The sport of Quidditch has been rising rapidly in popularity in the past few years. Taken from the famous Harry Potter books by J.K Rowling and altered to fit the capabilities of non-wizards, it is a sport enjoyed by many fans with official teams all over the world.
The characters in the Harry Potter novels use flying broomsticks to compete in this game, so how is it possible that we, Muggles, can play this game if we can’t fly?
The players are meant to get the Quaffle (a slightly deflated volleyball) through any of three hoops on each side of the field to score 10 points while the opposing team is trying to stop them by throwing Bludgers (slightly deflated dodge balls). All players must always have a broom between their legs to run with during the game. There is one player who is not a part of any team, who is the Snitch; the Snitch has a tennis ball in a sock attached to their back which is meant to be grabbed by athletes, grabbing the Snitch is worth 150 points. The team with the most points wins the game.
At the end of the 2016 school year, a Tri-City team was created and is currently in full swing. The team was created by Calvin Ng, an SFU graduate recently on the SFU Quidditch team. He is hoping to get the players to play the youth team from Burnaby and a few teams from the states soon.
Hannah Marais, a grade 10 student at Riverside is team captain of the Tri-City Quidditch team. “I showed up for the first practice, there weren’t tryouts or anything because there were so few people there. So, I just kept showing up to practice, so I was on the team. Calvin [Ng] actually made me team captain because I was the most consistent person there; I’ve showed up to most of the practices.” She found out about the team in the Tri-City news paper, describing it as being “so weird,” and thinking that it was something she had to be a part of.
Marais explained that being on this team resulted in a positive outcome for her. “You get to meet new people who are just as crazy as you are, that’s the good part of it. You get to play a sport that you are interested in because it’s something weird. As with any sport you get to meet new friends and you get to learn a new skill. My favorite part of it is getting to tell people that I play Quidditch and seeing the expressions on their faces when I say that, because they all look completely baffled,” said Marais.
The group does not have enough team members to play any other youth teams at the moment, but are looking forward to doing so soon. There are currently six players on the team and they are open to anybody interested in coming to practices on Sundays at Rocky Point Park from 1 to 4pm to join.
Feature photo courtesy of http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/
Photo courtesy of http://awesomeottawa.ca/
