If you were under the impression there wasn’t a summer sport Canadians dominated in you were forgetting about Ultimate Frisbee. Far from a just a hippie pastime in the park, the sport reaches all the way to serious levels of international competition and some of those athletes, along with many others, will be in Revelstoke this weekend competing for the Revelstoke Ultimate Frisbee Championship.

“Come check it out. If you have never seen ultimate played it’s really neat way to watch,” said organizer Jeff Colbin. “There are going to be some really skilled people there, people who train, who spend some time on it. A couple of the athletes that will play here have played on Team Canada.” He added that both the men and mixed teams finished first in the world last year with the women coming in second.

Colbin discovered the sport growing up in North Bay, Ontario and begin to get into it heavily near the end of his time in university. Now a teacher and coach at Revelstoke Secondary School he has been playing ultimate Frisbee “somewhat seriously” for about five years. He said he was drawn to the sport because it encompassed many qualities of what sport should be especially regarding fair play and sportsmanship.

“It’s self-officiated, there is no referee,” he said. “So the players on the field are responsible for knowing and understanding and calling the rules, calling fouls and violations and coming to a resolution. Even at the world championships, it’s self-officiating. Sometimes at the very elite matches there might be observers.”

Another aspect is that despite popular preconceptions, Ultimate Frisbee also requires a high level of athleticism.

“It’s a very athletic sport, there is a lot of applying fine motor skills, as far as catching and throwing goes. As well it is fitness and endurance based, you are running quite a bit.”

Colbin compares many aspects of the game to that of football.

“There is running, cutting, receiving, covering a man, man to man offence, man to man defence,” he said, “there is also a lot of strategy that comes into play as well.”

A unique aspect of the sport is it is mainly co-ed, although it may be divided at higher levels. There are usually four men and three women on the field for one team at any given time.

Ultimate Frisbee started in the 1970s and became popular at universities in the United States and then Canada. Today, in major centres in Canada there are very strong ultimate leagues that are expanding rapidly sometimes building their own facilities encompassing hundreds of teams in several leagues. In B.C. it is very strong in the Okanagan. Kelowna has over thirty teams in their community leagues and largest mixed tournament takes place in Vernon where it has been going strong for around a decade.

This weekend 15 teams will gather to battle it out to be called the best set against the backdrop of the Revelstoke Music Festival. Colbin said to expect a very positive and fun environment.

“A lot of people know each other, some teams have awesome rivalries -- great battles on the field. And the parties are usually pretty epic.”

Teams from as far away as Montana, Victoria and Edmonton will come to participate and soak in as much of Revelstoke’s beauty as they can. Matches start at 10 a.m. Saturday morning running until 4 p.m. that evening. Sunday begins at the same time with the finals starting at 2:30 p.m.

If people like what they see at the tournament and want to get involved a weekly drop-in takes place every Monday night on the Queen Elizabeth field for both youth and adults.

“Just bring some cleats and a water bottle, a light and dark shirt and come say hello,” said Colbin. There are a lot of new faces every week but also a core of about 15 to 20 people. Colbin said if it gets to the level where there is enough people involved it would be fun to start up a league and run some clinics.