You've got mail
This is kind of the story that you only hear about in Ultimate Frisbee. This is also why it makes this sport so incredible and beautiful.
A couple of weeks back from now, during the second phase of the Belgian Championship, we received an email from the WFDF, announcing that a Polish team, Girls Stay Home, dropped out from WUCC 2018.
Finland was the first country on the waiting list, followed by Belgium. If Finland would decline the spot, Belgium would get it, and the only team who showed interest was... us.
Well, guess why we are writing those lines.
Building a team
We told the WFDF we were in.
But building a team that could afford the time - and money - to go to Cincinnati would be quite challenging. Let's face it, WUCC 2018 is a huge investment, especially for Europeans.
Another issue was that some - 10, actually - of our players were already joining other teams going to WUCC 2018... And the likelihood of having one of them dropping the team he committed with during an entire season was closed to the probability of seeing a guy catching a disc while jumping over another guy. Oh, wait...
After some discussions with the WFDF, we were granted the permission to ask for pick-up players, focusing primarily on Europe, then on other countries close to the tournament's location.
We started to look into our club for the people interested in going. In total, 6 players were in, and a 7th, Christophe, applied as coach.
We then went after external players. We took two guys from the team who originally dropped out, Girls Stay Home. Then, after an incredible amount of emails sent all over Europe, Canada and USA, we eventually finalized our roster.
The list of players (followed by their country of origin and home club) that will represent the Mooncatchers at WUCC 2018 in Cincinnati:
COACH
Christophe Bihin
PLAYERS
Pierre Amann - FRA - Owl Curv
Pierre Bihin - BEL - Mooncatchers
Will Collier - UK - Smog
Pierre-Alain de Laminne de Bex - BEL - Mooncatchers
Michal Dul - POL - Girls Stay Home
Dan Eppstein - USA - Amsterdam Ultimate Club
Thomas Faber - Canada - Royal Montréal, AUDL (Reserve)
Christian Foster - USA - Boston Ironside
Hugues Godefroid - BEL - Mooncatchers
Andrew Hooker - USA - Boston Ironside
Tom Mannings - UK - Brighton
Glen Newell - UK - Ka-Pow!
Benjamin Petroski - USA - BW Ultimate
Cameron Samuels - UK - Brighton
Brice Vanhée - BEL - Mooncatchers
Quentin Watelet - BEL - Mooncatchers
Pawel Wiejski - POL - Mooncatchers
James Wotherspoon - UK - Brighton
Zibi Braniecki - POL - Girls Stay Home
Matt LeMar- USA - PoNY
The next steps
It's always hard to set up an objective with players coming from so many different club teams, with so many different playing styles and culture, and who will meet for the first time the day before the competition.
But we are confident that we can bring a good result home. In Lecco in 2014, we reached the 28th place. This year, we will try to do at least as good, if not better. A good target would be to aim at our seeding, which we don't know yet.
Now, it's all about finalizing our inscription, get all the accreditation... the usual admin stuff.
We are also glad to be able to partner with VC Ultimate, as our uniform provider.
Finally, we have to thank again the WFDF for allowing us to participate, and helping us throughout the way by adapting deadlines and all this kind of things.
See you on the 14th of July.
The Mooncatchers.