First off, MONSTER would like to say Happy New Year to everyone. May we all be showered with blessings this coming 2009.
Two-O-O-8 was a big year for Monster Ultimate. Apart from participating in the local leagues, we made sure we did our fair share in helping to develop the sport of Ultimate in our small corner of the world. Aside from regularly holding our weekly Beginner's Night, our club hosted the 1st Night League back in August and the hugely successful Annual Monster Hat in October.
We also stepped it up on the playing field (and the beach!), emerging as Pool B Champions in the 2008 Subic Beach Open and stepping it up during the Manila Spirits '08 tourney by bettering our initial seeding to end up 10th. Some of our players also won individual honors during Spirits 08, with Doreen Donato bagging the female MVP award for Pool B and Pipa Decasa getting a Callahan Award. Another Monster player who did us proud was Hersh David as she represented, donning the National colors for Team Pilipinas. Apart from locking people down with her blazing speed the whole weekend, she made the biggest play of her Ultimate career in the final game against Black Flag as she caught the disc in the endzone to put Team Pilipinas at game-point, 14-13. As most of you already know, TP eventually won it, 15-14.
We also were able to finally have Monster Ultimate incorporated with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a non-stock, non-profit corporation (I believe the first local club team to do so) and open our own bank account.
It really was a busy year for Monster. Now the real challenge lies in building upon our achievements the past year and reach for greater heights this coming 2009. If everyone remains as focused on and off the field, I'm pretty sure 2009 is going to be a MONSTER of a year.