Sheffield Hat 2016
| Date | 2nd - 4th September 2016 | |||
| Location |
Hillsborough Sports Arena Middlewood Road Sheffield S6 4HA |
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| Capacity | 160 players | |||
| Cost | £32 |
Howdy partners! ninety2 ultimate is proud to invite you to the magnificent seventh Sheffield Hat! Come join us on the ranch in the wild, wild west of Sheffield for another weekend of unmissable, charitable, 5 on 5 Ultimate.
If you've been before, you'll know exactly what to expect from the Sheffield Hat, if you haven't, here's how we do things:
- 16 teams of approx 10 players playing 5v5 Ultimate on grass 'Bula'-sized pitches
- extra fun and games to raise money for the chosen charity
- the infamous Sheffield Hat MVP Show Game (plus fantasy Ultimate)
- some relaxed DDC
- bar and cafe on site, open all weekend
- camping on site (now FREE)
- party on site on the Saturday night
This year you can don your chaps, sink some moonshine and try and rustle our bronco at the saloon, or maybe just play a few rounds of horseshoes.
We're also in cahoots with those cowboys at VC and Lookfly to bring some swag and extra nuisance to the corral.
Payment deadlines
Don't forget that your place is only confirmed when payment is received, so don't delay, pay today!!
You'll be pleased to know that we will not be increasing the fees closer to the deadline this year, but the fee has increased for all players to £32. The final payment deadline is Wednesday 20th July. This is also the last day you can withdraw and guarantee a full refund of your payment (if you have made one).
Kit and prizes will be ordered based on the fully paid entries on this date. Refunds after this date will only be provided if your space can be filled. After Wednesday 24th August, refunds will have to be negotiated with the TD depending on the circumstances of the withdrawal (by this point virtually all costs will be paid out and there is limited time to find a replacement).
The Venue
This will be the fifth year we have used Hillsborough Arena for this event and it is a great little venue, providing the perfect atmosphere for this relaxed, end-of-season tournament.
Whilst mainly used for football and rugby, the venue and staff have been extremely accomodating in the last couple of years, making everyone feel welcome and ensuring that Ultimate has a home here.
There are a number of rules to be followed, however, so please have a read of the list below. Obviously some rules are more serious than others, but please be aware that breaches could threaten the future running of this event.
Venue rules
Please don’t bring your own alcohol – this is a licensed venue (including the outside areas) and only alcohol purchased from the bar can be consumed on site. Venue management can, and will, confiscate any ‘external’ alcohol that they spot you with.
Whilst the bar is open until 12am (they stop serving at 11pm), the venue is surrounded by a residential area on three sides so please keep outside noise to a minimum after 11pm. If the venue receives complaints from the neighbours, we’ll no longer be able to camp here putting future editions of the Sheffield Hat, and other events, in jeopardy.
Please put all your litter in the bins! We will have loads of bin bags at HQ so please ask us for them if you need.
Toilets & showers are open all night for your convenience (far side of main building) – please try to leave these as you would wish to find them (and don’t abuse the hedges)!
No muddy boots in any of the buildings. This includes the changing rooms (which always seem to get muddy) so please leave your boots outside!
If you bring any valuables with you, you do so at your own risk – neither the TD nor the venue will accept any responsibility for loss or damage.
Tournament Rules
The tournament will be played under full WFDF 2013 rules (a copy will be available if required) except that there are 5 players on each team and the pitches are smaller (5v5 BULA-sized). We recommend familiarising yourself with, at the very least, the basic rules of the game. The games will be 40 minutes long and there are no points caps or half time. A hooter will sound at the start and end of the 40 minute time period. On hearing the hooter at the end of the game, please finish the point before stopping. If scores are tied at this time, play a sudden-death point to determine the winner.
Registration
We are doing away with the usual system for registration to hopefully make things easier for everyone. On Saturday morning, each team will collect their team pack which will include all of the kit and everything you need to know. If you're lucky, there'll be some extra goodies in there too!
We're getting rid of the wristbands as we've not been able to find anywhere to recycle all the old spares we have. We're also not charging for camping so there's no registering of tents to worry about.
What you will need to do on arrival though, either on Friday evening or Saturday morning, is find your name on the big sheet of names, sign in and let us know if you're camping or staying somewhere else. That'll just let us know who we have on site overnight.
Scores
After each game your team needs to report the score as well as your opponent’s overall spirit score and your nominations for ‘most spirited player’ and MVPs. The plan for 2016 is to have this all on a Google form so you can submit everything from your phone. This should mean an end to all the tiny bits of paper, as well as the TD's task of compiling all the data.
More info to follow on this new system.
Be inclusive
Please ensure that any beginners receive a positive introduction to Ultimate by being friendly and helpful (whether they are on your team or not!). We request that you ensure players of all levels get plenty of pitch time and plenty of opportunities to handle the disc.
This event is classed as an ‘open’ tournament but there will be women on every team so please try and match up as far as possible.
Spirit of the Game
Spirit is really important to us here at the Sheffield Hat and we like to reward you with a heap of prizes! Not only does the most spirited team win a prize, there are also individual prizes for the most spirited player on each team, as voted for by your opposition.
Last year we switched to an alternate Spirit scoring method and it seemed to work quite well so we will once again be using the 'Alternative SOTG Score Sheet'.
Just like the official WFDF score sheet, Spirit is marked 0-4 over five categories but this version is aimed more at fun tournaments like ours. It'll mean Spirit scoring should hopefully be a more enjoyable and entertaining part of the weekend rather than the sometimes serious and laborious task of using the official sheets.
The five categories are:
- Fair play
- Intensity
- Daringness
- Spirit speech / sense of humour
- Fun
You can download a copy of the sample sheet below.
MVP Show Game and Fantasy Ultimate
The last game on Saturday is traditionally the MVP showgame. Throughout the day you will have been nominating MVPs from your team and your opponents and the highest ranked players from each team at the end of the day will take place in the showgame.
Showgame participants not only get fancy MVP kit from VC-Lookfly, but also the chance to win some additional merchandise if they finish the match as the top points scorer!
Alongside the showgame we run a game of Fantasy Ultimate. The way we run it is, we think, very simple. You pay £2 to select one player from each team. This is done without knowledge of who the players are by selecting a box on the game grid. You will only know who you have chosen when we announce the players just before the game. With eight players on each team, there are sixty-four combinations of players on the grid.
The players will earn you points based on a tried and tested scoring system and if you end up with the highest scoring combination you will win half of the cash pot! The other half goes in to our charity collection.
Double Disc Court
We will have one DDC court marked out for your use (maybe two) and a set of official 110g discs for you to play with. We'll also have a copy of some rules in case you want to read them.
If you've never played before, we recommend the following websites:
