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BC Ultimate

Island Roots

Organized disc sports in British Columbia date back to 1973, when Scott Lewis became enamored with flying discs, invented a sport he called Frisbee Football, and persuaded a group of friends to play it regularly every summer at Willows Beach in Victoria.

1975 brought the first road trip, when the Victoria regulars christened themselves the Clones and headed over to Vancouver to play a group of friends they had introduced to the game. In suitable 1970s fashion, after the game everyone headed down to the local hockey arena to see a prog rock concert by Yes.

In 1980 Rosse Lapper arrived in Victoria and brought the game of ultimate, which supplanted Frisbee Football. The same year he also organized the first multi-disc sport tournament in Victoria, which included Ultimate and Guts.

In 1982 Scott Lewis introduced disc sports to BC universities by founding the University of Victoria Disc Sports Club which included the first ultimate team in BC, dubbed the Flying Islanders. In 1984 the Flying Islanders were the first BC team to enter an ulty tournament, venturing down to Seattle to play the best teams from the region, with predictable results. (They did manage to score a few points each game…)

For a number of years they held tournaments at UVic, but things dropped off when Scott moved to Vancouver. In the early 1990s Dave Pettenuzzo and David Martin revitalized the UVic club and founded the Nomads as a strong touring team. To this day ultimate remains the most popular intramural sport at UVic.