Moscow Manticores host first Komrade Cup Quidditch Tournament
Many people who passed by the SprinTurf on the way to the women’s basketball game Saturday might have thought they took a wrong turn and ended up at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Hundreds of athletes from across the Northwest visited the University of Idaho over the weekend for the first Komrade Cup Quidditch Tournament, hosted by the UI Quidditch team, the Moscow Manticores.
Daphne Jackson | Argonaut
The Moscow Manticores played the Boise State Thestrals Saturday. The Manticores won after a close game.
Lauren Blenn, president of the Moscow Manticores, said she was excited to see months of planning and training come to fruition.
“Running this tournament is a major project,” Blenn said. “We have to get teams registered and have participants sign waiver forms. Volunteers have to know where to go and schedules need to be available.”
Inspired by the game in the Harry Potter series, Quidditch as played at the collegiate level, is a co-gender, full contact sport. Blenn said the level of athleticism on the field was enough to prove to any skeptic that Quidditch is indeed a sport, because running and agility are both essential to surviving in the game.
Blenn said players got physical, and it was not unusual to see people take major hits to the ground and have to limp over to the team bench.
“Some might say this is just a bunch of nerdy kids running around with sticks, but if you watch, you’ll see how athletic Quidditch really gets,” Blenn said. “We’ve got some concussions and someone with a bruised rib. People get very competitive.”
Tim Martin, Moscow Manticores team captain, said as the host team, the Manticores tried to make staying in Moscow convenient for visiting teams.
“As a courtesy, we try to house as many of the visiting players as possible so that they don’t have to pay for hotels,” Martin said. “We have teams like the Alberta Clippers, who traveled 15 hours to get here.”
[box style=”rounded” border=”full”]Moscow Manticores Quidditch practices are at noon Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at Guy Wicks Field. More information can be found at the team’s Facebook page.[/box]
The Komrade Cup had nine teams competing against one another. The lineup included Western Washington University, a club team from Alberta, Simon Fraser University in Canada, two teams from University of British Columbia, two teams from Boise State University, a club team from Portland and UI’s team.
Finding referees who are trained for Quidditch was a sizeable task, Blenn said.
“You have to go through a various levels of training and written tests before you can become a head referee. Many people field test,” Blenn said.
Multiple head referee hopefuls were field tested at the Komrade Cup Tournament. Due to the lack of certified head referees in the Northwest, one from Utah came up to Moscow so the tournament could be official.
Daphne Jackson | Argonaut
The Moscow Manticores Quidditch team starts its game against the Boise State Thestrals Saturday on the SprinTurf.
In Quidditch, players run around with a broom between their legs, requiring them to have to play with only one hand. Each team has three chasers who use a ball called a quaffle to score goals. The keeper is essentially the goalie, Blenn said. There are also two players called beaters who knock people off their brooms, requiring them to run back to their hoop and start over. The seekers — the position played by Harry Potter — runs after the snitch. Catching the snitch ends the game.
One of the most interesting elements of Quidditch as adapted for the real world is the snitch, Blenn said. Instead of a flying golden ball, there is a person dressed in yellow who runs around the field.
“The snitch itself is a ball hanging off the back of the pants,” she said. “The seeker has to be able to grab that ball without touching the snitch runner, which is not an easy task. That snitch runner does almost whatever he or she wants to keep the seeker from getting the snitch. They will throw people around, run around like crazy and push people away.”
The winner of the Komrade Cup Quidditch Tournament was the Western Washington University Wyverns.
Quidditch has been at UI for four years, and the Moscow Manticores have been a team for three years. Martin said the team is openly recruiting, and team members can teach new recruits regardless of skill or knowledge level.
“You don’t have to be a complete Harry Potter nerd to enjoy the sport,” Martin said. “We’ve had people join who have never even read the books or watched the movies, but want to play the sport. Many of our members do enjoy Harry Potter, but their love of Quidditch is almost a separate thing.”
Shannon Kelly can be reached at [email protected]