Andrea Hill is the captain of Carleton’s quidditch team. The team is ranked second in Canada and is heading to the world championships in New York on Nov. 12. (James Park Photo)
Eight years after the first Harry Potter book was published, Simon Fraser University formed a Quidditch team.
Club founder Christine Konrad says until now, no one took the initiative to apply to SFU Recreation to start the team.
She told The Link, “I watched a UBC-UVic game about two years ago, and I thought, ‘This looks awesome! Why doesn’t SFU have a team?’”
But Konrad had missed the application deadline.
After learning her lesson, the club was instated this year and practices on Monday and Friday evenings.
Konrad says the game’s rules are similar to those in the Harry Potter books, but Muggle teams use less magical objects:
“A lot of it is the same, except that we’re not flying! You’re throwing a volleyball around, and that’s your Quaffle. You’re trying to score it through the three hoops, and then you’ve got dodgeballs for Bludgers. If you get hit by those you’re knocked off your broom. And then for the Snitch, basically we have somebody with a sock tucked into their pants, running around. If you [have] grabbed the sock, you’ve caught the Snitch.”
Wizards on Wickwire play a match at Dalhousie University. http://www.dal.ca/
In particularly gripping games, the Snitch and Seekers run off campus.
Quidditch Club member and Chaser Tesicca Truong says the Snitch has a lot of flexibility in the game.
“He can ride a bike, he can be hiding in a room. He can throw water balloons, and he can disguise himself,” she said.
Chaser Tommy Berde says, “You might not see them for 10 minutes at a time. They can actually catch the snitch and take a minute or two to come back to the field, and you’ll never know what happened.”
He added that any twists in the Snitch and Seeker’s plans must be approved by the referee. But because of potential twists, there’s no time limit in an SFU game of Quidditch.
Just as in Harry Potter, the game ends when the Snitch has been caught.
Konrad added that, “It’s just more serious of a sport than you’d think. It’s full contact; people are tackling each other. It’s very athletic, and that’s all in the fun.”
