The Most Annoying New Trend In West Coast Ultimate

When you play this game for a a while, you see trends develop. You see fads come and go.

2 examples: Shorts have gotten longer, and the "swagger" thrower have become more common. (see Eli Janin for examples of both)

I am interested to see these trends and for the most part they are positive: bagel-cutter machines, cream cheese, and Nutella at the food tent are very good additions to tournaments.


BUT, I would like to tell you what I see to be The Most Annoying New Trend In West Coast Ultimate. That trend is this:
The advent of players utilizing rule XVI.C.2.B.2 when picks happen NEVER used to happen and somehow it exploded this college season. Its horrible.

For those of you who are too lazy to look at the link and figure it out, I'll explain:

When a pick occurs and the picked-defender's guy gets the disc the disc should go back to the thrower and offender returns to where he was when the pick occurred and then the defender catches up to his relative position at the time of the pick.

This is the way that it has happened with little trouble for the first 4 years of my ultimate career, but players have been invoking XVI.C.2.B.2 which says that if there is an offensive violation during a throwing attempt or during the flight of the disc, and the violation DID NOT EFFECT THE RESULT OF THE PLAY, then the result of the play stands and play stops. This rule is good in the case when there is a pick on the left side of the field and then someone totally different gets the disc on the right side of the field.

The new trend is for a defender to get picked, his guy gets the disc, pick is called, and the player with the disc then says:

Did you have a play on the disc?

The offense's argument is that even though the defender was picked, he was trailing the incut or was to far away to make a play on the disc anyway. In rule speak: the violation did not effect the result of the play. The defender catches up his original relative position - 5 feet away - and play starts with an offensive self-check

And I guess it could be a valid argument, if the defender is merely tripped up while he is already 8 feet behind on a quick 10 yard pass, he will probably not have any play on the disc. But I just hate this occurrence so much because there is always a SUBJECTIVE argument about the defender's ability to make a play. Normally the defender agrees that he couldn't have, but i hat this in every instance: we should try to remove as much subjective judgments from the players hands as possible. Who knows, what if the defender's footsteps sounded a foot, an inch!, closer the offensive player? What if 5 feet and 4 feet make the difference in the thrower's mind in his decision to pass the disc or not? I say that if the picked playeris guarding the person who gets the disc, it MUST go back to the original thrower. Take subjectivity out of the equation as much as possible.

Like I said, this NEVER happened 2 seasons ago and now I see it twice a game. Im happy that people are reading the rules, but this is a shitty interpretation and I hope it goes the way of the T-shirt jerseys of the 90.