Quidditch fever hits Aurora

July 2, 2015 · 0 Comments

By Jake Courtepatte

Calling all Harry Potter fans – you now can have your own opportunity to follow in your favourite fictional character’s footsteps and capture the golden snitch.

In J.K. Rowling’s famous Harry Potter series, Quidditch is the chosen sport of the magical community – a high-octane, contact positional sport, played high in the air on broomsticks.

In recent years, the more outlandish rules have been swapped for a more realistic set, bringing the game of Quidditch to life for thousands of fans across the world.

Dubbed “Muggle Quidditch”, after the term coined for non-magical people in the Harry Potter universe, the game began to take shape in Vermont in 2005. It has since grown to acquire its own governing body, the International Quidditch Association, which hosts the IQA World Cup each year.

Meghan Jackson of Aurora is looking to get in on the action, and needs a number of willing players to do so.

“I’m a pretty active person, I’ve always loved running and I’m a huge Harry Potter fan,” said Jackson. “I was just thinking of something I could do for fun.”

Inspired after watching a documentary on the real-life version of Quidditch, she recently set about putting together a team, now running with a roster of about ten. Each team can have up to 21 players.

“Our team is looking for players who are athletic, or want to be, and are 18 – 35 years old,” said Jackson. “If we get enough players we will make it a league, and hopefully get good enough to go for the Regionals, Nationals, and maybe the World Cup!”

The team has been getting together since early June, determining the logistics behind putting together a magical roster.

Despite its magical roots, the logistics of the game are actually simple enough – four different player positions each have highly-specific roles on the pitch, with one keeper, two beaters, three chasers, and a seeker per side. For those new to the game’s rules, the object of the game is for the chasers to score goals on the other team’s hoops using a slightly-deflated volleyball, while avoiding the beaters, who use dodgeballs to send the chaser back to touch their own hoop while dropping any ball they hold.

Alex Amodol, an experienced Quidditch beater, calls the game “a combination of rugby, handball, water polo, with a bit of dodgeball mixed in for fun.”
The seeker, the enviable position of the series’ title character, spends the game attempting to catch the golden snitch. In the series, the snitch is a small, sentient, winged ball that evades both team’s seekers at all costs. Catching the snitch is an automatic win for the successful seeker’s team.
In Muggle Quidditch, the snitch is a tennis ball in a sock attached to a neutral snitch runner’s shorts.

“The snitch runner can cause all types of mayhem, and doesn’t have to ride a broom either,” said Jackson.

You can contact Meghan for more information at meghan.jackson76@gmail.com.