Grand Final, Season wrap-up

Hi all, last night the Grand Final of BPL was played on a beautiful night, featuring two of the top teams in Brisbane, and a group of beer/sausage/ultimate loving spectators.

Slamtown took out the game, coming out to a strong lead, and then when the Bugs fought back to within two points, the Flatballers extended themselves again to take the game 15-10.

Video/highlights to come later, apologies in advance for my camera skills.

This season saw a return of the seventh team in the league, and a return of a named UQ team, the Lovers. Most week's the Lovers went down, but scored 9 or 10 points in the process. Bloody awesome for a team put together from some former UQ BPL players and a bunch of fresh faces.

This season also saw some of the stronger teams being shaken up by newer teams. Blitz beating Dojo and Heroes. Heroes beating Slamtown. UQ Lovers beating Cobras. I could not think of a better indication of how strong the level of Ultimate is in BPL.

Spirit: I said this at the final, and I'll say it again. I would love to say that it was very close, and that all teams were high spiritied and it came down to the last few games. But that would be a lie, Heroes were far and above the most highly spirited team in the competition, which is a great achievement considering this has also been a season where they have been at their best. A small acknowledgement of such great spirit, but I was happy to give Silent a carton of beer to share with his teammates.

As Mike's blog post on the Buggers Blog indicated, after successive visits to the big stage, the Buggers have been out of the final for a while. There seasonal comeback from a bad start was impressive, and taking out Cobras and giving Slamtown a scare, is a good sign that they're back for a few seasons. Although they didn't win this year, I was stocked to give Tony a carton of beer (warm! to make sure it went home!) so the Bugs can have a drink together.

This year's MVP was BW, Captain of the UQ Lovers. I'm personally pretty excited that Brenton won it,   he's done a lot for the league by standing up and bringing a group together to play at such a high level. That aside, he's most consistently the hardest running guy in a game, and his shot selection makes the best of any situation. I've had some Gore-Tex rain jackets put aside for a while this season, and I'm happy to give BW one of these. Now it just has to rain more!

This season saw the return of the 'Rookie of the Season' award. A good sign for the rookies, almost all of them got at least one vote from the captains. This season was a tie, Ashley Donaldson from Blitz, and Dan Cohen from Heroes. They got what all rookies should get - a 2 litre can of good beer!

Finally, Slamtown has a dominant season after some early losses to Dojo and Heroes. They played well on the night, and survived the Bugs come back. As a small token from the league, they'll get to go to a brewery on the coast and brew up some beer as a team, and then bottle it a month later - Slamtown Beer! Congratulations guys.

One of the leagues most motivating Captains, Stef 'Mayor' Rappazzo, goes home with a Gore-Tex rain jacket as well. I started this last season - leading a team into the Grand Final and then winning it takes a lot of work and passion, and Stef definitely deserves it.

A massive thank you to the BPL Captains, they do a lot of work with me behind the scenes to make sure how we operate BPL is run smoothly and thoughtfully. A big thank you as well to our Italian import Salvatore Colangelo, who routinely does work for the league when I can't. Thanks guys.

Okay, thats me done for this post. There will be some pickup and/or development after Christmas, before the next season starts up in February, more info later. Thanks for a great season everyone, its been a blast.

I'm off to play pickup in the sunshine!

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