Image Credit: Christopher Capozziello/Getty ImagesWhen the first Harry Potter film hit theaters in 2001, could you have predicted that New York City would be hosting the fourth annual Quidditch World Cup this weekend? Some of you may be aware that students at Vermont’s Middlebury College are credited with first making the fantasy sport a reality in 2005, and today, there’s an International Quidditch Association. Forty-six teams will compete this weekend, including Middlebury, Boston University, Michigan State, NYU, Vassar, Syracuse, and Yale. I don’t know which is more entertaining:
• Watching people purposely run around with a broomstick between their legs
• Watching the Snitch, a person dressed in gold with a tennis ball stuffed into a sock that dangles out of his or her shorts, run around. “Snitches have been known to ride on bicycles across the field; snitches have hid in families in the stands; in 2008 a snitch appeared at the top of one of the buildings,” IQA spokeswoman Alicia Radford told Fox News. “… I even saw a snitch once take off the seeker’s cape and wave it at him like a matador.”
• People debating about whether this should become an official NCAA sport
These are brave, fun souls. In a PopWatch poll last month, 33 percent of people said they will be holding a wand when they see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 in theaters; 47 percent said they would laugh at the people holding wands, but secretly wish they had one; 20 percent said they would laugh at the people holding wands, period. What’s the craziest thing you’ve done for your love of Harry Potter?
More Harry Potter:
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EW’s Harry Potter Hub
This is just a whole different level of awesome.
lol, ok, where can I sign up?
haha thats awsome! my school has a quidittch team and i really want to watch them play! Cant wait for the midnight release…im dressing up as Luna Lovegood!
My school is starting a team in the spring!
GO BU!
My University has had a quidditch club for two years now. It’s a blast. We have people instantly recognizing it and jumping it already knowing the rules from the book.
My school district doesn’t allow my school start a team
how unfair!!
Which school district is this?
That’s a little creeptastic, john.
Get off the net, pedo.
My University needs to start a team ASAP! It’s quickly catching on and it looks like a lot of fun. It’s kind of like a sophisticated form of dodgeball.
I’m just annoyed since the books have been out since 2001, why it took them this long to create teams. The University of Texas got a Quidditch team the year after I left. I would have been all over that!!
Actually the books have been out since 1997, so really they’ve had even longer to do this.
Harry Potter inspired me to go to my very first fan convention – Phoenix Rising in New Orleans – they played Quidditch on the bank of the Mississippi… it was awesome!
Oh. My. God. My University is participating in the championships!!!!
This is too awesome!
Mine too! I didn’t even know we had a Quidditch team!
On my first day of college, a guy brought out a 45 dollar Sirius Black wand from the park in Orlando, hoping we wouldn’t laugh at him. Then we all passed it around in a big circle and said a spell as we swished and flicked.
I can’t get over the fact that these guys are running around holding a broomstick between their legs!
Exactly. That seems more of an impediment to the game. But I guess without a broom buried in your crotch, it’d just be the same ol’ mash-up of Lacrosse, Dodgeball, and Hide ‘n Go Seek.
The broom gives an advantage to the snitches and allows them to escape from the seeker easier. I saw a snitch climb a fence yesterday to get away from the seeker! Clearly the broom hindered that pursuit.
I think this is awesome! Harry Forever!
My college has a team. I play beater/chaser. We never made it to the world cup, as we’re in California and have no funding…