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January 2016 marks five years of Tracie Ching designing jerseys for us! Tracie has made some amazing designs across the years, in particular the sublimated designs from our international World Flying Disc Federation tournaments. Check out her story: a glimpse at what it's like to be an artist in the ultimate community! Should we call it artimate? Probably not, but still.  What was it like when you joined VC 5 years ago? What's the story - how did you get connected with the company? In 2011, VC hosted one of its first sublimated design contests. I didn't know it then, but the contest was one of the earlier attempts to suss out talent for VC's first design team. Funny thing is I lost that contest, but I guess VC liked my design enough to invite me back to submit something for a team. Once again, my design wasn't chosen, but I was invited to join the team regardless, which should serve as a lesson that success does not always manifest as you might think. Talent and a good work ethic can and will be rewarded!How did your history as an artist and ultimate player uniquely suit you to designing for VC? I actually had no official design training. I went to school for fine art with a concentration in mixed media sculpture. I had a minor in printmaking but somehow never managed to touch silkscreen. But in being the "artsy" one, I was often asked to help designing jerseys for my college team, and later my league teams. It was one of my old captains who recommended I submit to the VC contest and it was at that time I had started to dabble in design. VC really helped me hone those skills so in truth we grew together.  Has the company changed a lot in 5 years? What's been the biggest change for you?I think VC has always had a reputation synonymous with quality, and that really hasn't changed. The big difference is that reputation is now international. I think VC's strong presence has been felt, and resonated, in many corners of the world. I feel grateful to be part of a company that has grown into such an excellent ambassador to the sport of ultimate frisbee.  What are a few of your favorite designs/projects you've worked on?That is really tough. Team-wise: I loved helping create Team Danmark's 2015 subs (top pictures). And the Team Canada subs from 2013 and 2015 always stand out in my mind. Special project-wise: I can't get enough of the Dia de los Muertos from our World Class Collection (pictured below). Who in the whole world, past or present, would you most like to design a jersey for, and what would you put on it?Since starting this job I have always harbored a dream of designing gear for one of the first ultimate teams to play in the Olympics. Good Good luck achieving that dream Tracie, we believe in you! If you'd like to see more of Tracie's art, you can check out her website or Facebook page!

2015 is coming to a close, but it's been a wild ride! We've had a lot of exciting news and a lot of fun events this year, and while we're thankful for all of that we're even more excited to see what 2016 brings. Check out our 2015 year in review! We started the year with our WFDF announcement - we're the official merchandisers for the World Flying Disc Federation for 2015 and 2016! This year our USA office out of Atlanta went to a whopping 130+ tournaments between the VC and Spin brands! Wow! In February one of the events was Trouble in Vegas where our staff were enchanted to meet this capybara, Romeo; basically a giant guinea pig. #onlyinvegas We also had the pleasure of merchandising the first-ever USAU Beach Nationals. Virginia Beach was a great time, maybe the most fun being all our VC Funzone beach games! In June we had a very exciting announcement: our merger with UK company Lookfly! We now officially have a VC Europe branch and some electric new plans for a Lookfly revamp. June also gave us a fun giveaway day with the Toronto Elites club. We gave away free sublimated samples of some of our favorite designs - earned through Spikeball games and joke-telling. Everyone loves free sub jerseys! U23 in London kicked off our summer European tour. We met a lot of amazing young players from all over the world and saw some really exciting competitive ultimate. EUC in Copenhagen brought more great European ultimate. Since Denmark is known for their bacon, we hosted a memorable night of fun with our Beer, Bacon, and SpikeBall tournament. EYUC was the last of our European summer tour; what a great note to end on! We saw some incredible youth players - the future of ultimate looks bright indeed! Back on our home turf, we wrapped up the Canadian season with CUC in Winnipeg. It was lovely to be among some of our favorite Canadian teams again. Our final destination tournament of the year was PAUC in Cancun, Mexico. Even though it was the rainy season and we had some new obstacles to overcome, these amazing positive teams made it all worthwhile! In this next year, we're looking forward to new product development and our continued contract with WFDF. Keep an eye out for new designs for bigger, better events, like WUGC 2016 back in London. Here's to an exciting new year!    

VC is very excited to support the upcoming 2015 VC Mixed Championships in Japan on December 19-20! Ultimate is huge in Japan, in part because of the efforts of Club Jr, who work tirelessly to organize tournaments for every division of player. The VC team has had the chance to meet with the fine folks from Club Jr - including the always smiling Satoru Ishii - for many international events. We were thrilled when the opportunity arose to partner and create the VC Mixed Championships! There will be 17 amazing teams at the VC Mixed Championships.One of the best parts about merchandising tournaments like this is giving back to some amazing communities and exceptional ultimate players. USA, World, and PAUC champions (and one of our favorite teams) Drag'n Thrust receiving both champion shorts and Spirit of the Game hats at the 2015 Pan American Ultimate Championships.     For the inaugural VC Mix Championships, Club Jr and VC have something special in mind!        We are so excited for this event that our founding director, Adriana Withers, and the tournament organizer, Akihiko Yoshida, each wanted to share a greeting with all the players about to participate in this event: Dear 2015 VC Ultimate Mix Championship players,  VC Ultimate is so proud to be working with Club Jr to bring you this amazing new event. Having 17 teams in our inaugural year shows the strength of your Ultimate community and we are excited to be associated with each and every competitor. I have personally been lucky enough to meet many players from Japan at different tournaments around the world and have enjoyed the spirit, energy and impressive skill that you bring to our sport. Japan is such a beautiful country that it is an honor to be able to draw inspiration from Japanese culture and nature for VC designs. Your friends at VC are all wishing you the best of luck for this event and I hope you enjoy playing in the 2015 VC Ultimate Mix Championships as much as I have enjoyed working on it!  Warm regards,Adriana  Adriana WithersFounding DirectorVC Ultimate Inc. ------------------------------------- We're very excited to host first ever mixed tournament for college/high school players. We're thankful to have about 300 players in this inaugural event.We expect to have 500 players within 5 years and 1,000 players in 10 years.  We appreciate generous support of VC Ultimate.We would like to invite Ms. Adriana to the event in the future.  Thank you very much.Truly Yours, Akihiko YoshidaCLUB Jr. Inc. Founder/Owner --------------------------- Update: Year one was a smashing success! Thanks to all the organizers, volunteers, and players who made our first year so exciting! 

To note: Our "women's" shorts have since been thoughtfully re-designed to be gender-free. You can now order shorter shorts labelled as "Shorter" or "Jr", but the width/waist of the shorts is relatively the same as the Standard cut in each style.

Micro Shorts: Your New Ultimate Short Solution!

The European Ultimate Championships took place in Copenhagen this year much to the excitement of the VC summer Europe event staff! After wrapping up a busy and exciting week in London for U23 Worlds, our crew packed up our van full of merch and supplies and drove across Europe all the way to Denmark for this next big event. Upon arrival, the EUC crew was already hard at work with site features such as a gigantic circus tent for the main food hall and a fascinating Pallet Palace for players to lounge on and around. Our team set up as quickly as possible with only a few days before the opener: we had a whole city to explore on our rented bicycles, after all! The event began Monday, July 27th, and in preparation for the onslaught of first day customers, EUC was kind enough to send some staff our way to help out. They also were dressed in bright yellow VC jerseys, so of course they were lovingly referred to as our very own minions: Unfortunately for players and staff, the weather was very unpredictable. Each day seemed to be a crazy combination of hot/cold/sunny/rainy – hard to figure out for us, but apparently fairly typical for Danish summers. Heinrich (our little buddy from Amsterdam) getting a bit of a shower : The highlight of the week for us was our Wednesday night Beer, Bacon, and (spike)Ball tournament! We gave away a whopping 8 kegs and 5 kg of bacon that day as players competed in a TriVolle (European Spikeball) tournament. We also may have had some wooden folding tables as casualties of the evening. This is what happens when you make bacon in foil trays with hot coals. Heinrich also go to partake in the festivities. We also managed to check out some pretty sweet places in Copenhagen while we were there. VC Staff Copenhagen Recommendations: Little Mermaid Statue (although G tells us it’s much smaller than you’d think)The Red Square (in Superkilen) – full of street art, "local color" (pun intended)Copenhagen Street Food – food truck market, delicious!Christiania – for a little more adventureTivolle – for the rides, concerts, and ambiance!  We were sad to leave Copenhagen at the end of this event, especially with a super beautiful day for the finals! However, our staff had to get a move on since EYUC was a 9 hour drive away in Frankfurt and started the next morning. On to the next event!

Fun fact: Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare's shortest and most farcical plays. The comedy centers around slapstick, puns, and mistaken identity. In short, it was BEGGING to be the theme for an ultimate tournament and Montreal's AUM stepped up! With such a creative theme (opening up lots of costume potential by encouraging "disguises") it would be hard not to have a good time at this tournament. Unfortunately there was a little difficulty with the fields and the tournament had to be split into two locations, but the tournament staff were still all smiles. At the VC tent we had a great time enjoying the sunshine! Our Spikeball sets got lots of attention Saturday and with some free VC hats to giveaway we had a lot of fun playing games and trading hats for puns! This was also a special weekend for our VC staff since we had a visitor: Wags from Chicago came up to help out. GStar and Wags had a great time teaching Spikeball and running games, but they certainly spent their breaks a little differently -  GStar getting in a core workout with some friends:   Wags getting treated to the best of Canadian hospitality (G says, "Get back to work!"): While visiting, Wags got to have her first Timbits, Montreal poutine, and see a Royal vs. Outlaws game....all-in-all a great weekend! Thanks AUM for hosting an awesome tournament; we look forward to the Jazz tournament coming up soon! More information on AUM can be found on their Facebook. 

What's the best way to spend a Monday evening? If you're part of VC's Team Fun, it would definitely have to be giving away free swag to youth ultimate players! We surprised the Toronto Elites squad with an arsenal of mini games plus a VC tent full of swag to give away as prizing!  The kids weren’t really sure how to handle the news, with comments like, “It’s like Christmas came early!” and even “This is the best day of my life!” Games like the fan-favorite Spikeball, Flutterguts (where you flip the disc through the air and try to catch it one-handed), and a modified version of 500 gave the kids lots of opportunities to win swag. Our giveaway merch included some VC printed gear and some leftover merchandise from Worlds last year, but mostly tons of fully sublimated samples through our newest quick sublimation option – Pivot. The evening was capped (literally) by a pun-for-prize hat giveaway, a favorite of ours! Many laughs were shared but possibly the best joke of the evening was this one: “What’s the difference between a piano, a fish, and a pot of glue?"“I don’t know, what?”“You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish!”“What about the glue?”“I knew you’d get stuck on that!” Thanks Elites for being such an awesome group, we hope you had as much fun as we did! You can check out Elites on Facebook here.

VC Ultimate welcomes Lookfly to our family of premium ultimate-focused brands! With the launch of VC Europe, we are teaming up with the fine folks at Lookfly to offer direct access to premium VC merchandise for players, teams and tournaments. Lookfly’s European-made sublimated apparel line will continue to be offered World-wide, with new styles and materials on the near horizon. Lookfly products will soon be offered in the VC Europe online store, and look out for the VC Lookfly gear at tournaments around Europe this summer.For more information, drop us a line: General Information: info@vcultimate.com UK Sales & Inquiries: europe@vcultimate.com Germany, Switzerland & Austria Sales: Timo Keppner timo@vcultimate.com / timo@lookfly.com