And this too:
Quidditch has landed!
Quidditch, a combination of rugby, dodgeball and tag that is inspired by the airborne pastime of Harry Potter and his wizarding chums, is already a staple of college campuses—and now is spreading beyond them.
Quidditch is played by two teams of seven players on a 60-yard-long field. To score points, a team’s “chasers” must kick or throw the “quaffle,” a volleyball, into one of the opposition’s three hoops. That earns a team 10 points. Meanwhile, two players use dodgeballs called “bludgers” to knock opponents out of the game.
Each team also has a “seeker,” who tries to catch “the snitch,” a ball attached to the waistband of the “snitch runner,” a neutral participant
who tries to avoid capture. The snitch is worth 30 points, and seizing it ends the game. Players carry a 39- to 41-inch pole between their legs, known as a “broom”—a nod to the J.K. Rowling novels, in which the characters played the game flying on broomsticks.
The game originated among students at Vermont’s Middlebury College in 2005 before catching on at other universities. Today’s Major League Quidditch, formed in 2015, is a semipro league in the U.S. and Canada that fields 15 teams each composed of 30 players, who get a minor stipend.
The U.S. Quidditch Cup, a national amateur competition, draws 2,000 to 3,000 spectators a year, says Mary Kimball, executive director of U.S. Quidditch. This year’s version will take place
in Charleston, W.Va., in April.
One modern aspect of the sport is that there are no single-gender leagues in the U.S., she says. “That makes it possible for athletes with all kinds of body types and skills to compete together,” Ms. Kimball says.
I wonder if other kinds of pepper work too.
