The World Ultimate Club Championships will be played in Cincinnati, Ohio, from the 23rd to the 30th of July. With the cancellation of the 2020 World Ultimate Championships, this WUCC will be only the third opportunity (after the World Games and WMUCC) to see elite, international Ultimate in the last few years—that means we’ll see last hurrahs, smiles on faces, zany new offensive structures, another evolution of the “meta” (is vert still cool?), and whole new generations of superstars who are here to remind us of our own impermanence and mortality.
This tournament is a real highlight of the international calendar. WUCC has a way of levelling the global playing field, providing a platform for local clubs to represent their community and country. There is nothing quite like playing for your team against the best in the world. In this article, we’ll do a brief overview of the Open Division, and get to know the team that Australia are sending to compete.
Opens Division
Thank you for this picture Ultiworld, we would have made our own diagram but IOU is not an ‘official media partner.’
There is a lot going on in the Opens division. With Colony/Sunder’s gradual rise in the seedings with each WUCC, the return of the Buzz Bullets, the re-return of Furious George, and the explosions in talent going on in Europe right now, this is possibly the division that the traditional North American dominance is most vulnerable. As you can see from the seedings, the faceless WUCC Senate does not necessarily agree.
So, who are we sending to compete on this world stage?
Sunder - 2 Seed
After three years of just missing it, Sunder are now back on top of the Opens Australian Ultimate scene, finishing 1st and 3rd at Nationals in 2022. There’s been a large generational shift for Sunder since getting the silver medal at WUCC in 2018—a shift that flows through into this team. Ultiworld and Americans on reddit seem obsessed with the Mickle and Kocher shaped hole in this roster, without knowing much about this iteration of the club.
Here is the squad list:
Very few teams anywhere in the world can compete with this number of people called Alex, and the trynamic trio of (in no particular order) Gan, Shepherd, and Ladomatos are fresh off a really outstanding World Games performance. Joining them in Alabama was of course Samuel McGuckin, who seems simply unguardable right now. This has come as a relief to the Sunder D line, who had been getting further and further away from McGuckin all season. Then there are the Texans. Mark Evans, former Sunder leader and current President of the Lone Star State, and Austin SOl AUDL Captain Evan Swiatek bring a a bit of oomph and sizzle to the side, and late pickup Dave Andrews brings a Rob-Andrews-like presence to the squad that could make a real difference in key moments.
After coming 6th in 2010, 4th in 2014, and 2nd in 2018, there is a mathematical trajectory that Sunder believes is their destiny. They want to win. They think they can win. And this weight of expectation has sat on their shoulders, hung around at trainings, and been right there with them during every victory and defeat they’ve experienced over the last four years. There is a feeling with each throwing set, every ‘quick fifty’, and every lightless, rainy pod, that they are striving to be the best in the world. It’s an exciting place to be.
The second seed is a privilege that Sunder will fight to protect—should everything go to plan, they will avoid facing a team from the USA until the semifinals. They may face challenging games in the pool or crossovers, but the idea of the big, deep roster is that the superstars will have plenty of legs late in the tournament. After existing as two separate entities during the Nationals season, the cool yin of the O-line is enjoying being reunited with the yanging, raptorish energy of the D-squad, and all the pickups are fitting in nicely into the void between.
Sunder is ready, rampant, and rising to the occasion—you can follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
Ellipsis - 17-24 Seed
The Opens Ellipsis team was only brought into existence after the last WUCC, and in that time has finished 4th, 1st, and 2nd at the Australian Ultimate Championships. This club has ploughed through the HOS-Chilly-Mudlarks power struggle for Victorian ultimate superiority, establishing themselves as the home for elite men's players in Melbourne.
For this WUCC season, they have also become a home for Kiwis, Crocs, and Ben Powlay, with coach Col returning for his third season at the helm. Here’s the team they’re sending to Cincinnati:
The goal of this Ellipsis team is to win the tournament, and they believe that this is within their grasp. With three World Games players in Tullet, Andrews, and Oh, and Crocs reserves in Copland, Eley, and Keyes, there’s no shortage of talent on the roster. Whitlock was huge for them at Nationals—the young New Zealander had one of the biggest catching windows and was among the best throwers at the tournament, and his connection with Haberfield worked time and time again. The rest of the roster is able to fill through Ellipsis’ unconventional offences, which has a way of isolating key matchups in vast expanses of space.
The elephant in the room is Ellipsis’ low seed. As the #2 team in Australia—one that was able to take it to universe against Sunder in pool play of the WUCC seeding tournament—the 17-24 seed puts them in something of a pool of death. The perennial Great British champions in Clapham, Irish champs and one of Europe’s bigges up-and-comers in Ranelagh, and a massively underseeded GOAT will stand in the way of Ellipsis’ journey into the bracket. It’s not beyond their capabilities, but it is going to be hard to get pole position in Pool G.
Ellipsis places great importance on openly caring for the team and its aspirations, and this belief and love for the team will need to be close by during pool play. This will be the highest level that a lot of the team has ever played—for older players, this WUCC could be a last hurrah, for young players, this could be an invaluable experience that carries them and Ellipsis forward in years to come. Coach Col Fink is now in his second season at the helm, and he has been instrumental in helping the team focus its energy from the start of games and tournaments. Combine that with a high defensive intensity and willingness to bid, and Ellipsis may well be able to bring the heat to the competition from the very first pull.
Anyone who has stood near their team for very long or seen their memes would know that Ellipsis is proud of its ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ approach to comedy. According to Rob Swan, ‘this incredibly dumb stuff fuels us, and means we always have a massive reserve of energy to draw on in games. Our peak state is incredibly joyful and loud.’ The Ellipsis vibe, coupled with high intensity starts to games and a very talented roster, is likely to give the Claphams of the world real headaches. Everyone hates losing to a team that’s enjoying themselves.
You can follow Ellipsis on their Facebook and Instagram.
Melbourne Juggernaut - Seed 25-32
Speaking of teams that are… challenging to play against, Juggernaut has been busy gleefully distributing vuvuzela-headaches for the last four years. They are loud, they are proud, they like footy, they have mullets sometimes, and they are easily the most annoying team to be broken by in all of Australian Ultimate. They are also the most annoying team to call a timeout against, to engage in a scrappy windy huckfest with, and to lose to. But the cool thing about WUCC is that we are all now pro-HOS, and can sincerely hope that they do well. Gooo Jugger!
In their third appearance at the tournament, this team is quite different from both last WUCC and the nationals season. Here’s the team list (delivered to me in no alphabetical order we can identify):
Lachlan McDonald, Ben Richardson, Dillon Taylor, Declan Frey, Tony Castrignano, Klipp Liu, Adrian Lim, Dan Cullen, Lu Shien Lee, Per Henriksen, Jake Wilson, Patrick Thorpe, Kevin Petit-Scantling, Tiernan Somers, Lochlan Wise, Percy Cheung, Michael Truong, Keat Min Woo, Sam Lee, Kelvin Du, Josh Philip, Seo Posearn, Kolya Vakhnin, Tom Deller, Ferdy Rahmadhan.
It’s a new look Juggernaut, with some of the stars of old making way for a new wave of rowdy, athletic players. Tiernan Somers makes chest high plays on D, young Josh Phillips will outwork every cutter he comes up against, and Per Henrikson’s smooth control of the disc will see the world stage for the first time. Kevin Petit-Scantling, one of the highest regarded defenders in the AUDL, will join the roster from the Madison Radicals. And if you’re looking for fireworks and spicy hammers, you need look no further than Tom “The Difference” Deller, or his partner in crime Locho Wise.
As with every team HOS has sent to WUCC, the dream is to become World Champs—but most important to the club is to play their best ultimate. Their starting pool is, as far as starting pools go, not the worst. It’s very European. CUSB look to be the out-and-out favourite, and the Belgian Gentle and France’s star-studded Iznogood could also be very competitive. But are any of them really ready for the Juggernaut that is HOS? Have they ever even seen a game of AFL? Can they cope with the level and noise of celebration when the Melbourne boys score or, even better, get an early break? It’s a level of energy that few teams want to face.
You can follow Juggernaut on Facebook and Instagram.
Good luck to all teams competing at WUCC! We believe in you!