How do you explain the inexplicable? How do you make sense of the nonsensical? How do you end up with a professional ultimate frisbee franchise in Rochester, New York?
In 2013, the Rochester Dragons launched their inaugural season in the AUDL. The team's sheer existence defying most notions of competitive and business sense. Yet for three years the often hapless franchise rode the wave of a sport and community trying to become something bigger and grander than it had ever been before. Ultiworld's Patrick Stegemoeller and Brian Kibler look back on one of the strangest chapters in the sport's history and discover that the key to understanding the Rochester Dragons reveals something much larger about ultimate, the AUDL, and America itself.
This 6 episode series features appearances from some of the most important figures in the sport's past decade including Grant Lindsley, Evan Lepler, Jesse Shofner and more! Huck and Hope draws on firsthand accounts of the chaotic history of an era defined by boomtown optimism, and explores how culture, technology, and the American dream explain one of the least explicable episodes in the history of an already enigmatic sport.
Huck and Hope is an Ultiworld Podcast, hosted by Patrick Stegemoeller and Brian Kibler, produced by Lindsay Soo.
Pat and Brian come back together to dive into the Huck and Hope mailbag to celebrate the show being released in it's entirety for free! They reflect on the series and discuss a few anecdotes that didn't make it into the original show.
If you have questions or comments about the show, please email us at HuckandHope@ultiworld.com, or send a message in the Ultiworld Discord.
5 Jul 2024
Episode 6 - Chasing the Dragon
On the finale of Huck and Hope, Pat and Brian look at the end of an era - for the Rochester Dragons, for ultimate, and for the internet culture and economy of the early 2010s. As financial realities and larger cultural forces push out all the good blogs and bad frisbee teams, boomtown optimism turns into something more cynical, and perhaps more sustainable. What lessons can we take from the existence of the Dragons? From participating in ultimate frisbee itself? Was it all worth it? They guys talk to several players, media figures, including the former owner of the Dragons Lee Semrau, to find out.
If you have questions or comments about the show, please email us at HuckandHope@ultiworld.com, or send a message in the Ultiworld Discord.
5 Jul 2024
Episode 5 - Let's Go
On the penultimate episode of Huck and Hope, Pat and Brian look at the large cultural forces at play that have transitioned the ultimate community from where it was before the AUDL and the Dragons existed to where we are now. In particular, they look at how one controversial figure represented what the sport became, what it rejected, and what value it really had to the rest of the world. It's time to talk about Brodie Smith.
5 Jul 2024
Episode 4 - The Desolation of the Rochester Dragons
What happens when a freight train of unearned enthusiasm slams into a brick wall of reality? You get the April 26, 2014 game between the Dragons and the New York Empire. Along with several guests who were there on hand, Pat and Brian survey the wreckage from what may have been the worst game of ultimate ever played, and see what happens when you scrape away a veneer of legitimacy from a team and league that was one coat of paint deep.
If you have questions or comments about the show, please email us at HuckandHope@ultiworld.com, or send a message in the Ultiworld Discord.
5 Jul 2024
Episode 3 - The Observer Effect
The Dragons play a game in Toronto on ESPN 3, and a post on Lil Wayne's Facebook page is there to prove it. This begs the question: what does that actually mean?
Patrick and Brian look at how the anxieties of a generation of ultimate players led to a quest for visibility and legitimacy during the early days of the AUDL and Triple Crown Tour that forever changed the way we process and interact with the sport.
If you have questions or comments about the show, please email us at HuckandHope@ultiworld.com, or send a message in the Ultiworld Discord.
5 Jul 2024
Episode 2 - The Fastest Growing Sport in the Nation
Ultimate frisbee is growing fast and there are riches to be had - supposedly. Patrick Stegemoeller and Brian Kibler look at some of the people, organizations, and businesses like the Rochester Dragons that got swept up in the excitement, energy, and optimism of an era where it seemed like the sport was one step away from making the leap to mainstream legitimacy, and the reality of what these schemes really meant.
If you have questions or comments about the show, please email us at HuckandHope@ultiworld.com, or send a message in the Ultiworld Discord.
5 Jul 2024
Episode 1 - An American Ultimate Story
In 2013, the Rochester Dragons launched their inaugural season in the AUDL. The team's sheer existence defying most notions of competitive and business sense. Yet for three years the often hapless franchise rode the wave of a sport and community trying to become something bigger and grander than it had ever been before. Ultiworld's Patrick Stegemoeller and Brian Kibler look back on one of the strangest chapters in the sport's history and discover that the key to understanding the Rochester Dragons reveals something much larger about ultimate, the AUDL, and America itself.
If you have questions or comments about the show, please email us at HuckandHope@ultiworld.com, or send a message in the Ultiworld Discord.
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Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
3 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
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