HISTORY LESSON OF THE WEEK: As club teams continued to expand and evolve across the nation, and as the newly formed UPA began organizing an actual championship series for teams to look forward to, the attitude of the game began to change. Differences in styles between the west coast teams and east coast teams reflected the typical personalities of the local regions: California teams were more laid back (yet obviously competitive); New York and Boston had harder edges to them. At the club level, the Condors out of Santa Barbara were dominant in the late 70s and early 80s, while other teams, such as Glassboro State in New Jersey fielded great teams for the era (although Glassboro began to drop off when the college division was organized). Other great but short-lived teams included the aptly named Rude Boys out of Boston and the colorful personalities of the Flying Circus and Tsunami in the San Francisco area. Midwestern teams (Chicago’s Windy City and St. Louis’s Tuna) also had great runs. However, the most infamous team in Ultimate club history was simply known as New York, New York. These guys were crude and tough, and they defied the developing concept of “Spirit of the Game,” which the UPA began to promote in its early days. Legends from NYNY include Kenny Dobyns, Pat King, and Dan Weiss, as they won Club Nationals 6 out of 7 years between 1987 and 1993. Later on, their intensity was rivaled by Boston’s famed club team Death or Glory (whose core still plays at the Masters level). DoG, led by such names as Jim Parinella, Alex deFrondeville, and Eric Zaslow, won Nationals six straight times from ’94 to ’99. Since those legendary teams however, Club Open Nationals has been won by west coast teams, with a new breed of Condors in the early part of the 2000s until the dynasties (and rivalries) of Sockeye (Seattle) and Furious George (Vancouver) took over for most of the past seven years. In 2008, San Francisco’s Jam, who had evolved over the years from the earlier Tsunami teams and had been frequent runners-up in the past decade, won the most recent Club Championship.

LINKS OF THE WEEK:
http://uparules.blogspot.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/UPA_11th_edition_rules

Focusing on the rules a little bit more, the above links will take you to blogs and discussion about the 11th Edition of the rules, as discussed by the UPA Standing Rules Committee. The various topics and questions go over some of the nuances of the rules and how to deal with unique and hypothetical situations that may come up during a game. Remember, the team who knows the correct rules and the correct calls has a distinct advantage!

RULE OF THE WEEK: XIV.B. discusses Marking Violations. At Wednesday\'s practice, some of us briefly discussed some of these (such as the Disc Space rule) and Stall Count issues.

“Marker” is officially defined (in II.K) as: The defensive player within three meters of the thrower’s pivot or of the thrower if no pivot has been established. If the disc is not in play, a defensive player within three meters of a spot on the field where the disc is to be put into play is considered the marker. (There are also more specific rules regarding being the marker, which I encourage you to read about, and we can also discuss those later.)

Marking Violations:

1. Fast count:
1. If the marker does not say stalling to initiate or resume a stall count, counts at intervals of less than one second, or skips a number in the count, it is a fast count.
2. If a fast count occurs in such a manner that the thrower does not have a reasonable opportunity to call fast count before the first utterance of the word ten, the play is treated as a contested stall.
3. If this occurs in the same possession following a contested stall, the stall count resumes at six.

2. Double-team: If a defensive player other than the marker is within three meters of any pivot of the thrower without also being within three meters of and guarding another offensive player, it is a double team. However, merely running across this area is not a double team.

3. Disc-space: If a line between any two points on the marker touches the thrower or is less than one disc diameter away from the torso or pivot of the thrower, it is a disc space violation. However, if this situation is caused solely by movement of the thrower, it is not a violation.

4. Vision blocking: If the marker deliberately blocks the thrower\'s vision, it is a vision blocking violation.

5. Fast count, double team, disc space, and vision blocking are marking violations.

6. Only the thrower may call a marking violation, and to do so must call out the name of the specific marking violation.

7. When a marking violation is called, play does not stop. The violation must be corrected before the marker can resume the stall count with the number last uttered before the call minus one (e.g. stalling one…two... fast count ...one…two…). If the marker resumes the stall count before correcting a marking violation, it is another instance of the original marking violation, which may be called by the thrower.

8. If a marker commits a marking violation after being called for a marking violation during the same stall count but before the thrower is in the act of throwing, the thrower may choose to either call another marking violation or to treat the marking violation as a general defensive violation. To treat it as a general violation, the thrower must call violation.

By the way, rule XIV.A.5 says: \"If a stall count is interrupted by a call, the thrower and marker are responsible for agreeing on the correct count before the check. The count reached is the last number fully uttered by the marker before the call. The count is resumed with the word stalling followed by the number listed below:
1.General Rules:
1.Uncontested defensive foul or violation: 1
2.Uncontested offensive foul or violation: Count reached plus 1, or 9 if over 8
3.Contested foul or violation: Count reached plus 1, or 6 if over 5
4.Offsetting calls: Count reached plus 1, or 6 if over 5
5.Unresolved calls: Count reached plus 1, or 6 if over 5

(This rule tells you where to reset the stall count after a marking violation.)

Since we are sort of bouncing around the rule book, some of these terms and concepts may be confusing. If so, please bring up any questions or potential situations to discuss. Even veterans and nerds like us get confused by certain rules (frequently!).
http://www.upa.org/ultimate/rules/11th 

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