Live sports

So I spent this afternoon at a live sporting event - I can't remember the last time I watched live sport, in fact.

It was very impressive - two teams of people waving wooden objects, running around in the freezing cold after an oddly shaped ball. It was rather violent, and the rules were somewhat incomprehensible, but I think I figured out what was going on by the end.

That's right; I spent the afternoon spectating at the Canadian Quidditch Cup.

I'm impressed that someone's come up with rules for a fictional sport that involves flying, and actually managed to design something that works quite well. There were a few crunching tackles - as I left, one player was busy having a couple of fingers splinted, and I think the first aid people had had a fairly busy day - but it was very good natured, and the teams had clearly spent a goodly amount of time practising.

They did keep the broomsticks; the players get to run around the pitch clutching the broomstick between their legs, which adds an extra layer of difficulty. It does mean that substitutions are easy, as the player coming off just passes the broomstick to the one coming on.

There are four soccer-size balls in the field, one of which is the quaffle used to score, and the rest are bludgers, which are hurled with great force at players on the opposing team; if you're hit by a bludger, you need to head back to your goal and start again.

But the genius is the snitch. This is a human, dressed in yellow, with a tennis ball inside a sock tucked into his or her waistband. The game ends when the snitch is caught, so the snitch spent the first fifteen minutes of each game hiding off the field (one apparently spent the time driving round, just to be sure of not being caught.)

So it was a thoroughly entertaining day. Just a shame that Carleton lost in the final to McGill, 80 to 140, if memory serves.