Anya Mullen – Opinions Editor

For the second year in a row, the Bishop’s Ultimate Frisbee Club team made the trek to Brampton, Ontario, for the annual Canadian University Ultimate Championship (CUUC). The team played in the weekend-long tournament last year for the first time since the Bishop’s Ultimate Club was reactivated by Luke Barrack and Daniel Lee in 2023.

Photo courtesy of Mia Kurz

The CUUC tournament has three divisions. Divisions one and two are separated by gender, leaving division three as a less competitive atmosphere with mixed gender teams. BU, as a mixed team, participated in division three, entering the tournament seeded 8th place. Led by club executives and team captains Luke Barrack, Daniel Lee, Stephanie Gregg and an injured Mia Kurz, the team suited up in their new purple jerseys. The team played six games over two days, going 1-2 on Saturday and 0-3 on Sunday. Despite a record they may not have hoped for, thanks to the way the brackets were laid out, Bishop’s finished seeded 8th out of 15 teams, maintaining the seed that they entered the tournament with. The BU Ultimate executive team was proud that despite a weekend without many wins and playing against some teams who lacked spirit, they have accomplished a lot. They pointed out how proud they feel about where the team is now compared to where they started. “The coolest thing was going back from day one, just the drop-ins, to seeing how we’ve progressed,” said Daniel.

Though it was only their second CUUC appearance in recent years, Bishop’s was a participant in the past. Information on BU Ultimate in the past is limited, but a deep dive into the CUUC website shows that a BU team was present in 2017. A chance encounter with a BU alum in Brampton shed some light onto why the team stopped going. “That’s a touchy subject, we don’t know much about the club before,” said Luke. “[The alumnus] said that he was part of the team that was on probation.” According to the unnamed BU alum, this probation was based on bad conduct and substance usage. Good sportsmanship, conduct and respect are very important in ultimate frisbee, all put together in a concept called spirit, an idea fairly unique to the sport of ultimate. After every game, both teams stand in a “spirit circle” and thank each other for the game. “It fosters a deeper environment,” Daniel said, giving a richer perspective about what spirit brings to the game.

“[Ultimate] is a self-officiated game, so it’s an honourable game, if that makes sense,” Daniel said. He pointed out that in other sports, players are always looking to the ref for a call and complaining, but in ultimate the players must sort out conflicts themselves.

Next year will be a transition year for the club, with Luke, Daniel and Steph all graduating at the end of the winter 2026 semester. The club and team will be looking for lots of new members as a lot of the cohort moves on, but Luke and Daniel are optimistic that interest is out there. “If anyone is reading this [article] and is interested in ultimate frisbee, it is probably the lowest commitment, best activity club to get involved in,” said Luke. “It’s a great way to get involved with the Bishop’s community,” added Daniel, finishing his co-exec’s sentence. They hope that such chemistry within the club members can continue after they move on.