Feel the Rage! Rampage!

No, don’t worry. I’m not going to start talking politics. And no, I haven’t undergone a personality transplant to become one of the Permanently Angry. This ragey rampage is quite cheerful and happy.

On Saturday after Aikido we headed down to Providence to attend a game of the American Ultimate Disc League’s Rhode Island Rampage. I’d been wanting to do this since it came to my attention that they existed a few weeks ago. Of course, they only STARTED existing a few weeks ago, which is my excuse. Part of my motivation for wanting to go is that one of the kids that I taught in Sunday School a million years ago is one of their players. (As he pointed out – embarrassed after the game – “In my defense, they also ran the after-church D&D game!”) There was no way I was going to miss getting to watch him play professional disc! So down we went.

It was a blast. Ultimate Frisbee is fun to watch, and the rules they’ve put in to make it more of a spectator sport worked quite well. But the distance between the players and the audience was so much less than at most college or pro sports – it felt more like high school. The athleticism of the athletes was astounding – those young men flew. And they did things with the discs that were astounding. The pacing and the scoring were good – enough scoring for American attention spans, but not an expected score per possession like basketball. It was also great for the kids, since they could wander the stands and yell cheers. One of the fun parts was that with such a young team – 5 games into existence – we were all sort of making up what it meant to be fans. A friend turned to me after the end of the third quarter and asked, “So do we sing Sweet Caroline now?” Well, maybe we do? Who knows?

And at the end of the afternoon – waning light on a warm Saturday – I was totally a RI Rampage fan. I really enjoyed myself, and I want to go again.

I had fun with my camera while I was there. The Rampage uniforms are awesome. The orange against the spring colors was very dramatic. I’ve also been digging the post processing filters on Picasa. Ok, ok, so it’s lame. I know. I’m not a real photographer, yadda yadda. But it’s fun when a picture you took of places you know suddenly looks like a pencil sketch. What can I say? Whatever artistic excesses you blame me for, I accept my guilt.

Here are the pictures!