From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
What I do not care about is ... whether everyone in the country who has picked up a disc is there, and I certainly do not want teams in fancy dress or who feel the need to sing me a well-rehearsed song after the game, even though they do not know the rules!
There IS an advantage for the sport in having everyone who has picked up a disc at top tournaments.
Let's imagine that the B-tour becomes considerably less serious than the A tour and gets all the shitty venues, as Jaimie seems to suggest. And let's assume that beginners are going to play the B-tour before they get to play the A-tour.
How many talented, hardcore, suitably-unsmiling players will be put off the sport by the frivolity of the B tour? They may never learn the joys of intense ultimate because they're too busy tripping over their togas, and they won't ever see incredible players like your good self.
The serious end of ultimate has made great and worthy strides in recent years, but it is not yet so big and entrenched as to be self-supporting. Everything possible should still be done to encourage other people to treat ultimate as a serious sport, and top players have an obligation to share the same bit of grass with beginners once in a while. A little bit of selfish elitism isn't going to help the future of the game.
Sure, there are teams (or rather, some players on teams) outside the top 16 who don't know all the rules; but the fact is, until there are more ultimate players, you'll just have to live with it. And they'll learn quicker by playing (or at least watching) teams who do know the rules than by playing each other, won't they?
There are only about a dozen teams on which every player is serious. And treating lower teams with disdain isn't going to help that.
Benji
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