Crazy for Quidditch

Check out the video at: http://www.motrin.ca/mygamemypain/campusVideos.asp

Dalhousie students have something to prove in Motrin’s My Game, My Pain (MGMP) campus challenge, a quest to find the next great Canadian game.

Dal has won the competition since its inception – last year with Ultimate Borden Ball and the year before with Ice Dodgeball – and would like to make it a hat trick.

“They’re going to have to wrestle us for the title because we’re going for gold,” says Carlos Velez, a fourth-year kinesiology student. Their game is up against nine other university teams, with including "ditchball" from the University of Manitoba, couch racing from the University of Calgary and "Chair Riots of Fire and Ice" from McMaster University.

Mr. Velez, along with classmates Rachel Doucet, Megan MacLean, Tina Haggarty and Carina Shortliffe, think they’ve got their competition beat with a sport they’ve called Ultimate Quidditch, the Inner Tube Edition. Prof. Krista Best, who teaches Physical Activity for Persons with a Disabilities (KINE 3384), has piggybacked on the national competition by asking students in her class to design a new game, but with a proviso: the games they come up with have to be inclusive, so players of all abilities could take part.

Megan MacLean, Rachel Doucet, Carina Shortliffe, Tina Haggarty and Carlos Velez have adapted Quidditch from the Harry Potter books for the pool. (Nick Pearce Photo)

Ultimate Quidditch, the Inner Tube Edition is described as a cross between the Harry Potter game Quidditch, Ultimate Frisbee and Water Polo. When the game designers put out a call for players to try out their sport, dozens turned up wondering exactly how they’d make the wizarding game – played on brooms in the books – fly.

“We think we have the answer to that – we thought we’d simulate the weightless feeling of flying on a broom by putting the game in a pool,” says Ms. Doucet, also in fourth-year of the kinesiology program.

“And we don’t have magical balls, but we do have this,” she adds, producing a battered, neon pool Frisbee.

The game creators take turns explaining the rules of the game. There are seven players on each team: four chasers who act as point scorers, two beaters who defend using “bludgers” and one keeper armed with a foam bat. All the players stay afloat using inner tubes.

The chasers try to score on the other team by throwing Frisbees through the other team’s three goals – the largest goal (a waterpolo net) and two hula hoops. Meanwhile, the beaters run interference with the Frisbee using stability-ball bludgers.

“It turned out to be a lot of fun … sitting in the inner tube and trying to maneuver made it kinda awkward, but fun,” explains the 22-year-old Ms. Doucet. “It was like being a little kid again.”

Like last year’s MGMP winner Ultimate Borden Ball, Ultimate Quidditch: the Inner Tube Edition is designed to be played by people of all abilities. Adapting the point system from the wheelchair rugby game Murderball, teams are balanced according to the players’ abilities to throw, catch, paddle and swing a bat. 

The students think they came up with a great game for their class assignment with the added benefit of being named one of 10 finalists in Motrin’s MGMP competition. They’ve got their eye on the $2,500 grand prize.

“We really want to buy Krista a new Frisbee because we destroyed this one,” says Ms. Doucet.

Videos of the finalists in Motrin’s My Game, My Pain competition have been posted online at: http://www.motrin.ca/mygamemypain/campusVideos.asp.