The Quidditch World Cup sounds dorky, and make no mistake: it is. But these sorcery-loving Harry Potter fans play pretty rough, as Eric Hansen found out when he captained a bad-news team of ex-athletes, ultimate Frisbee studs, slobs, drunks, and some people he knows from Iceland. Brooms up, and may the best Muggles win.
From a story in Outside...
“Wrap him up, tackle him!” a teammate yells at me when the goalie takes off a third time. I try, but he barges past with the flailing arms and unblinking eyes of a proper Potter psycho. For reasons unknown, just shy of our goal the bastard chooses to ignore the hoops and instead clobbers my wife, Hrund, who isn’t even in the game.
I see the whole episode from just inches away, a dirty lock of his hair waving in my face as I sprint behind him. One moment she’s relaxing on the sideline, looking away, not even holding a broom. The next, this freak lowers his non-broom-carrying shoulder and blasts her in the sternum. The impact sends her flying through the dusky air, nearly completing a full back layout before landing on her head.
Silence. The sun disappears behind skyscrapers. “I’m OK,” Hrund declares, finding her feet.
But I’m not. “What the fuck’s your problem?” I scream at the goalie, behaving worse than I ever have in a lifetime of competitive sports. When he doesn’t respond, I shove my face inches from his, throwing my broom down like a hockey enforcer dropping his stick. “You need to fucking calm down!” I shout.
The irony only increases. After some discussion, the referee awards the goalie a yellow card, apparently based on some rule or precedent for unprovoked assault of a spectator. “We can’t give him a red card,” the ref explains, “because she wasn’t actually playing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment