We’ve got some news to share with you! Our unveiling of our 20th Anniversary Logo, the partnering with VC Ultimate and the introduction of our online store and the decision of our Summer League Structure.
PUL 20th Anniversary Logo
Hard to believe Peterborough Ultimate is 20 years old this upcoming year. We have been working hard behind the scenes to work on a new logo that circles us back around to our PUL beginnings. The inspiration for this logo came from a picture taken this past year of one of our own, Erica Newton.
PUL Swag
Thanks to VC Ultimate, we’re happy to announce that we are opening an online store with lots of cool PUL swag. The store will be open until… add date. At which time they will tally the orders, create them, and send out all at once. No, they won’t be ready for Christmas! They will also need to have a minimum number of items (transfer items,15 and sublimated, 5) in order to proceed. Head to the VC link to check it out.
League Update
We started with very humble beginnings with 8 teams on a Wednesday night, and have grown into a vibrant community. We’ve seen our league grow to include three summer league nights, two indoor league nights, and a strong Junior program. We’ve had some setbacks and bumps along the way, forcing us to change things up. With this change came new Spring and Fall leagues, a Grand Masters league, smaller number of teams for our summer league, a smaller indoor league, and a growing number of Junior programs.
We’ve heard the complaints regarding our Tuesday and Thursday summer leagues from both competitive and recreational players concerning skill parity and spirit of the game. Re-implementing the ladder system we adopted in 2016 seems like the best way to create better, more competitive games for all teams. We had hoped that our membership would return to 2019 levels, and surprisingly they have for the most part, but people’s desire to play the same amount of ultimate, playing multiple nights, each week has changed and decreased, leaving a lower number of teams for both leagues.
So, in order to best provide for our members, the board has decided to make some changes. Yes, change can be scary, and not everyone will be happy with the change, but the set up we’ve decided on leaves the best path for growth of ALL leagues. Starting Summer 2024 our league set up will look like this:
Monday Nights – Junior programming (8-12 year olds – May & June)
Tuesday Nights – Team league
Wednesday Nights – Junior League (13-17 year olds – May, June and possibly July), potential for a pick up league.
Thursday Nights – Grand Masters League and Hat League (2 separate leagues).
We have chosen Tuesday nights as our Team League as historically there has been a higher number of teams (pre and post COVID). We’d also heard there was one or two Thursday teams potentially thinking of switching to Grand Masters, which would have left an even lower number of teams on Thursday night.
The Board understands this is disappointing news for many players, especially Thursday ones, and wants the PUL community to know this was a difficult decision to make. It is the Board’s hope that by dissolving the Thursday team league, more teams will register in the Tuesday Team league, which will not only diversify player skill, but also allow us to re-implement the ladder system. Additionally, the Thursday hat league will allow both individual and pod registration (up to 4 players, 2 male-matching and 2 female-matching players). This will allow for players to continue to play with some of their friends if they are not able to make the switch to Tuesday, or want to play multiple nights.
The movement of Grand Masters from Wednesday to Thursday nights will address the growing concern of playing back-to-back nights. The splitting of our Junior program into two nights allows us to continue expanding. Currently our Junior programs are where we are seeing our biggest growth.
Should you have any questions please feel free to reach out to our BoD President, Dana Elliott, or Jocelyne Stone, the Director of Operations.