The World of Fictional sports: Quidditch

 I believe a lot of us have already been familiarized with Ms. JK Rowling’s wizarding world, the beautiful magic she weaved through words that left most of the world in a trance. Harry Potter, being the second best-selling book in the world after the bible has to be the biggest name in fictional history. It brought with it education for the children, powerful messages about love and friendship, a crazy fandom and an entirely new fictional sport: Quidditch!

I told you, I didn’t want a generic sports blog, and afterall, any game that involves autonomous purple balls being hurled at the players is not generic at all.

Quidditch (formerly known as Kwidditch and Cuaditch) was a wizarding sport played on flying broomsticks. It was the most popular and well-known game among wizards and witches, and, according to Rubeus Hagrid, the wizard equivalent to Muggles' passion for football. Football, here, being American Football, not to be confused with European Football.

The game was played by two teams with seven members each. The object of the game was to score more points than the opposing team. 

Each team has three chasers, two beaters, one keeper and a seeker. Each position in the game was crucial. 

The game was played with three types of balls:

1. Quaffle: the big, red, main ball

2. The Bludgers: nasty purple balls that actively try to harm the players.

3. The Golden Snitch: the creme de la creme, the golden ticket to winning the game (besides a few exceptions, re: Bulgaria vs Ireland, Quidditch World Cup)

The Game went forward as follows:

The Chasers handled the Quaffle and earned points by tossing it through any one of a set of three goalposts on the opposing team's side of the field. Each goal was worth 10 points. The Keeper guarded the goalposts in an effort to prevent the opposing teams' Chasers from scoring.

The Seeker tried to catch the Golden Snitch before the opposing team's Seeker could. The Golden Snitch flew very fast and was difficult to see. When and only when the Snitch was caught did the game end, and the Seeker who caught the Snitch earned 150 points for their team.

The two Bludgers were highly aggressive balls that flew through the air and tried to knock the players off their broomsticks. The two Beaters each used a bat to hit the Bludgers in an effort to keep them away from their own teammates, as well as to send the Bludgers towards the members of the opposing team.

The game started with the referee releasing all four balls from the central circle on the field. The Bludgers and Snitch were bewitched to fly off of their own accord, but the Quaffle was thrown into the air by the referee to signal the start of play (This is similar to how the games of basketball and Gaelic football, popular Muggle sports, begin by the referee throwing the ball in the air).

After a goal was scored, the opposing team's Keeper would throw the Quaffle back into play. Teams continued using the same goalposts to score throughout the game.

The game only ended when the Golden Snitch was caught, or if the captains of both teams managed to reach an agreement. Some games could go on for many days if the Snitch was not caught (the record for the longest game, according to Quidditch Through the Ages, was six months, although no one caught the Snitch). Since the lengths of Quidditch games were variable (some games could go on for days if the Golden Snitch was not caught) the game was not played in periods, although captains could call for a time out.

The winner of the game was the team with the most points, regardless of who caught the Golden Snitch. Catching the Golden Snitch was worth 150 points to the team whose Seeker made the catch, but this did not necessarily mean they would win, as the other team could still have more points after the Snitch was caught (i.e. if the other team had at least 160 more points when the Snitch was caught). As a result, it was possible, although difficult, to win the game even though the opposing team caught the Snitch, as was the case of the final match between Ireland and Bulgaria of the 1994 Quidditch World Cup.

Quidditch was taught at all magic institutions, mainly Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where, along with the house cup, there was a healthy competition among the four houses (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw) for the Quidditch cup. 

Like every famous and important sport, Quidditch, too, had regulatory and governing bodies. The International Confederation of Wizards' Quidditch Committee was an international regulatory body, subject to the International Confederation of Wizards, that oversaw international Quidditch competitions, such as the World Cup. Namely, it located suitable venues, arranged transportation for spectators, and provided policing for the games themselves. It was also the ICWQC that chose the referees for World Cup matches.

Quidditch was governed in Britain by the Department of Magical Games and Sports, where the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters was situated.

A quidditch pitch would be an oval shaped stadium, with three rings on either side of it. Those three rings would be the goals the Keeper would need to protect, and the game would begin right in the middle of the pitch, where the referee would throw the Quaffle. 

Notably, there are 700 possible fouls in the game of Quidditch. Flying violently on broomsticks needs to be regulated somehow.

Afterall, Fred and George did mention that no one had died in the game (in a long time), and anyone who went missing would come back (in a month or two)

Nothing Madam Pomfrey can’t fix with her medicine.