Organized
disc sports began in the early 1970s, with promotional efforts from
Irwin Toy, the Canadian Open Frisbee Championships, Toronto (1972–1985), the Vancouver Open Frisbee Championships (1974–1977) and professionals using
Frisbee show tours to perform at universities, fairs, and sporting events. Disc sports such as
freestyle,
double disc court,
guts,
ultimate and
disc golf became this sports first events. Two sports, the team sport of
ultimate and
disc golf are very popular worldwide and are now being played semi-professionally. The
World Flying Disc Federation,
Professional Disc Golf Association, Freestyle Players Association are the official rules and sanctioning organizations for flying disc sports worldwide.
Ultimate Canada is the official rules and sanctioning organization for ultimate in Canada.
Ultimate is a
team sport played with a
flying disc. The object of the game is to score points by passing the disc to members of your own team, on a rectangular field, 120 yards (110m) by 40 yards (37m), until you have successfully completed a pass to a team member in the opposing team's end zone. In the early 1970s,
Ken Westerfield and Jim Kenner (Discraft founder) introduced
ultimate along with other disc sports North of the 49th parallel at the
Canadian Open Frisbee Championships, Toronto (1972–1985) and the Vancouver Open Frisbee Championships (1974–1977). In 1979, Ken Westerfield and Chris Lowcock created the Toronto Ultimate Club (TUC). The Toronto Ultimate Club is one of the ultimate's oldest leagues. The first Canadian Ultimate Championships (CUC) were held for the open division in Ottawa in 1987, produced by Marcus Brady and Brian Guthrie. OCUA subsequently hosted the 1993, 1999, 2002, 2011 and 2017 Canadian Ultimate Championships. Canada has been ranked number one in the Ultimate World Rankings several times since 1998 in all the Ultimate Divisions (including Open and Women's) according to the
World Flying Disc Federation. In 2013, as a founding partner, the Toronto
Ultimate Club presented Canada's first semi-professional
ultimate team, the
Toronto Rush to the
American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL). In their first season they went undefeated 18–0 and won the AUDL championships. The American Ultimate Disc League and the now defunct
Major League Ultimate (MLU) are the first semi-professional ultimate leagues. ==Past Championships==