I was discussing this with Shimbo over the summer.
Some of what I've read online has lead me to believe that American Football and Basketball seem to be the sports that have skills and tactics most relevant to our own. For instance: a Sockeye player mentions that their "offense uses basketball terminology" and here are some other ultimate blog references to these sports.
Considering that these are popular American sports, it almost seems like an advantage to the American teams. They can take concepts from these games to innovate in ultimate, in ways that those not as familiar with the games, can not. And perhaps individual players with backgrounds in these sports might be at an advantage.
But of course, one of the main reasons why the comparisons get made, is that all of these writers are from North America. These are the sports they know.
Perhaps there are Irish sports with which analogies can be made? Of our 2 main native games; Hurling and Gaelic football, I think Gaelic might be more useful. Hurling is too fast. Man-marking a guy in Gaelic could be a fairly similar skill as man to man defence in Ultimate, right? There does seem to be quite a few decent Irish ultimate players that used to play Gaelic. So I can speculate that it helps.
Now I wonder if there are any tactical concepts or even terminology we can take.
Some of what I've read online has lead me to believe that American Football and Basketball seem to be the sports that have skills and tactics most relevant to our own. For instance: a Sockeye player mentions that their "offense uses basketball terminology" and here are some other ultimate blog references to these sports.
Considering that these are popular American sports, it almost seems like an advantage to the American teams. They can take concepts from these games to innovate in ultimate, in ways that those not as familiar with the games, can not. And perhaps individual players with backgrounds in these sports might be at an advantage.
But of course, one of the main reasons why the comparisons get made, is that all of these writers are from North America. These are the sports they know.
Perhaps there are Irish sports with which analogies can be made? Of our 2 main native games; Hurling and Gaelic football, I think Gaelic might be more useful. Hurling is too fast. Man-marking a guy in Gaelic could be a fairly similar skill as man to man defence in Ultimate, right? There does seem to be quite a few decent Irish ultimate players that used to play Gaelic. So I can speculate that it helps.
Now I wonder if there are any tactical concepts or even terminology we can take.
