Spirit was taken more seriously here than any tournament I’ve been to; there was a Spirit Director and each team had a designated Spirit Captain, ours was Qxhna. I don’t remember having either for U23’s and certainly not at any US tournaments so I’m guessing this is new or something BULA instated. I didn’t quite know what kind of role the Spirit Captain would play going into the tournament. My initial thought was spirit gifts, team cheers and the like, but beyond that I wasn’t sure. I had forgotten about the WFDF spirit scoring system, I know we are starting to use it at Nationals and other major US tournaments but it’s typically an afterthought–something the captains did while we were getting food in our bodies and hydrating after games. Qxhna was tasked with rounding us up after the games and facilitating the scoring process. She did a great job from Day 1 of explaining the scoring scale and reemphasizing each category, reminding us the importance of scoring accurately and opening up the conversation for anyone to state their case. (Rules, Fouls, Fair Mindedness, Attitude and Communication are the five categories, scored on a 0-4 scale) There was an interesting conversation about expectation bias after the last pool play game, were we scoring based on whether our expectations were exceeded/subceeded*. I think that definitely played a big part, we were expecting a lot of physicality and abrasiveness in the Russia game, but weren’t met with it. In fact, their Spirit Captain consulted us after the game about how we scored them and how they could improve. It’s actually kind of nice to have someone solely dedicated to thinking about that, to alleviate some of the captains’ responsibilities.

I dug it. It made us all more hyper-aware of how we were presenting ourselves to other teams and representing everyone back home. We never had a collective conversation about winning the spirit award, it’s an uncontrollable to a degree–you can control your actions not how they are interpreted or scored. I think it was a testament to that pool of women’s teams; sometimes being competitive isn’t widely-viewed as synonymous with high-level of spirit. I thought we did a good job of playing our game throughout the week, no matter the team and I’m glad that didn’t get lost in translation. I don’t think there were any instances where I’d rather have had an observer or game advisor on the field. Maybe for off-sides calls or something. We just didn’t need them, even in the close games. I was so dang giddy to find out we won the award I think I tipsily squealed.

Towards the end of the tournament, I’m not exactly sure how this transpired, but I think the Spirit Director encouraged us to interact with other teams more, introduce ourselves on the sidelines and field and such. I think Nora had the idea to do an informal meet-and-greet before games, shake each others hands and introduce ourselves to a few of our opponents. We did it for the Canada semi-final and it was actually a really interesting experience–I think it added that much more accountability to everyone playing. Before the game you shake hands, after you meet in a spirit circle; doesn’t leave much room to play with anything other than the utmost respect. Both added a level of connectedness with your opponents I hadn’t experienced before.

Becoming more familiar with the scoring system gave me a new perspective on SOTG, I’d encourage everyone to take a look at the scoring sheets WFDF uses and the explanation of the sheet. Often times, teams throw out scores solely based on attitude (which is one of the components), “Oh they were nice and fun, give them fours.” I know I’ve done this, and the WFDF explanation document specifically states “do not score a team because you felt the team was ‘nice’ or because they made a funny game in the circle.”

I’m sure I would have different feelings on this if we were involved in games with questionable calls, especially if the outcome didn’t fall in our favor. This was absolutely the most spirited tournament I’ve played in, and not in the sense that it was fun and the atmosphere was exceptionally positive; we were playing at the highest level without any third-party officials and decided our desire to win a world championship would not come at the expense of the foundation of our sport. As did Russia.

I’m proud of our gold, and proud of our Spirit Award. It makes the former that much better.

*maybe my memory precedes me and we scored as a team, I’m really not sure.

*Google just taught me there is no opposite of “exceed,” so i’m going to make up a word.