The Cochrane Cobras Ultimate Frisbee mixed team has won the Alberta high school championship.

The team took on all comers in the tournament, held at the Glenmore Athletic Park last weekend, in what was only the second annual provincial championship of this growing sport.

The Cobras remained undefeated in all three pool games and three playoff games to claim the title over seven other high school teams.

It's the third year of the program at Cochrane High and what founder and head coach Tara Cunningham finds appeal is the inclusiveness of its sports culture.

Ultimate continues to grow in popularity and interest in tournaments continues to grow, says Cunningham. She says it's at the grass-roots level but she ound this year's provincials better organized, well attended and quite successful. 

It's the third season since the sports was introduced at the high school by Cunningham and it was its inclusiveness that she found appealing.

"Part of the motivation to me and us when we started up was to have a sport that is quite inclusive. So you can have very athletic, very competitive, very skilled players on the same team as players who are new or less competitive or less skilled. It's a sport that really allows that to work and so everybody is still learning and enjoying themselves and getting out of the sport what they want to."

That culture of sharing skills continues to expand as the program matures.

"We're actually getting some experienced players who are able to bring that. In the first year, it was pretty tough because we were all brand spanking new at it and so now that we're in the third year we had that variety of the level and it's working very nicely."

Like many field sports, the season was slightly delayed this year due to the late spring but when the fields opened up in mid-May, some 20 to 30 players would regularly attend practices. The team had a chance to play against other high school teams at McMahon stadium at an informal event and also participated in a tournament sponsored by Highwood High School in High River.

They've also put out feelers to see if there's interest in high schools participating in the tournament here and will be exploring the idea further next season.

There's currently no league in Rocky View Schools or in this part of Alberta but you can't help but believe that will follow, given its growth in Ontario, Quebec and B.C.

Ultimate Frisbee is played with seven players on a field that's 40 yards wide by 70' deep with 20' end zones. The object is to move the frisbee down the field until a player catches a frisbee in the end zone to score. When you catch the frisbee you must have one foot stationary and pivot until you throw the frisbee to another player.

"It's a lot of running," says Cunningham. "Often the new players recognize that it's possibly more running than most of the other sports they play."

Except for an intrasquad game and celebration here next week, the senior high season is over but junior high continues until June 16.