Nickel city ultimate
board of directors
I love my family, I love my friends and I love my Ultimate community so much. I am a wife and stay-at-home, homeschooling mom of four amazing kids. I have been playing Ultimate for 20 years and 15 years ago my husband TJ and I started the first club team in Buffalo, Lake Effect. Even at 37, I am still passionate about playing and seeing the sport’s growth in our area. I have always been heavily involved with logistics around our club team, promoting our sport on social media and helping at events. Recently, I was voted in as President of NCU. I feel humbled by this new position and will do my best to uphold our mission and vision. Go bills.
Ultimate has been a part of my life for 20 years and is something I have shared with my wife, Sarah Burns, for nearly all of it. I attended the University at Buffalo where I played with Green Eggs and Ham from 2005-2010. Sarah and I founded the mixed club team Lake Effect in 2009 and from that time have always been passionate about growing the sport in our area. We have four kids: Chris, Lily, Peter, and Tyler. We have immersed them all in the ultimate community, and have been lucky to have a community that has supported us and our kids as we’ve continued to play and be involved. I am lucky to have had the opportunity after all these years to return to Lake Effect leadership as a captain for the past 4 seasons, and I’m happy to be one of the Green Eggs and Ham coaches for the 2024/25 season. I am so excited that Sarah and I are in a phase of life where we can now be a part of leading this community forward together as part of NCU leadership.
Tyler Davis was introduced to ultimate back in 2010, playing on the men’s team at SUNY Fredonia (Go Turtles!) During his time at Fredonia, he was elected team president, introducing him to the responsibilities of coordinating club team affairs. Involvement in Fredonia Ultimate continued as Tyler took on coaching roles for the men’s and women’s teams in 2015, as well as assisting with operations responsibilities. Tyler first got involved in Nickel City Ultimate in 2016, mostly in a strategic advising role. The following year consisted of greater club ultimate interest, and Tyler took on a role as practice squad coach, along with more involvement in administrative aspects.
Tyler is currently the Director of Operations, but has also been more directly involved with the Brain Freeze team, having taken on the title of coach in 2018. As Director of Operations, Tyler particularly enjoys being directly involved and watching the club “build a better product year after year”. As a coach, he enjoys building relationships with players, and more poignantly helping players develop comradery and team culture – developing ability to think like a team and play like a team. In 2024, Tyler was honored to become the inaugural recipient of the peer-voted Nickel City Ultimate Person of the Year Award.
I began playing Ultimate relatively late in life. Looking for a flag football league, I came across a Meetup posting for “Ultimate Frisbee Pickup.” Close enough, I figured. After my first pickup, with my entire body in agonizing pain, I thought to myself, never again. I am so glad I dragged myself to that second pick up because I was hooked. I soon progressed from playing casually at pickup and in leagues to more competitively in tournaments and for club teams. I spent a number of years playing for Brain Freeze before transitioning more recently to competing primarily at the Masters level.
I work, in my role as Director of Community Relations, to create a community that promotes the values of Ultimate like the joy of play and mutual respect. My goal is to ensure that NCU remains inclusive and welcoming of all people, particularly women and minorities who remain underrepresented across the sport. In working towards this goal, I draw on my scholarly work as an academic who teaches and researches issues related to disability and race. I took on this position out of a sense of gratitude for all that NCU – the organization and our community – has given me. I hope to create the conditions necessary for others to feel the gratitude that I feel.
Hi everyone, my name is Jennine Kanaby and I have been playing ultimate since my freshman year at Cornell University in 2006. I joined the Buffalo ultimate community in 2016, I have 3 main passions in my life; my family, my career, and ultimate! I have enjoyed working on the NCU board with my husband Mike. At home we have cats, dogs, and our son Otis. During the work day I am a local veterinarian in the city of Buffalo. I love helping both my clients and my patients live their best lives. Ultimate helps me live my best life and I hope to give more athletes the opportunity to play through our work at NCU.