Shuttle Bop’s Stephen Dudenas crosses over as he prepares to throw a disc during the first game of the International Frisbee Tournament championship match against Whiskey Disc Sunday at the Hancock Driving Park. (Daver Karnosky/Daily Mining Gazette)

HANCOCK — If you ask Stephen Dudenas of Shottle Bop what in the world drives him to stand about 15 meters from another guy looking to throw a Frisbee disc at his head, he just smiles and says, “it’s a backyard game. It’s throw and catch, with a little bit more intensity.”

The reality is Guts Frisbee is not for the faint of heart. But, that challenge is part of what Dudenas loves about the game itself, which is interesting, because he grew up playing football in Lake Linden and hockey in Calumet as a youth, and at Jeffers in high school.

“What I think it mostly is, is the adrenaline rush when you have a Frisbee coming that fast some of the times, right at your face,” he said. “You either have a choice to duck and get out of the way, or try to get your hand in front of it. It’s that quick reaction.

“Once you make that pop, once you smash up one of the faster throws, you’re not scared of them anymore. It’s just, something takes over, and you just want to do it again and again. I don’t know, it’s just something different that I never got from football or hockey.”

Dudenas, along with his teammates, Will Blau, Carter Nettell, Alex Nettell, Kyle Suvanto, and Gabe Coppo, won the International Frisbee Tournament this past Sunday at the Hancock Driving Park. Dudenas earned most valuable player honors along the way.

“It’s a great honor,” he said. “There’s a lot of Hall of Fame Frisbee players with their name attached to that MVP trophy, and it’s just an honor to be part of that. Realistically, me, Carter, Al, we really, any of us could have won that in that finals. 

“It was really a toss up. It just who’s got the hotter hand and who the people are cheering for louder. I just got a couple more extra pops, a couple more throws, and that’s what they saw. It wasn’t just all me. It was a group effort.” 

Most of the team has been playing together since high school, so that makes competing together so much fun.

“We’ve been playing together since high school,” said Dudenas. “All these (guys,) Carter and Al, uncle and nephew there, and then Will Blau and Kyle, they all went to school together. Al was a couple years older, but they all went to school together. We’re all the same age roughly, and just started playing just because our dads and older brothers were all playing, and uncles and whatnot. (We) just got into it that way.”

Shottle Bop had to earn their way past the more dominate teams that were in their prime as the local crew was just cutting its team.

“Finally, we jumped together and kept playing over the years,” Dudenas said. “(We) just kept getting better and better, and kept running into Appleton Assassins for years. They took away a lot of tournaments from us, and Boomtown (Saints) and all those older guys.

“We finally matured, just kept at it, and got our first IFT a few years ago, and got back at it again this year. (We) just really gelled this year. There was nothing really standing our way besides ourselves, like Carter said in his interview there (Sunday), it was us against ourselves, really.”

While the Nettells, Blau, and Suvanto were all Hancock High School students, Dudenas went to Lake Linden-Hubbell, so he was often competing against all of them in varsity sports. He loved playing alongside them all now. Interestingly, he was the first to really jump into Guts with both feet, and the rest quickly joined ranks.

“For the guys are my age, plus minus a couple years, I was the first one around here to start,” he said. “I was going to practices before the Nettells and Will was even. I started playing before, so I was at the practices already. Then they all started to come around. I was playing with some other younger guys from around the Midwest that just threw together a team, and they came together and had a Hancock team. Then it was we were the only ones consistently playing. So, we said, ‘Well, we play each other all the time in practice and whatnot, we might as well jump together and try to make something of it.’ That’s how it (Shottle Bop) kind of came to fruition.”

Like most sports, Guts Frisbee has two major elements to it, offense and defense. Offense comes in the form of an individual throwing a disc at an opposing defense, while defense consists of five guys working together to make a catch.

When Dudenas was asked which aspect he likes more, he just smiles.

“Well, if it’s game point for an IFT finals, I’ll take that throw every time,” he said. “But, defense wins championships, and that’s what it was this weekend. We knew our offense.

“We knew we have probably the best offensive team across the board, especially adding Gabe Coppo and Kyle. He was playing great this weekend, just Gabe had the better hand. He’s got a pretty good scoring rate. Then throw in Carter, Will, and I, and Al, when he’s snapping his flipper, is pretty tough. So it just boils down to that. I’d say defensively, you would rather make the better play.”

The key to defeating Whiskey Disc, arguably the best defensive team in the IFT, was making sure that Dudenas and his teammates limited their own mistakes.

“Coming into it, we know Rudy (Tikkanen), he’s a local guy,” said Dudenas. “He grew up with my older brother and all that. So, I’ve known Rudy for years. We were like, ‘Well, we know Rudy well enough. We’re going to try on him.’ Obviously, that didn’t work. That first switch of the first game, (we were down) 8-3. So, we switched it up.

“We were in a little bit of panic. We switched it up, started hitting different targets, and we were just hitting everything from fingertips up high to fingertips outside, and just hitting the gaps right.”

Of course, weather helped as well.

“The wind was a big factor,” Dudenas said. “That wind made that disc do a lot of different stuff that nobody was really expecting, even on our end coming back playing defense. We just hit our spots and barely dumped, didn’t give them any points on stupid plays throwing, thumbs and foot faults and all that. We were consistent, and we stayed on the other two guys, and just kept on them and hit our spots.”

Turcotte honored, respect earned

Dudenas admitted that he and his teammates would have loved to face Monte Carlo, the other local team, in the finals, if possible, but that was not in the cards this year. Both teams spend a lot of time practicing together, which makes their matchups in tournaments that much more fun. Tyler Turcotte, one of the most recognizable names on Monte Carlo, earned the Jon Davis/Dan Thornton Spirit of Guts Award over the weekend. The Spirit of Guts award is given to the player who shows “exemplary sportsmanship, quality of play, and, most importantly, having fun.”

“(There)’s a lot of respect,” said Dudenas. “You go toe-to-toe with these guys, once or twice a week, depending on practices. Every now and then we’ll do a little scrimmage or whatever, but most of the time we switch it up just so you can play with other people. You learn how they play or whatever, and you see what they’re doing, and it’s just a big respect thing.

“You yell at each other, say whatever you want during the game, but after, you shake each other’s hand, and you go have a drink together, give each other a hug, and you say ‘Great tournament. Go kick some butt, or you’ll get them next year. Keep your head up’, kind of thing, and it just comes back to respecting these other guys and even other players that are not from around here.

“Guts is a big respect game, and that’s what it is all about.”

Shottle Bop’s Stephen Dudenas decides to flip the disc over as part of his routine as he prepares to throw during the first game of the International Frisbee Tournament championship match against Whiskey Disc Sunday at the Hancock Driving Park. (Daver Karnosky/Daily Mining Gazette)