2022 USA Underwater Rugby Nationals – Hamden, CT
Category: Tournaments
Underwater Rugby tournaments both in the US and around the world.
23rd National Tournament Underwater Rugby – Newark 2018
The US Underwater Rugby committee met earlier in October to decide the new 2018-19 Underwater Rugby Season which came with some changes affecting the North American League and the US National competition.
The US UWR Committee decided to have a US UWR season consisting on three (3) National Tournament Rounds that will award points so at the end of the season the club with most points will be the National Champion for the Season that ends in September 2019.
Points awarded will go now 5 pts. for 1st Place, 3 pts. for 2nd Place, 2 pts. for 3rd Place and 1 pt. for the rest of participating teams.
The previous National League UWR will continue now with only two (2) events throughout the year one in the US and one in Canada and will be decided with the system of points. The NAL event in the US will be one of the National Tournaments mentioned above, that will be valid for both NT & NAL.
The first National Tournament of the 2018-19 Season was hosted by the NUWR club from Newark, NJ. Eight Club teams and 5 Women teams competed on the weekend of October 20-21, 2018 with the highlight of this event becoming the tournament with the record number of women’s teams, five (5) in total.
The club teams were divided in two groups Having the defending champion Boston Narwhals as head of GRoup A along with NUWR A, DC UWR and Hammerheads B. The top seed for the B Group was the NJ Hammerheads A team along with CT Makos (formerly East Haven Makos), Florida Krakens and NUWR B.
Boston Narwhals and NUWR A dominated their group easily with 10-0 scores over DC-UWR and Hammerheads B. The match between these top teams came in favor of Boston by a 2-0 win over NUWR A.
Group B was a bit more challenging to the top teams NJ Hammerheads A and Florida Krakens who had met on the first game of their group and was decided in favor of Nj Hammerheads over Florida by a close 1-0 final score.
On semifinals Boston narwhals defeated Florida 4-1 while the NJ Hammerheads A beat their counterpart NUWR A on a close game by 1-0. On the third place game NUWR A defeated a surprising Florida Krakens team by 1-0 on a very strong and close game.
The highlight of the Club tournament was the final game between Boston Narwhals and NJ Hammerheads A. These two teams met on the 21st NAL in Pompano Beach on a breath taking final in favor of Boston 2-1. This time was not the exception. The first half ended with a 0-0 score and early on the second half the NJ hammerheads surprised Boston wit a goal from Daniel Naujoks. The game seemed to end in favor of the Hammehreads but a very quick pass by Filip Mundt left Mateo Galeano in perfect position to score the equalizer. After the 1-1, the Hammeheads were closer to score but ran out of time.
The penalty shoot-out ended tied again after each team missed one of the three shoot-outs per team. Then on the one to one series the Boston Narwhals won after three more chances being this the closest and breath taking tie break.
The women’s tournament had a Round robin with 5 teams on which The Connecticut Makos A (former East Haven Makos) dominated the group followed by Boston Narwhals.
The third place game ended up in favor of the DC UWR team over NJ Hammerheads by a clear 5-0 while the final game between CT Makos A and Boston Narwhals was also a strong game but dominated by the fast players from CT Makos with a final score of 4-1.
The final results on this tournament confirm the excellent level of the teams previously qualified to represent the US at the Champions Cup later this year in Berlin.
We wish the best to the Boston Narwhals and the Connecticut Makos on their Champions Cup participation.
Final Results HERE
DC UWR – Ladies 3rd. Place
Boston Narwhals – Ladies 2nd. Place
Connecticut Makos – Ladies 1st. Place
NUWR A – Club 3rd. Place
New Jersey Hammerheads – Club 2nd. Place
Boston Narwhals – Club 1st. Place
2015 CanAm UW Rugby Tournament Results and Team USA tryouts
The second edition of the CanAm UW Rugby Championships ended with the victory of the Quincy Narwhals from Boston during an undefeated weekend. The team from Boston came back strong after their absence from a couple of tournaments of the North American league.
After the successful first edition that had as one of the highlights the participation of Club Orcas from Colombia with three teams, this time CanAm was expecting participation of three Colombian teams including Orcas, Quelonios and Pirañas but at the end such teams declined the invitation. However the tournament had the international participation of Team Canada (mixed team from Camo Montreal and Club Liberation from Toronto) as part of their preparation for the 2015 World Championships to be held in Colombia.
Participants on the 2015 US National team tryouts
Four teams participated as representatives from the US. Quincy Narwhals from Boston, New Jersey Hammerheads and NUWR from Newark New Jersey and the ROW team (rest of the world) team with players from different areas of the US without a club including Wisconsin, Illinois, DC and California.
The game for the 3rd place was played by Team Canada and the NJ Hammerheads, with the victory of the Canadians for 7-2 over a weakened NJ Hammerheads who played the same Team Canada earlier that same day defeating the Canadians on the round robin 3-1.
The final game between Quincy Narwhals and NUWR was a very intense and interesting game which was only decided on the last seconds of the game. Quincy had 11 players between experienced and new players including an experienced Swedish player and took advantage of the number of players to defeat NUWR. The team from Newark had only 7 players but made the size en depth of the pool to play in their favor as well as the speed and fitness of their players.
The game was tied 1-1 by half time and just 2 second before the end of the game one last attempt from the Boston ended on a last second goal for Quincy to win the tournament.
The tournament also served as the first event for the US National team tryouts for the 2015 World Championship to be held in Cali, Colombia. The US men’s team tryout had the participation of 24 players under the direction of US National coach Jose Echeverry.
FInal standings:
1- Quincy Narwhals
2- Newark NUWR
3- Team Canada
4- New Jersey Hammerheads
5- Row Team
Top Scorer:
1- Daniel Lopez – NUWR 12
2- Filip Mundt – Quincy 7
3- Mike Picot- Quincy 6
Mateo Galeano – NJ hammerheads 6
Tim Burke – Quincy 6
2nd North American UWR tournament – Quincy, MA
The 2nd North American Underwater Rugby tournament was a great event thanks to the people behind the organization process. The host, Quincy UWR, put a lot of effort into having a great event.
Having a league where Canadian and USA teams play together is helping the sport to have better visibility. Underwater Hockey has been for decades the predominant underwater sport in both countries but a well-defined set of dates for UWR tournaments could attract new players and even the media.
For this tournament we had a record number of 7 teams, including two from Canada. The tournament was played as a coed event since the number of women playing the game is still small.
The tournament was arranged in such a way that teams would play an equal number of games during the classification round (which was set to be 4 games) and then an extra game will be given to those teams which would make it to the final round.
The two Canadian teams present at the event were CAMO Rugby sousmarin (Montreal, QC) and Liberation UWR (Brantford, ON). CAMO had among its ranks players who have been part of the highly competitive UWR Colombian team. Liberation UWR showed progress in their training process by displaying great improvements in their strategy and technical skills.
East Haven Makos (East Haven, CT) is the latest team to join the league. They are a group of young players and showed the great progress attained by continuously playing with their NJ Hammerheads neighbors.
NJ Hammerheads (Newark, NJ) counted with the presence of experienced players who have been to UWR international events in Colombia and even world championships. Their experience was noticeable at the semifinal stages of the tournament where the games required a more strategic planning.
The hosting club, Quincy UWR (Quincy, MA), had two teams signed for the tournament. Quincy Red was a mixed of experimented players and newbies while Quincy Blue had amount its ranks players who have been to world championships. All the North American UWR community was really excited seeing the revitalization of the Quincy UWR team.
The “orphans” team was group of players from FL, DC, NY, and TX. These players don’t have a hosting team in their respective cities of origin and as such they were allowed to put a together a team. They struggled during the first games but their combined experienced took them to win the tournament.
Cesar Florez from CAMO Rugby Sousmarin took the first place in the Top Scorers ranking.
Results and stats related to the tournament can be found at
https://usauwr.wordpress.com/tournaments/north-america-tournaments/2nd-na-uwr-tournament/
Club CAMO from MontrealEast Haven Makos will be the host for the 3rd edition of the North American tournament in June. The dates are still in the works but they should be announced shortly.
See you underwater!
USA Underwater Rugby - NAL LEAGUE 