who gets to play for the Championship?
Semi-Final Open Thread Argentina v The NetherlandsPost + Comments (305)
by Randinho| 305 Comments
This post is in: Sports
who gets to play for the Championship?
Semi-Final Open Thread Argentina v The NetherlandsPost + Comments (305)
by Randinho| 296 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Hosts or visitors?
And before I go any further, I would like to point out this article by Bobby McMahon, who many of you may remember as an analyst on the old Fox Soccer Channel. it’s worth a read.
Semi-final Open Thread Brazil v GermanyPost + Comments (296)
This post is in: Excellent Links, Open Threads, Sports
Since we’re having another iteration of Cheap Cynicism Day, here’s Mother Jones‘ Tim Murphy reporting that “Even International Quidditch Has a Concussion Problem”:
… Nuckols is offering a tutorial in snitching in a back room at a convention center in downtown DC for the second day of the third annual QuidCon, the only convention focused on the nuts and bolts of starting or managing a Quidditch team. Conceived eight years ago by a small group of students at Middlebury College in Vermont, the International Quidditch Association now boasts 225 official teams in at least 13 countries, in addition to wheelchair Quidditch and several varieties of “kidditch.” Even as the Harry Potter books and movies that first popularized it fade from view, the sport has begun to find its legs.
But like angsty, teenage Harry Potter in book five, competitive Quidditch is finding that its new powers come with some growing pains—in the most literal sense. Muggle Quidditch has a concussion problem.
The problem stems from the often intense physicality of the sport that is still working out the kinks. Quidditch, by virtue of its origins, attracts a large number of people with minimal experience in contact sports. It also attracts a large number of people who think they know how to act in a contact sport. “A lot of our players come to us from football so they think that a tackle looks a certain way,” says IQA commissioner Alex Benepe.
But football form tackles are built for a game with padding and helmets, of which Quidditch has neither. The sport follows the rules outlined in the series, except instead of flying through the air on broomsticks, competitors run with broomsticks between their legs, and instead of magical snitches, people like Austin (under a controversial new rule) have to stay on the field and wrestle with seekers instead. The game is a frenetic mix of dodgeball, rugby, wrestling, and that Aztec game where everyone died at the end…
Full details at the link. I blame the Roberts court NFL.
(For the record, yes I am a religious Cynic — School of Eeyore — and I am as offended by the faddish resort to gimcrack everthing sukks badmouthing as a Jesuit is by the religio-legal contortions of Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito & Thomas.)
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What’s on the agenda for the evening, cheaply cynical or otherwise?
by Randinho| 310 Comments
This post is in: Sports
La Sele or Oranje?
Quarter Finals Open Thread Costa Rica v The NetherlandPost + Comments (310)
by Randinho| 81 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Albicelestes or de Rode Duivels/les Diables Rouges?
Quarter Finals Open Thread Argentina v BelgiumPost + Comments (81)
by Randinho| 243 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Os Canarinhos or Los Cafeteros?
Quarter Finals Brazil v Colombia Open ThreadPost + Comments (243)
by Randinho| 110 Comments
This post is in: Sports
Die Mannschaft or Les Bleus?
Quarter-Finals Open Thread Germany v FrancePost + Comments (110)