Last week, Mephisto drove down to Devens Massachusetts to compete in 2008 Boston Invitational. For the first time in many years, Mephisto was ranked in the Elite bracket of the 32 invited teams. We were faced with a very competitive series of teams on the first day, first against Boston Ultimate, then PONY and finally Pike, these three teams being serious players in the East. The first two games were very similar; we came out a little flat and found ourselves trailing by 5 or 6 points at the half. As hard as we tried to rally in the second halves, the deficit was too large and our opponents too experienced. It was too little too late. In order to have an easier game in the cross over, we needed to perform well against Pike. Anything less than a victory would send us to a showdown against Bohdi, not quite the ideal scenario.

Even before we had a chance to start playing Pike, we had already lost a soldier. Apparently, our warm up was too intense and Benoit Duhamel broke his foot running around the field… nice. The wind turned in our favour as soon as the game started, plays working greatly, passes finally on target and our defence making important plays to lead us to a 15-8 win. This victory set-up a crossover match up with an inexperience Gunslingers. Let’s just say this game was quick and painless.

Sunday morning, we found ourselves in a quarterfinal game against Great Britain Ultimate, a team that came all the way from England in preparation for the World Championships held in Vancouver in August. Once again, a slow start caused us all sorts of problems. Our offence was unable to produce while they were creating huge opportunities for themselves. This was yet another frustrating quarterfinal loss, but a great lesson of intensity.

Our consolation semi-final was an opportunity for us to avenge the humiliating loss to Phoenix back at CUT in early June. This time, we didn’t miss the boat. We made numerous defensive plays and built a small lead which we kept all the way to a 13-10 win. This was a sweet one, but we still think we could have done a little more.

Finally, we met Truck Stop in the small final for 5th place. Maybe we were just satisfied to be there or we were just tired from the week-end, but it looked like nobody wanted to play anymore. We literally watched them run circles around us and finally take it 15-10. Very disappointing given that we had beaten these guys at CUT. Yet, a 6th place in the Boston Invitational is very promising for this « new » Mephisto…

For the first tournament of the season, Mephisto went down to Hanover, Vermont to compete in the White Mountain Open. For this week-end, results were not the main objective; we were much more focused on creating chemistry within the teams and lines. For the first time in many seasons, the WMO regrouped many talented teams which confirmed the rumours of a high level of competition in the open division for the 2008 season.

In this tournament there were a lot of experienced teams that could of given us a good ride such as Red Tide, Noise Slingers (a mix of New Noise and Gun Slingers from Boston) and Bro White (the guys from Slow White, 2nd at UPA in 2007). However, it was not the case because Montreal finished their day with 4 wins and no loses. What really got the attention of the players though, was the huge improvement on all levels throughout the day. As the day went by, the quality they of the execution became greater, which led them to a convincing victory over Noise Slingers 13-3 (we had 11 consecutive points).

The championship bracket promised to be very interesting for Mephisto, the quarters game was wide open, since we had already beat Red Tide the previous day, final score, 13-3, and in the semis, we had chance to avenge our Demon brothers which had been beaten by Dartmouth DieNasty, we ended up taking it 12-8. Both games, witch were relatively short, were still highly intense, but Mephisto’s defensive pressure permitted them to go in the finals against a young and very talented team called Bodhi.

In the finals, it became very evident that Bodhi would not go down easy as they executed a very tight zone and pressured our defense with very well executed long. Great patience and huge pressure on defense let Méphisto resist a second half come-back and win the finals 13-11. All in all, this as been an excellent week-end for the formation and it is promising for the up-coming tournaments in the season.