{"id":11199,"date":"2015-07-02T11:28:02","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T15:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=11199"},"modified":"2015-07-22T16:41:42","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T20:41:42","slug":"quidditch-fever-hits-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/quidditch-fever-hits-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Quidditch fever hits Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Calling all Harry Potter fans \u2013 you now can have your own opportunity to follow in your favourite fictional character\u2019s footsteps and capture the golden snitch.<\/p>\n

In J.K. Rowling\u2019s famous Harry Potter series, Quidditch is the chosen sport of the magical community \u2013 a high-octane, contact positional sport, played high in the air on broomsticks.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Dubbed \u201cMuggle Quidditch\u201d, 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.<\/p>\n

Meghan Jackson of Aurora is looking to get in on the action, and needs a number of willing players to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a pretty active person, I\u2019ve always loved running and I\u2019m a huge Harry Potter fan,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cI was just thinking of something I could do for fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur team is looking for players who are athletic, or want to be, and are 18 \u2013 35 years old,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cIf 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

The team has been getting together since early June, determining the logistics behind putting together a magical roster.<\/p>\n

Despite its magical roots, the logistics of the game are actually simple enough \u2013 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\u2019s rules, the object of the game is for the chasers to score goals on the other team\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Alex Amodol, an experienced Quidditch beater, calls the game \u201ca combination of rugby, handball, water polo, with a bit of dodgeball mixed in for fun.\u201d
\nThe seeker, the enviable position of the series\u2019 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\u2019s seekers at all costs. Catching the snitch is an automatic win for the successful seeker\u2019s team.
\nIn Muggle Quidditch, the snitch is a tennis ball in a sock attached to a neutral snitch runner\u2019s shorts. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe snitch runner can cause all types of mayhem, and doesn\u2019t have to ride a broom either,\u201d said Jackson.<\/p>\n

You can contact Meghan for more information at meghan.jackson76@gmail.com.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Calling all Harry Potter fans \u2013 you now can have your own opportunity to follow in your favourite fictional character\u2019s footsteps and capture the golden snitch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2015-07-02-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2UD","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 12:57:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}