I almost hate to bring up this topic around John “Required Shoulder Surgery After Walking His Dog” Cole, but Slate had an article for those who think lacrosse isn’t quite risky enough:
Imagine you’re sprinting down a 160-yard field. As you run, you balance a tiny ball—small as a hockey puck, hard as a baseball—on the end of your stick, as in lacrosse. Except where the lacrosse stick has a woven pocket, your stick has a flat, wooden blade, and where lacrosse requires protective gear you wear neither pads nor gloves. Now imagine that your opponents are waving these same axe-like cudgels. They are coming at you from all sides, hoping to hook you from behind or block you from the front. You race down the gigantic field while considering your options. You could pass to a teammate, either with a slap of the bare hand or with a kick. No one is open, though, so you prepare to take a shot—never mind that you’re still 100 yards out from the goal. You lean back and swing hard, like a baseball player at bat, feeling the satisfying reverb in your arms as you connect with the ball.
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Now imagine you’re the goalkeeper preparing to block this shot. Though it’s coming from the far side of the field, that dense, little ball is a terrifying force, as hurling balls have been clocked at speeds nearing 100 miles per hour. And there you are, standing in a giant goal without any padding, preparing to either catch this ball-turned-ordnance with one, ungloved hand, or deflect it with your stick. All the while, the goal-hungry opposition descends on you like a swarm of bees.
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Such is the job of the goalkeeper in hurling, a sport famous for its speed and the bravery (or lunacy) of its participants. Known as the fastest field sport on earth, hurling predates Christianity and is native to Ireland, possibly originating with the Celts. Two teams of 15 players compete to score the most points by hitting the ball, called a sliotar, between the opposing team’s goalposts. While rugby-style tackling is prohibited, hockey-style body checks and shoulder charges are common. As in soccer, a player can shoot from anywhere on the field, including directly in front of the goal, and directly at the goalkeeper. One point is earned for a ball that flies between the posts but over the crossbar, while three are awarded for a goal scored underneath the crossbar, where the goalkeeper stands, a kamikaze in shorts and a jersey.
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Hurling is a thrilling and dangerous sport, and in Ireland the players are universally admired for their nerves. Within this pool, it is the goalkeepers who are most venerated. “A key requirement to be a goalkeeper in hurling is that you have to be mad,” says Feargal McGill, head of games administration and player welfare for hurling’s governing body, the Gaelic Athletic Association.* […]
It’s that asterick really ties the room together:
Corrections, April 13, 2011: This article also originally misspelled the first name of an administrator for the Gaelic Athletic Association. He is Feargal McGill, not Feral McGill.
Yeah, that’s an easy mistake to overlook in context.
NB: The women’s version of the game is known as camogie (from the Gaelic “little stick”), and is played with slightly smaller balls.
lacp
Gross, dude. Makes me wanna hurl. Oh, wrong sport?
R. Johnston
There’s nowhere good for that statement to lead.
piratedan
found this and had to share….
http://verydemotivational.memebase.com/2011/04/15/demotivational-posters-afternoon-teabaggers/
MattR
I’m not sure this has anything on old school lacrosse which sometimes would result in the death of some of the Indian participants. But prety damn crazy that hurling is still played in that form in modern times.
Not really related, the American Dream at work:
Spaghetti Lee
@piratedan:
I think a lot of those 50’s/60’s Christian bands were among the first to discover irony, but didn’t want to tell anyone.
Spaghetti Lee
@MattR:
Sounds like that man needs a tax cut.
Nate
My family lived in Ireland for a couple years when I was a kid, and I played hurling at my school. And yes, as a weak, coddled, Little League-playing American, I probably would have been killed if they had not required us to wear helmets at that age. That sport is insane.
I actually lived in Sixmilebridge, where David Fitzgerald (mentioned in that article) came from. He was royalty in that tiny town.
arguingwithsignposts
asterisk /pedant
Little Boots
sports. yeah. don’t get it.
MattR
BTW, I was already of the opinion that lacrosse goalies are crazy trying to stop solid rubber balls flying at 100 mph wearing a helmet, a chest protector and a cup. I always said they should be allowed to take whatever drugs they needed to step between the pipes. That clearly applies ten times as much to hurling.
@Spaghetti Lee: He sets a high bar for the rest of us to aspire to.
MikeJ
@arguingwithsignposts: It’s a Nathan Hale. I regret that I have but one asterisk for my country.
piratedan
@Spaghetti Lee: what got me was the name of the album, talk about win-win
MikeJ
I know people talked about it all day, but I left the news story’s tab open, and every half hour or so I click over to it and burst out laughing all over again when I read the hed, “Obama address was surprise attack, GOP lawmakers say”.
That is the funniest goddamned thing I have read in the looongest time.
Petorado
I think the Aztecs and the Mayans have hurling beat, but hurling’s still part of a pantheon of sports filled with WTF for folks not completely caught up in the passion over it. My sports blood gets spilled this way, but you’re never more alive than playing the sports you love.
Little Boots
@MikeJ:
again, nobody loves an emo Republican. especially a congress full of them. just don’t, okay, just … don’t.
JenJen
OK, seriously, I’m watching “The Blind Side” for the first (and last) time, and this has got to be one of the most wretched movies I’ve ever seen, and I usually love sports films.
It’s authentically offensive to me. Sandra Bullock really won an Oscar for this steamer? Come the fuck on now.
Dennis SGMM
@MikeJ:
How dare Obama question their cynical ploy to throw everyone under age 55 under the bus!
Little Boots
@Dennis SGMM:
the funniest thing is I think they’re honestly pissed. they never expect any pushback, ever.
Joey Maloney
I did a lot of hurling in college and I don’t remember it being anything like this. Uncomfortable, sure, but not really dangerous except to my pride.
Whammer
Irishmen running around with sticks, in the name of sport. It can’t end well…..
They used to show hurling on the Wide World of Sports when I was a kid — crazy. One of the scenes in the WW of S “human drama of athletic competition” intro was a hurling guy getting completely crushed between two defenders — he crumpled to the turf.
Yutsano
Bah. I got nothin’. Except it’s the weekend.
Little Boots
@Yutsano:
nothing is pretty much the price of admission tonight.
Dennis SGMM
@Little Boots:
I know they’re pissed. They’re pissed that anyone would inject a little reality into their fantasy world of trickle-down economics: that might interrupt their continuing hagiography of St. Ronnie.
Little Boots
@Dennis SGMM:
which is sooooo awesome.
Little Boots
lightweights. where the hell is doug? he’s a nightowl.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: Tonight at a reading I told some friends of David Foster Wallace about your observation w/r/t* the SS# 947-04-2012. Do you remember that? I think you said the prefix was used for undocumented aliens. Anyway, it was a little detail that made them happy on a kind of sad evening. Well done!
*w/r/t is a little homage. as is this foot note. talk about meta!
DPirate
Hurling is an awesome sport. Imagine if baseball players had to hit at a full run. We went to a game in Offaly and loved it.
The most dangerous thing about lacrosse, or at least the most painful, is when some jerk keeps whacking you in the shins.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): The 9 is used for resident aliens and recent immigrants. It is, absolutely technically, not a SSN. The fact that Wallace used that as he did is a rather nice touch, since they basically get removed as true Americans.
This reminds me: how come no one has ever seen Obama’s SSN? QUICK! CALL TEH BIRFERS!!
Little Boots
hurling. yes. hurling.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano:
Obama is covered.
Pictured with his card.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
Small
miraclesinevitabilities. Thank you, labor movement.Yutsano
@freelancer: Heh. One of the first things I did when I got hired was joined the NTEU. I don’t ever have to want to need them. But I like the security of knowing I got someone at my back.
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Unacceptable. I demand nothing less than his long form Social Security card.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano:
How right on is that? Fuck this town, I’m moving to Kenya. AND I’M TAKING MY PRESIDENT WITH ME!
eta: sorry, didn’t mean to get all shouty.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Watch out for lions. I hear they have nasty teef.
@Martin: Is that fer real or are you just funning me?
Martin
@Yutsano: Obama’s is 256-96-3467.
freelancer
@Martin:
That’s so crazy! My SSN is an anagram of Obama’s!!
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
Searching “obama social security number” will lead you into a filthy rabbit’s warren of conspiracy mongering idiocy. But what did I expect?
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
Cake and tea?
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: No, cake that is tea.
To bed. Must teach early.
Anne Laurie
@Petorado: Well, one of Slate’s helpful readers introduces us to the All-American sport of toli, “little brother to war“. Thirty players to a side, and the sticks may be narrower, but everybody gets two of them…
Robert Green
i played division one lacrosse as a goalie, and was an all-american in high school.
i remember, vaguely, what we used to call “getting your bell rung”. any shot of that ball (and the lacrosse ball is hard, though not so bad as the ball in hurling) that got past the very large stick you were holding and that smacked into your helmet would just…make everything go kind of funky and grey. back then, it was pretty much “you ok man”? and then back to playing. nowadays i believe that is called a “Concussion”. fuckers.
there were these kids on the onondaga res who could rip a shot called a wahoo that pretty much ended up hitting you in the head or shoulder (or in the back of the net) every time. i left a solid chunk of my brain there i’m sure.
later, i moved to LA post-college, and was recruited to play on a club team. went out there for one practice. someone took a shot at me, hit me on the leg…and i realized it had all been just totally fucking insane. absurd. and that was my last day ever playing that sport.
Robert Green
@MattR: i tried this on LSD once. it was spectacular, the ball just leaving trails as it sped towards you…i could read the word “Brine” at it slowly rotated….
i may be making this up. it seems hard to believe in retrospect to be honest, but i’m pretty sure it happened.
moderateindy
Between high school, college, and men’s club teams, I played lax for over 20 years, mostly in the midwest, which was a much more physical brand of the sport. (less talent = less finesse, and thus a lot more body checking and slashing). I also played a little Rugby, just as brutal, but less civilized, (in lax you got to wield a weapon)
I remember coming across hurling on TV in the early 90’s and all I could think was these guys are nucking futs!!!!
Best T-shirt I ever had for Lacrosse had a pic of Taz from Bugs Bunny fame holding a lacrosse stick with the tagline “Violence with Grace”
Petorado
@ Anne Laurie (smile)
I’ve read those accounts as well. Old world sports (especially from the British Isles) have always had a certain brutality to them. But not since the gladiators had fatal outcomes in the practice of sport been such an expectation than in the Meso-Americas. Original forms of Lacrosse included. Something about playing a game and meeting your end on the sharp end of an obsidian knife if you lost.
Calouste
Cricket is a sport for gentlemen played by gentlemen.
Soccer is a sport for gentlemen played by animals.
Rugby is a sport for animals played by gentlemen.
Hurling is a sport for animals played by animals.
Calouste
@Petorado:
That tradition was kept alive in Columbia until 1994 IIRC. Well, except the obsidian knife bit.
ranger3
Free Kobe Bryant
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I’m a skinny guy, I can run and win 50K races on brutal courses beating people 10-20 years younger than me.
I get a lot of “wow that must be brutual to do” comments considering my age (late 40s). Hah! I wouldn’t do any of the shit described here, talk about brutal.
Good friend in college played rugby. I met guys who were missing a fingertip here and there. They claimed it was the result of somebody biting them off. I was a rube at the time so believed them but who knows.
Anyway, college friend had a bumper sticker:
“Give Blood. Play Rugby.”
That pretty much kept me in distance running.
WereBear
I understand rugby. It’s a tough game, but the brutality is a side issue; it’s all, “Pop that back in, love, I want to get back to the field.”
Boxing is where brutality is the point.
Robert Sneddon
There was a international rugby match, one of the infamous “99” tour of South Africa where play was suspended for a time while the players and officials searched the pitch for someone’s eye which had popped out during a tackle. When it was found the player spit on it and pushed it back in, with bits of grass sticking out of the socket. Yes it was a glass eye…
As well as hurling (and the Scottish version, shinty) in the blood-sports arena there’s Gaelic rules football played in Ireland and its Antipodean cousin Australian Rules football (or footie as it’s generally known). There is an annual match between the two national champions played under amalgamated rules.
ornery curmudgeon
If we’re talking mere danger in sport, horse sports are one of the most dangerous … and spectacular. 3-Day Eventing is amazing.
Ron
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Oh my. These guys are just…fucking…nuts…(I went down the rabbit hole)
Lawnguylander
I played some hurling as a kid and have been to a lot of matches as a spectator and it’s not nearly as brutal as a lot of people think. Having watched my son play lacrosse, I’d say it’s a rougher sport. The lack of pads is actually what keeps the violence down in hurling. The same reason American football is so much more violent than rugby. If you break some guy’s hand with your hurley it won’t be long before someone gets you back. Also, a lacrosse ball is a lot heavier and harder than a sliotar.
burnspbesq
@moderateindy:
I played goal in soccer and midfield in lacrosse. Draw your own conclusions.
burnspbesq
One of the nice things about the proliferation of niche cable channels is that there is now a lot of college lacrosse on teevee. Two big rivalry games on ESPNU today: Duke-Virginia and Maryland-Hopkins.
YellowDog
I’ll always remember Forest Whitaker’s description of hurling in “The Crying Game.” “A bunch of Paddy’s whacking sticks.”
Omnes Omnibus
Hurling is an insane sort. I cannot imagine ever stepping onto a pitch (?) to play anything like it. I “retired” from rugby in my 20s; fwiw it isn’t really as brutal a game as it appears. Americans are so used to watching American football that they imagine the hits in rugby being done the same way. They are different, less concussive, because the hitter just like the hittee lacks pads and wants to keep his/her shoulder and neck intact. Good times.
ETA: Much like Lawnguylander said above. Rugby is also a self-policing sport. If you cheapshot someone, there will be proportional retaliation at some point.
NeenerNeener
Yay! A new litter of Shiba Inu puppies!
http://www.ustream.tv/sfshiba
jwb
FYI. I see that having Noscript installed and denying permission to the NY Times automatically gets me through the pay wall.
Kit Smith
There are actually a good number of American clubs in the US, though our natural tendency to build football fields instead of hurling pitches means that sometimes the games have to get adapted a bit. In the midwest, I know there are clubs at St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Purdue, Indiana University, Milwaukee, and Akron (and probably a few more that I don’t know about, I’m not really active with them anymore), and they organize matches on a somewhat regular basis.
Breezeblock
I love (to watch) hurling – usually catch the All Ireland final. I have the sticks and balls, and was knocking the ball around with a friend some years ago, and sure enough took the ball right in the eye. Luckily, we were so awful, it wasn’t going too fast and I only wound up with a black eye.
JPL
@NeenerNeener: Thanks..Hungry pups!
Dennis SGMM
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I played rugby when I was in my early twenties. My bumper read “Rugby players eat their dead.”
Rugby gives you lifelong memories. They come back every time it rains.
rapier
Funny I was trolling hurling UTube vids yesterday. Saw an All Ireland championship game on Wide World of Sports, 68 maybe, where the star of the team with a large lead, Alec Murphy, was mugged and knocked out of the game late. Brutal. Most videos very poor quality. Here is one that isn’t too bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTbAX1cRaLc&feature=related
Omnes Omnibus
@Dennis SGMM: For me, it isn’t so much the rain; it is the cold drizzle and wind. Of course, when it is cold and wet, the ground is soft and tackles don’t hurt that much. I played sevens in southwest Oklahoma in the summer when I was at Ft Sill; it was like playing on concrete.
corkbouy
Hi,
For people who are interested here are the final few minutes of last years hurling final between Tipp and Kilkenny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUUJ855O1gg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
now a days, players are wearing face masks compared to 10 years ago……..bunch of cissies :-)
maya
So what do the ultimate winners win? A porcelain bowl?
Omnes Omnibus
@maya: I see what you did there.
S. cerevisiae
Yeah, but lacrosse can help you take a British fort.
Minnesota Dave
I played on the University of St. Andrews shinty team back in the 1980s. Shinty is the Scottish equivalent of hurling (differently shaped sticks — as shinty eventually transmogrified into golf centuries later). There were several other Americans on the team and we would go up to the highlands and play club teams from small villages that would kick the ever living crap out of us and then invite us back to their pub for a dinner that they would host for us and then we would all drink single malt and warm beer until everyone was unconscious. It was good fun. Sometimes Irish hurling teams would come over and we would play them too, and then we would host dinner at our pub in St. Andrews, the “Dunvegan”, and drink until we were no longer consciousness.
Games were fierce and there were injuries but we really didn’t wear padding, and that resulted in a certain amount of restraint by both teams. It was a club sport, very few spectators, and it seemed to me more about the pleasure of the game and comraderie than winning at all costs. And drinking.
I took a stick to the shins once in a game in the highlands that cut all the way through my plastic shin guards and laid open the shin bone. Players from the other team took me to a vet near Fort William who sewed it up and anesthetized me with scotch. After the post game piss-up we drove back to our hotel in our minivan to which we had cleverly wired a sheep’s skull to the front grill, and were stopped by the local police. Only the driver was sober. But as the officer had a brother who had been on the team that had administered us such a fearful beating, he took pity on us and led us to the hotel and actually helped carry me to my room.
I prefer this approach to sport. More about the participation, less about winning and spectating. It was brutal but not in an NFL way. Much more like rugby.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“But prety damn crazy that hurling is still played in that form in modern times.”
The Irish Heroic Epics (the Cattle Raid of Cooley and the Fianna cycle) have the protagonists playing hurley. Like the article said, the game predates Christianity coming to the country. It’s a very ancient sport, but it’s only strong in parts of Ireland. Hard to televise, though, because the ball moves so f*cking fast.
“There are actually a good number of American clubs in the US, though our natural tendency to build football fields instead of hurling pitches means that sometimes the games have to get adapted a bit.”
The San Francisco GAA wrangled a deal to get very spiffy facilities in Treasure Island in the Bay.
Omnes Omnibus
@S. cerevisiae: Rogers wouldn’t have fallen for it. FWIW Langlade is a distant cousin on my mom’s side.
S. cerevisiae
@Omnes Omnibus: Cool! I likely had some distant relatives among the Ojibwe, although we are pretty widely scattered.
mellowjohn
@Robert Sneddon:
played rugby from 18 to almost 50, and was in a match where a glass eye popped out. after the match the ref asked the monocular player what he’d do if he ever injured his good eye. w/o batting an eye (sorry) the player said, “why, become a referee, of course.”
AnonGuest84
If you’re in the NYC area you can see this insanity live and upclose..