This year the Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC) junior division is changing from one mixed division to two new divisions: junior open and junior women’s.  In order to support this transition process, the development committee has expanded the role of the National Junior Director (NJD) and made changes to the tournament manual.  Nat Fitzgerald is the NJD, and she will be the primary Ultimate Canada contact for the junior division and is committed to working with junior programs to help them attend this year’s CUC.  If your program is having difficulty fielding a team or if you have players that would like to participate in the CUC, but have no team, please contact Nat so that she can look into options.  A new forum is also being set up to get programs in touch with each other before this year’s CUC (see Google Group link below).
For programs that are struggling with numbers there are a few options available:

1. This year the roster rules have been loosened to allow teams to pick up additional out-of-region players if they have low numbers (Rule 6.1.2.3) or to merge two regions or a region and a community into one region for player eligibility purposes (Rule 6.1.4).  The NJD will work to try and link programs and players together. (https://www.canadianultimate.com/images/Files/CUC/2012%20cuc%20tournament%20manual.pdf )
2. Based on feedback from teams and in the interest of maintaining competition integrity, there are no blanket over-age exceptions.  However, if teams working with the NJD are not able to obtain sufficient players to field a team after looking into , they may apply for an exception to the Ultimate Canada development committee for a  limited number of over-age players.
3. To help facilitate locating players/communities that are seeking players or have players wanting to play, a Google Group has been created for discussion. If you did not receive an invite to the Google Group, please let me know. Please use the Google Group to post if you are looking for players, or know of a player who is looking to play.

Initial bid allocation for the junior divisions is available at: https://canadianultimate.com/index.php/en/about-uc/1/116.  Ultimate Canada is currently looking into the potential of expanding the division if there is sufficient interest.

Information about this year’s junior division is available at: https://canadianultimate.com/index.php/en/about-uc/1/60

If you have any questions about the exemption process or otherwise, give me a shout!

Thanks,
Nat Fitzgerald (NJD)