After almost a year of dedicated work Gilles Demers just came forward with a series of 7 clips rendering the 2007 Montreal Footbag Championships most important matches and best moments. Camera work by Yves Archambault and Dominic O'Brien, footage provided by Pro Kicker
Judge by yourself just follow the link
Yevez talks about Footbag, Peteca and sometimes other alternative sports, which means they're not in the mainstream. Yves Archambault's nickname, Yevez, is pushing people to move, whatever their age is.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
First Day at the Green Cup
The Green Cup presented by Chaos started today in Oakland. Here are a couple of pictures of the action that happened on the net courts.
The Green cup is sponsored by Pro Kicker and the official footbag for the tournament is the Pro Kicker Impact
The Green cup is sponsored by Pro Kicker and the official footbag for the tournament is the Pro Kicker Impact
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
A simple Footbag net tale
Footbag net is a really small sport. Not because it doesn't have all it takes to be more in the public eye. It's fast and spectacular, combining martial art moves with ball control that many professionnal soccer players would envy. So what's the problem?
I guess we just didn't find the right person yet to make it to the mainstream. Most tournaments are poorly organized, not because of the organizers intentions, but you can just go so far without money. No bleachers to sit spectators, no publicity or press releases the tournament often end up being a confidential affair between dedicated players.
It's still a lot of fun from all the people you meet but the sport stagnates a little bit too much for my taste.
I organized 3 world Championships and I think I did my best. We have tournaments here in Montreal since 1989 and more and more people know about the sport but it is still a very small fraction of the population. One other reason why it's still so unknown is that pretty much all the newspapers sports section are exclusively reserved to the 'big' sports. There's no room for alternative stuff anymore, is there room for journalists? I always thought that part of the journalist job was to dig for newer stuff, so I repeat the question: Is there still journalits? I mean real ones. (That would be of course according to my definition :-)
To know more about Footbag
I guess we just didn't find the right person yet to make it to the mainstream. Most tournaments are poorly organized, not because of the organizers intentions, but you can just go so far without money. No bleachers to sit spectators, no publicity or press releases the tournament often end up being a confidential affair between dedicated players.
It's still a lot of fun from all the people you meet but the sport stagnates a little bit too much for my taste.
I organized 3 world Championships and I think I did my best. We have tournaments here in Montreal since 1989 and more and more people know about the sport but it is still a very small fraction of the population. One other reason why it's still so unknown is that pretty much all the newspapers sports section are exclusively reserved to the 'big' sports. There's no room for alternative stuff anymore, is there room for journalists? I always thought that part of the journalist job was to dig for newer stuff, so I repeat the question: Is there still journalits? I mean real ones. (That would be of course according to my definition :-)
To know more about Footbag
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The non sports according to me
I am a Footbag player (aka Hacky Sack which is a trademark), we play over a 5 foot net on a badminton court. When I have interviews with various journalists one question often comes back: Is this really a sport. Well if you have to run to retrieve a Footbag, then pass it and spike over the net I guess it is.
For me it is obvious. What is not so obvious is why people call things like poker, automobile racing, curling and golf, why do they label those things sports? For me sports has something to do with a lot of movement generated by the person, sweating, burning a lot of calories and normally it's a race, on foot, on a bike, a scoring game like soccer and hockey, volleyball, basketball where people move for real.
Poker is a game where people sit down and throw a card from time to time but I find it in the sports section of my newspaper, which enrages me.
Auto racing, the engine does all the work, the driver doesn't even move one inch by himself. Some reply that you have to be really fit to be a race car driver. I had a job once where I had to bend metal corners with a sledgehammer for 12 hours a day. I made me really fit but was I doing sport? Auto racing is not a sport, it's a stupid activity in which grown ups burn fuel for nothing, plus it's so boooring.
I was really laughing when my girlfriend told me that she was traumatized when she was a kid by watching TV and seing some curling. What was the trauma about, she just couldn't understand why these old people brooming the ice were in a sports broadcast. I'm just like her.
Golf now, a dandy game made for rich people to show off their social status. So much fertilizer is spent on the greens alone that it could feed the entire world. Fat people hitting one stroke and then driving a motorized cart to the next hole is that your definition of a sport? Yes Tiger Woods is fit but why doesn't he prove that he can perform something great in a real sport? Why don't they have to run as fast as possible to the next hole? After all it's the only reason why Biathlon is a sport. They have to ski and ski fast to the next shoot.
Well this is a non exhautive list of what I consider not to be sports but (foolish) games.
For me it is obvious. What is not so obvious is why people call things like poker, automobile racing, curling and golf, why do they label those things sports? For me sports has something to do with a lot of movement generated by the person, sweating, burning a lot of calories and normally it's a race, on foot, on a bike, a scoring game like soccer and hockey, volleyball, basketball where people move for real.
Poker is a game where people sit down and throw a card from time to time but I find it in the sports section of my newspaper, which enrages me.
Auto racing, the engine does all the work, the driver doesn't even move one inch by himself. Some reply that you have to be really fit to be a race car driver. I had a job once where I had to bend metal corners with a sledgehammer for 12 hours a day. I made me really fit but was I doing sport? Auto racing is not a sport, it's a stupid activity in which grown ups burn fuel for nothing, plus it's so boooring.
I was really laughing when my girlfriend told me that she was traumatized when she was a kid by watching TV and seing some curling. What was the trauma about, she just couldn't understand why these old people brooming the ice were in a sports broadcast. I'm just like her.
Golf now, a dandy game made for rich people to show off their social status. So much fertilizer is spent on the greens alone that it could feed the entire world. Fat people hitting one stroke and then driving a motorized cart to the next hole is that your definition of a sport? Yes Tiger Woods is fit but why doesn't he prove that he can perform something great in a real sport? Why don't they have to run as fast as possible to the next hole? After all it's the only reason why Biathlon is a sport. They have to ski and ski fast to the next shoot.
Well this is a non exhautive list of what I consider not to be sports but (foolish) games.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Fun Footbag Net practice in Montreal today
I have to be fit to a minimum by May 24th. This is gonna be the start of the Green Cup, one of the North American Footbag Net scene main events.(The Green Cup is held in Oakland and San Francisco) After being trapped in a gym, that was trapped under tons of snow in Montreal for 7 months it's really good to finally get to play outdoors.
Our sport doesn't necessitate a lot of equipment: a specially adapted badminton portable court, a footbag and a good pair of sport shoes.
We kicked, we got prepared and no one is better to take the Montreal crew lightly at the Green Cup.
I will play with Berliner Ulli Haase and I expect to have fun. The worst that can happen is to fall in the Tequila bracket after all.
Other references for the Green Cup: Organizing club Chaos
and the mother and father of all footbag sites:
Footbag Worldwide
Our sport doesn't necessitate a lot of equipment: a specially adapted badminton portable court, a footbag and a good pair of sport shoes.
We kicked, we got prepared and no one is better to take the Montreal crew lightly at the Green Cup.
I will play with Berliner Ulli Haase and I expect to have fun. The worst that can happen is to fall in the Tequila bracket after all.
Other references for the Green Cup: Organizing club Chaos
and the mother and father of all footbag sites:
Footbag Worldwide
Monday, April 14, 2008
Results for the 2008 ProKicker Windchill Footbag Net tournament
That's it the 18th edition of the Montreal Windchill is a thing of the past. We had interesting battles during this tournament and I was part of one. My partner Samuel Cloutier and I fought former World Champions John Leys and Emmanuel Bouchard in one of the Doubles semi-finals. We took a 14-6 lead in the first game of the 2 out of 3 but unfortunately we could never close the deal and gave 10 points, having 5 or 6 game points on the way. We scored 10 points in the second game to a final result of 16-14 and 15-10 in favor of John and Emmanuel. Strangely enough they ended up winning the finals against François Depatie-Pelletier and Luc Legault on the same scores!?
Samuel and I managed to earn a 3rd place spot by winning over a disbanded J-F Lemieux and Gilles Demers team.
In the singles action J-F Lemieux earned a second title at the Windchill (after 2006)by defeating an exhausted John Leys.
See the complete results for this competition on ProKicker
Samuel and I managed to earn a 3rd place spot by winning over a disbanded J-F Lemieux and Gilles Demers team.
In the singles action J-F Lemieux earned a second title at the Windchill (after 2006)by defeating an exhausted John Leys.
See the complete results for this competition on ProKicker
Saturday, April 12, 2008
The Montreal Canadiens win a second game in the post season
My favorite sports team, the Montreal Canadiens, yes it's ice hockey what do you expect I'm canadian? played with fire tonight against the Boston Bruins. Although I think that Montreal is far superior they went on to win a 3-2 overtime game that was far from being convincing. They played softly during long moments in the game like if they were not taking the Bruins very seriously. The Boston team managed to clinch a playoff spot and that should be enough to earn them a lot of respect.
So Canadiens well done but please wake-up for the rest of the series.
So Canadiens well done but please wake-up for the rest of the series.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)