Saltimate DOS Experience:There are more Ultimate communities out there!
With their history as one of the very religious city in Southern Leyte, known for its old churches and shrines, one way streets and friendly faces; I must say, Maasin is definitely a charming little city in the heart of Southern Leyte. But with all these chill vibe and lots of smiles environment all weekend long, my travel going to Salt City had a few bumps and killer hiccups along the way.
It all started in Iloilo city where I was supposed to be taking the 6:50am flight to Cebu city when they cancelled the flight due to aircraft issues that I don't understand and rescheduled it to 1:25pm. So I said to myself, "Okay, As long as I still have time to take the last boat trip going to Ormoc, I should be fine". 1:30pm had passed and I am still in Iloilo International Airport, buckled inside the plane staring outside the window, telling myself "If only I could fly, I would have done it already." I arrived in Cebu city at around 2:50pm and I only have a couple of hours left to beat the time. Knowing Cebu's apocalyptic traffic issues, the chance of me to get on that boat was very slim. The traffic jam was so miserable that I was thinking of cancelling the whole trip and fly back home to Iloilo and watch Netflix instead. But I tried to convince the taxi driver to find the easiest and fastest way to get to the pier. Miraculously, he found a way. I immediately grabbed my bags, bought myself a ticket and just right on time that I got inside the terminal, the boat heading for Ormoc city docked in. A big sigh of relief and a huge smile on my face caught the attention of a kid sitting beside me munching on a ham and cheese sandwich when we were all called up to board the fastcraft.
Hello, Ormoc City! I was welcomed by very familiar faces of my good friends, Brotha Edong and Ga Larrazabal and Mike Sabdao. We said our Hi's and hello's and you guessed it right.... First stop. Food and drinks, Ormoc City style!
Being stranded for nine hours in the airport and a few hours of being in a traffic jam was definitely a tragic experience when you are trying to catch multiple transportation in one day. But the thought that people are expecting you to be in their event for the first time, that they also did their part to make sure that you will be there covering their tournaments are the things that make you push yourself to the limits, just to get there. They are the reason why I keep on pushing forward. No matter how hard the situation is.
Bright and early the next day, Me, Edong, Ga and the rest of the Ormoc Cannons team found ourselves on the road traveling to Maasin city, Southern Leyte. After a couple of hours of ziggy zaggy road trip, we have finally arrived at the Pilot National High School. The home of Saltimate DOS Experience.
According to the history of Leyte Ultimate, Maasin was the first city to have Ultimate. The community has been there since 2006, but it did not really have the chance to be big due to slow progress and lack of funds to travel and participate in tournaments around the country. For the second straight year, they finally had the opportunity to organize a tournament that can attract teams from other provinces like Dumaguete, Cebu, Ormoc, Tagbilaran, Tacloban and a few players from Bacolod city to name a few. One of the main reasons why they organized this tournament was to see some high caliber teams and to witness and experience a higher level of Ultimate games being played on their side of the fence. Because it is really tough for them to go out of town to play and watch the game they all love. That weekend, with teams like NFA (a.k.a FASA FUEGO) and Uranus of Cebu, Blacklist of Dumaguete and Ormoc Cannons of Ormoc city, together with Ultimate Stars like Tajji and Bruno putting on a show all weekend long, Saltimate is slowly but surely heading their way to becoming a tournament with high caliber teams and players participating. Just like they dreamed of.
The games went on full throttle in the quarter final rounds where Ormoc Cannons almost stole an upset against the defending champions, Team Blacklist. But Tajji went on to take over in the later part of the game to seal the victory for the Champs. On the other side of the playing field, two of Cebu city's gems went head to head for a semifinal spot. But the Band of Brothers, Bruno and Oyok of NFA was too much to handle for team Uranus this time around. Both Teams NFA and Blacklist had an easy semifinal round defeating Project X and Team AWU respectively. They move on to face each other in the cloudy pool A finals.
With only one game left remaining, the rest of the teams settled in comfortably on the stands to witness the battle between NFA and Blacklist. Bruno and the gang of NFA came out strong right from the first pull and literally never looked back, giving the boys and girls of Dumaguetto a hard time to process what had just happened. Blacklist's Tajji, Jazper and Ericka worked together to cut the huge amount of NFA lead, but the the team from Cebu, hang on in the end with an easy championship point goal from Erica De Guzman to seal the victory and the right to call themselves champions of Saltimate DOS Experience.
The Saltimate DOS playing fields was blessed by some of the top players in the country, and so was the after party where the Dumaguete based rap group, Midnasty went on to drop some original hits like, Ilongga, Mao Ni Ang Barog, Lahi na Palapag and Lame. The ladies went wild and so did the gents who sang along with the Midnasty Trio all throughout the night. Seeing Midnasty doing a performance in your Socials only show that the tournament has a lot of potential to be big.... The only question is how will they maintain the streak. I believe that the community of Maasin Ultimate will definitely work on it in the future.
Though, I just had the worst travel experience heading to Maasin, I also had the privilege to experience the best side trips this year. That trip to Cuatro Islas was so rejuvenating and very relaxing that I did not want to leave the island. I spent my last day in Ormoc at the beautiful Ormoc Pineapple Farm, where all you can hear was the chirping of the birds while having a bite of the sweetest pineapple, enjoying the beautful Ormoc sunset with sea of pineapples as your foreground.
It was beautiful.
This trip to Maasin only shows that there are still a lot of communities and tournaments out there that needs to be discovered and be recognized. And it only shows that there are still a lot of Xtian's, Dada's, Kyra's and April's out there that need to be unleashed to the world. We have 7,107 islands in the country. There are hundreds of tournaments and thousands of players playing the game whom we seriously know nothing about. And we haven't even scratched the surface until now. If ever I will have the privilege to meet these amazing athletes, I will be glad to go up for that challenge.
Until then... More Images to share. More Stories to tell... It's All About U!
See you in Davao City!
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