King Geedorah - Anti-Matter

Went up to Magdeburg to play in their indoor tournament with a Cranberry Snack / Mother Tongue combo team, 4 guys and 3 girls (including a lady pickup from Dresden). Games were 5v5, 30 minutes continuous play so I took no subs all weekend. Saturday we went 2-1-1 (tying with "DOMinas and boyfriends") and because our only loss was by 1 point we finished 2nd in the pool, a clutch-money move that gave us a bye on Sunday until noon. We took advantage of this to party hardy after some delicious thai/chinese fusion food and a cruise 'round the Weihnachtsmarkt downtown. 3rd place in the "team shots" standings for the party, definitely first for shots-per-capita and won the party no question. Plenty of sleep, felt great on Sunday but lost our first game by one point, then got creamed by Dresden (who took our ringer lady back for the game). That set us up for a rematch vs DOMinas for 5th place. Tight game, but more spirited than our first meeting and we held on to win by two, 5th out of 10 teams.

We had "spirit circles" and spirit games after each game, which was a little different but kind of cool. Overall I had a lot of fun, a great experience for my first German tournament. Learned a bit about how things are done here, at least in mixed. The competition was pretty strong, but there's a much greater emphasis on avoiding contact and players don't tolerate the same kind of bumps and checks that American teams would call incidental. The biggest problem was the floor, though, which was super slippery. I saw a bunch of people bust their ass trying to change direction, and between that and the no-wind there were tons of blades to the break side for goals, very difficult to take away options downfield. But most teams had a wide spectrum of individual skill levels, so I still got a bunch of D's (and of course threw mad goals) all weekend. A bunch of turnovers too, but it's hard to say how many were receiver error. I think at my next indoor tournament I'll be with a stronger team so I can play more of a role and focus on no-turnover play, but this weekend was very much about fun and flash with not many real handlers to work with. It felt great to get out there, though, and it's cool that I get to prepare so well for Mercer Midnight Madness and NJ indoor league. Home in 3 weeks!