Ultimate Canada

Ultimate Canada
Ultimate Canada
Sport	Ultimate (sport)
Jurisdiction	National
Founded	1993
Affiliation	World Flying Disc Federation
Chief Exec	Danny Saunders
Official website
	www.canadianultimate.com

Ultimate Canada is a not-for-profit organization that serves as the governing body of the sport of Ultimate (also known as "Ultimate Frisbee") in Canada. It runs the Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC) and Canadian University Ultimate Championship (CUUC) series.

Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC)

Each August, teams from across the country travel to the Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC) to compete for the national title in 7 different divisions: mixed, open, women's, junior open, junior women, masters open and masters women. Teams compete at this seven-day tournament not only to determine the national champion, but also to determine who will represent Canada at the next world championships.^[2]

Canadian University Ultimate Championships (CUUC)

The CUUC started in 1995 and brings university teams from across the country to compete in the open & the women's division. Each fall Ultimate Canada operates two competitions for university Ultimate teams in Canada: the Canadian University Ultimate Championships (CUUC) and the Canadian Eastern University Ultimate Championships (CEUUC). The CEUUC began in 1998 and brings university teams primarily from Ontario and Quebec together to compete in the open & the women's division.^[2]

History

Australia vs Canada at 2012 WUGC in Japan

In 2010, the Toronto Ultimate Club released a documentary film, 30 years in 30 minutes,^[3] that traces the club's history as well as the history of disc ultimate in Canada. Not far removed from the invention of Ultimate in the late 1960s, Ken Westerfield and Jim Kenner (the founder and CEO of Discraft) ran the Canadian Open Frisbee Championships (guts, distance and later disc golf, disc freestyle and over-all disc events) in the early 1970s at the Canadian National Exhibition and then later on Toronto Islands.^[4] They also participated in several Frisbee show tours across Canada for Irwin Toy (Wham-O licensee and Frisbee distributor for Canada). Each year their show tours would end in Vancouver where they would set up the Vancouver Open Frisbee Championships on Kitsilano Beach and Stanley Park (1974-1976). This is where Jim Brown, Bill King and John Anthony of freestyle fame made their first competitive appearances. From these championships and the presence of these touring professional Frisbee players (Westerfield, Kenner, and Bob Blakely of Irwin Toy), Toronto became the hub of Frisbee activity in Canada. In the 1970s, Ken Westerfield introduced disc ultimate north of the 49th parallel at the Canadian Open Frisbee Championships in Toronto and by creating the Toronto Ultimate League (Club).^[5]^[6]^[7]

Ken Westerfield lived in the Beaches in south east Toronto, this is where he would set up shop, taking his Frisbees down to the beach on a grassy area next to the boardwalk called Kew Beach and would play with whomever wanted to join him. Four of the original ultimate players, Ken Westerfield, Jim Lim, Stuart Godfrey, and Patrick Chartrand and others played a pickup game of ultimate Frisbee one afternoon with Westerfield outlining the rules. For this group it became a regular thing and the group began to grow. In 1979, Westerfield using his local tournament player contact list, started weekly ultimate pick-up games in the Beaches on the same grassy area next to the boardwalk on Wednesday evenings. Christopher Lowcock, introduced to disc sports by his brother Les, became part of this group. Lowcock, Westerfield and the others would recruit more players as they passed by along the boardwalk, Wednesday ultimate pick-up was becoming very popular.

In 1980, Westerfield sent team invitations to Wards Island, West End, North Toronto and Westerfield's own team the Beaches,^[8] to join the Toronto Ultimate League. These were the first four teams with each team taking turns hosting the league games at their home locations. The league starting night was at Kew Beach. These were the very first disc ultimate league games in the city of Toronto, the beginning of the Toronto Ultimate League (Club), and the first ultimate league in Canada. The Toronto Ultimate League developed into the Toronto Ultimate Club (TUC), that now has 3300 active members and over 250 Teams playing the year round.^[9]

The first Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC) were held, for the open division, in Ottawa 1987, produced by Marcus Brady and Brian Guthrie. OCUA subsequently hosted the 1993, 1999, 2002 and 2011 Canadian Ultimate Championships.^[10]

Canada has been ranked number one in the Ultimate World Rankings several times since 1998 in all the Ultimate Divisions (including Open and Women's) according to the World Flying Disc Federation.^[11]

In 2013, as a founding partner, the Toronto Ultimate Club presented Canada's first semi-professional Ultimate team, the Toronto Rush, to the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL). They went undefeated 18-0 and won the AUDL Championships.^[12]^[13]^[14] In 2014, the Montreal Royal and the Vancouver Riptide joined the AUDL. In 2015, the Ottawa Outlaws became the fourth Canadian team to compete in the AUDL, of 26 teams in total.

In 2015, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted full recognition to the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) for flying disc sports including ultimate.^[15]^[16]

Timeline of National Ultimate Developments in Canada

1972-1985: Canadian Open Frisbee Championships, Toronto - introduced Frisbee and the beginning of competitive disc sports.
1975: Ultimate is played for the first time at the Canadian Open Frisbee Championships as a showcase event on Toronto Islands.
1980: Toronto League started
1986: Vancouver and Ottawa Leagues started
1987: First Canadian Ultimate Championships - open division only
1988: MODS (first Provincial Sports Organization) founded
1989: Women's Division added to Nationals
1991: WFDF World Ultimate Club Championships in Toronto
1993: Canadian Ultimate Players Association begins
1994: Juniors Division added to Nationals
1995: Masters Division added to Nationals. First Annual University National Championships - open & women's divisions.
1997: WFDF World Ultimate Club Championships in Vancouver
1998: Team Canada Masters wins first Gold Medal for Canada at Worlds (WUGC) - quickly followed by Gold in Mixed and Open. Since 1998, Canada has been ranked number one in the World, several years in all divisions, by WFDF World Ultimate Ranking.
1999: Mixed Division added to Canadian Ultimate Championships
2002: First Canadian team to win USAU (UPA) Championship: Furious George (Vancouver)
2008: WFDF World Ultimate & guts Championships in Vancouver
2010: Canadian Ultimate Players Association changes its name to Ultimate Canada
2012: Junior Division at CUC splits from Mixed into Junior Open and Junior Women's Divisions
2013: The Junior Open and Junior Women's divisions at CUC split away from the adult events competition turning CUC into a 7-day tournament.
2013: As a founding partner, the Toronto Ultimate Club presented Canada's first semi-professional Ultimate team, the Toronto Rush, to the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL).
2015: WFDF World Ultimate Rankings by country. Canada is ranked number 2 out of 44 countries.^[17]
2015: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted full recognition to the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), (of which Ultimate Canada is a member) for flying disc sports including ultimate

Toronto Ultimate Club

File:Frisbeeatyorkuniversity.ogv

Ultimate training at York University.

The Toronto Ultimate Club was founded in 1980.^[18] It is Canada's oldest ultimate league with teams participating every season, on most days of the week and on various fields (indoor and outdoor) throughout the year. It is a not-for-profit organization that was incorporated in 1995. The club consists of three full-time managers, a strong board of directors which represent the membership, and over 100 volunteers.

London Ultimate Club

London Ultimate Club (LUC)^[19] is a growing league in London, Ontario. The club was founded in 1998 and incorporated as a not for profit in 2008. The club runs outdoor leagues in the summer and indoor leagues in fall and winter.

Ottawa Carleton Ultimate Association

Ultimate is popular in Ottawa. OCUA is currently one of the two largest leagues in Canada (alongside the Vancouver Ultimate League), and for a time was the largest ultimate league in the world—in 2004, there were 354 teams in the summer league and approximately 5000 members.^[20]

Vancouver Ultimate League

The Vancouver Ultimate League has around 4000 active members who play throughout the year.^[21] Our primary focus is recreational play. We also host clinics and introductory programs for new players, and support a number of elite club teams who compete in provincial, national and international championships.

Calgary Ultimate Association

Founded in 2004, the CUA coordinates year-round leagues, annual tournaments, a growing juniors program, and outreach efforts to promote the sport of ultimate frisbee within Calgary and surrounding areas. Each year in June the CUA hosts the annual Ho-Down and Slo-Down tournament that draws more than 30 teams from across Western Canada and the United States.^[22] Calgary Juniors Ultimate hosts an annual tournament and youth league.

Windsor Ultimate

Windsor Ultimate in Windsor, Ontario since 2007.^[23] In 2010 we officially became a non-profit entity in the Province of Ontario, this move allowed us to better situate ourselves as a legitimate sports league in Southern Ontario.

Montreal Ultimate

The Montreal Ultimate Association has enjoyed incredible growth and has become one of the largest Ultimate associations in Canada. Although the sport first came to Montreal in 1984, the 1993 season truly signalled the start of an Ultimate league that eventually became the association we know today. In 1997, players felt the need to create a non-profit organisation that they called Association de Ultimate de Montréal.^[24]