever I walked into the tent, from breakfast unThere also were satellite fields, for which there were team buses, where they would make sure to find the team, escort it to the bus, get all the players on, and get them to the fields for a punctual game. Then there was free breakfast every day, with enough extra to make lunch out of, meaning big food savings (Dutch food is rather expensive, and not very good - they can't even get a damn döner/shwarma right) and minimal complication, and one of the evenings we got a huge free meal of something really really delicious, although I can't remember what it was, although I do believe I indulged in at least one vegetarian Korma, and a good 4 or 5 brownies, which were among the best ever made*. This food was prepared in a huge converted 1960s bus, made from organic and local produce, and they had been cooking since I woke up around 9 in the morning. However, my frequent return trips for multiple servings left me feeling a bit like House.


• Moreover, the organizers had EM (European Championship) games on in one of the buildings - actually, a bar next to the fields - and projected the Holland match onto the tent roof, and they had a steel drum band play one of the night-time parties. During the day time there was music on almost all pitches, all pitches were lined and had cones, and the tournament board featured all kinds of information on various games. This last point was particulalry important, as Windmill uses the Swiss draw format: The basic idea is that instead of pools, teams play each other based on previous performance during the tournament, with each team receiveing points for each game (based on score differential), and then playing another team with an equal (or nearly equal) point total. The details are here, but the idea is to create as many close games as possible, where every game is played to 15 without a time cap. Effectively, you don't know what team you will be playing next until about 15 minutes before the match, which is interesting psychologically, as there is no game du jour and every point counts, whether you are winning or losing. I certainly enjoyed these games.


• Free massage and physiotherapy (which I forgot to take advantage of! What an idiot!)


• Evenings also included what is supposedly the largest game of MingleMingle in the world (it was awesome watching, but next year I'll participate) and some other foolish games. All in all, one of the best tournaments I've ever played in, surpassing Mars and at least on par with Poultry Days, although I would choose Windmill everytime because of the location, international diversity, unique format, and amazing spirit, all of which combine to make it a more fun tournament, in my opinion.

As this post is becoming rather long, and I need to go out to the garden to pick fresh berries for Inge (my aunt) and my desserts, I will end it here and continue with the description of our team and the actual play in a second post, which hopefully will follow in the next days. I'll also invite my teammates to comment on the posts once they're finished.

*The hard day of ultimate may have influenced my perceiption here. I'm pretty sure you could serve ultimate players cat food at the end of the day, and they'd be happy. But this food really was amaying, and if I remember correctly the company's profits go to a charitable cause, plus the cooks were really nice, and it's always great to have your food handed to you by a smiling person.