What do Paganello, Summerfest, The Jammers and the Frisbie Festival (soon PR as well) have in common? In the third year of each of these events, these tournaments have taken off and become must-do events. Kraig Steffen has seen his “historical” event, somewhat of a throwback to the Frisbee/Hackey Sack festivals, explode. With the mayor of Bridgeport, a local on-site radio broadcast and numerous sponsor booths, this event has become an important event in the community and for jammers. There was a freestyle tournament, disc dog demos, pie tin throwing contests, pie eating contests (Frisbie brand only!) and a temporary disc golf course set up all set on a beautiful lawn on a lake.

The tournament was one of three events this day related to jammers and significant events in their lives. Carl Emerson had his wedding reception in eastern Connecticut (which about half of us attended after the tourney) and Roger Meier had a surprise 40th birthday party in NYC (which the other half attended). Tournament discs were signed by all the jammers and presented to both Roger and Carl.

Judy Robbins (#1 female player in the world), Dan YarNail (current world champion) and myself all flew in. The New England and New York shredmeister contingents rounded out this amazingly deep field. There were two rounds with the first round essentially a demo round with a random order for the finals. The judges were fans in the audience and a couple of NEFA folks. The first round highlights were many as everyone was relaxed and getting loose.

One moment that sticks out involved Rob Fried and Doug Fresh. On one set, the disc goes between them. They both go for it. Rob sets up for a tasty flaud when at the last moment Doug casually grabs it with a flaird. Judy’s jamming had folks scratching their heads as they realized that it doesn’t matter how long your hair is, if you can shred, you can shred. Her and Rick Williams, in the spirit of the prevailing historical theme, dusted the rust and invoked their crusty stuff from the many demos they did in the ’80s in New England. A dangerous situation occurred as Petri continued doing moves with too many spins, creating a giant sinkhole. Osis Caplin is back! He and Petri have played a number of events together and the chemistry is obviously getting stronger.

Bill Dubilier had a bad attitude all day and Ritchie Regensberg put the disc through angles and contortions which are illegal in many countries. Dan and Steve “Pops” Scannell had a complicated routine developed. How do I know? Steve had secret tape on his wrist with all the formations and coops written on them. They did a lot of multi-disc stuff with mutual exchanges. Dan’s attitude was as bad as Bill’s. The prevailing question of the day was What is older, Steve, Ritchie or fire? How these guys SHRED at that age is incredible. Toddy “Gameday” Brodeur and I had a very fun jam with Toddy in particular just going off.

The Finals again were random order. More structured routines were the order with the jamming remaining hot. Each of the six teams played great! Having a six team field is nothing new, but here all the teams were strong. The highlights of this round included Rick and Judy’s routine. Rob and Doug, as always, tore it up. A word that has great meaning and applies to them is “appropriate”. Taster’s choice is not just coffee. Toddy and I spiced up the proceedings a bit with an Indiana Jones takeoff.

Some highlights included:

– Petri’s triple spinning catches, many of them…also a kicking sequence to a bad attitude
– Alan’s flamingosis and crows
– Rob’s osis pulls, gitis shoot to osis and general ridicularity
– Judy’s double spinning btb pull to crow
– Doug’s fresh big air flaud, butt to the camera
– Rick’s tipping sequence to a btb catch on the note
– Dan’s flaud pull and roll sequence to a big kick (the picture on photopoint caught the kick)
– Steve juggling (maturity with freestyle)
– Ritchie’s tooth delay and odd angle weirdness
– Bill’s spinning neck flaud, bad attitudes, gitis pull and cool ground work
– Toddy’s triple pull to spinning flamingo, gitis pull, ollie and triple to btb catch the only one keeping Petri from embarrassing the field
– My restricted pull to double spinning scarecrow on the note

Special thanks to Kraig for a great event. Good food, T-shirts, discs, good directions to Carl’s party and a smoothly running tournament.
Paul Kenny