Nearly 200 ultimate frisbee players from more than 10 countries will play at Vietnam’s biggest ultimate tournament ever this weekend.

Saigon Ultimate club is holding the seventh Vietnam Hat ultimate frisbee tournament at RMIT this Saturday and Sunday.

The Saigon Ultimate Club (SUC) that is organizing the two day Vietnam Hat tournament at the fields at RMIT University in HCMC’s District 7 has had record registrations from Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, China, the U.S. and Europe with nearly a third of the players Vietnamese.

“This is the largest ultimate tournament ever held in Vietnam. It’s half again as large as any previous tournament,” said one of the organizers, Aaron Toronto.

We’ll have 10 large teams this year and previously we’ve never had more than seven,” Toronto said. Last year the Vietnam Hat had 116 players, but this year the response has been huge especially from Singapore with 50 players and new Vietnamese players at universities in HCMC.

SUC has been busy this year promoting the sport with Vietnamese students and has generated a lot of new players from HCMC University  of Technology in District 10, Vu Anh Vu, another member of the organizing committee, said.

The RMIT Ultimate Club has also been a driving force in developing the sport and finding the next generation of players, Vu said.

In a bid to give the new players international tournament experience the organizers made the registration price for Vietnamese players cheaper than for expats or international visitors this year. “We want Vietnamese to participate to grow the sport here and give people a great ultimate experience. That will help us develop,” Toronto said.

“Many Vietnamese don’t have the opportunity to go to international tournaments, so this is their best chance,” he said.

The unprecedented response from Singapore was because SUC has sent a lot of players to the Singapore Ultimate Tournament over the past few years and built up a good relationship, players said.

This year marks the seventh Vietnam Hat tournament so the theme for the competition and the party at Lush night club on Saturday night is “The Mystery of Seven”.

Hat tournaments are less competitive than team tournaments, so people have fun, make friends, play frisbee and party at night, Vu said.