Quid­ditch, The Game You Thought You Knew

In 2005, a fresh­man at Mid­dle­bury Col­lege in Ver­mont cre­ated a ver­sion of the fic­tional sport of Quid­ditch from J. K. Rowl­ing’s “Harry Pot­ter”. In the full-con­tact game, points are re­warded for throw­ing the quaf­fle through a hoop and grab­bing the snitch, all while dodg­ing bludgers. Last year Maryville had an un­of­fi­cial team, this year marks the in­au­gural sea­son, with the goal of Na­tion­als.

The Game

• Positions — There are seven people on the field at a time, each carrying a broomstick between their legs. The rules also state that no more than four players identifying as the same gender can be on the field from one team.

  • Three Chasers on the field at a time are trying to score the quaffle (a volleyball) through one of three hoops on the other side of the field. Scoring the quaffle through any of the hoop scores 10 points.

  • Two Beaters on the field at a time can use their bludger (a dodgeball) to defend and disrupt the other team. When anyone is hit with the bludger, they must take their broomstick out from between their legs and touch their hoop before they are allowed to come back to play. If the chaser holding the quaffle is hit, they must drop the quaffle.

  • One Keeper defends the hoops from the opponent chasers.

  • One Seeker chases the snitch when it is released. When a seeker catches the tail from the snitch’s shorts, 30 points are awarded to that team and the game ends.

The sport is also en­durance based. “The length of the game varies, de­pend­ing on when the snitch is caught,” sopho­more Chaser Nick Mueller said. The snitch is re­leased at 17 min­utes then at minute 18 the seek­ers are re­leased to catch the snitch. The team has played games that have gone into minute 28, 10 min­utes af­ter seek­ers are re­leased, or just four sec­onds af­ter the seek­ers are re­leased.

The game is played as a team, there is no one player who can win the game by them­selves. On of­fense, beat­ers that have pos­ses­sion of bludgers use them to keep de­fend­ers at bay while the chasers push down the field. “It’s pretty equiv­a­lent to rugby in how they take the ball up the field. It’s not one per­son, it’s re­ally a team ef­fort,” sopho­more Beater Mike Lip­pin­cott said.

“What I hear a lot is that it’s not a sport. My re­ac­tion is ‘Come out and play or watch and tell me that it’s not a sport.’ It’s one of the most daunt­ing and phys­i­cal sports that I’ve played,” Mueller said.

Go to US Quid­ditch to learn more about the game play and his­tory of the sport.

Maryville Quid­ditch

Maryville’s team be­gan from the ef­forts of ju­nior Chaser Sam Slaugh­ter. Slaugh­ter re­cruited his friends and other stu­dents who were in­ter­ested, de­vel­oped an or­ga­ni­za­tion at Maryville and has in­vested a lot of ef­fort as well as his own per­sonal money in or­der to be­gin this club.

“Sam [Slaugh­ter} asked me to play last year and I came out to a prac­tice and got hooked,” Mueller said. The team is made up of ath­letes, Mueller was pre­vi­ously ac­tive play­ing ul­ti­mate fris­bee and roller hockey.

Last year the team’s un­of­fi­cial record was 4-7, this year the team hopes to im­prove on that and qual­ify for the na­tional tour­na­ment. “That’s our goal, to make it to na­tion­als,” Mueller said. Last year the team lost sev­eral close bouts and are look­ing for­ward to win­ning those games. This year, Maryville Quidditch is competing in Midwest Regionals in Cedar Rapids, Iowa the weekend of November 3-4.

So far the team has a record of 3-2. The Saints beat SIUE Quid­ditch 14-4 and 9-4 on Sat­ur­day, Sept. 15. Maryville Quid­ditch also com­peted in a tour­na­ment the week­end of Sept. 29-30, com­pet­ing against teams in­clud­ing Chicago United Quid­ditch and Min­nesota.

The team is also al­ways look­ing for peo­ple to join the team. Come out to a prac­tice Mon­days and Thurs­days at 6 p.m. on the base­ball field. “You don’t have to know any­thing about ‘Harry Pot­ter’ to play,” Lip­pin­cott said. “Every­one is wel­come.”

“My po­si­tion in­volves tak­ing a dodge­ball and throw­ing it as hard as I can at the other team … so it’s a pretty good stress re­lief,” said Lip­pin­cott, num­ber 21. The rules state that every player must keep their sticks be­tween their legs, even while run­ning.