Quidditch o spada laser?

Il nostro amico Eric Hansen. Foto: Jake Stangel

Qualche tempo fa, i nostri amici Eric e Hrund ci raccontarono della partita di Quidditch a cui Eric dovette giocare per scrivere un articolo sulla rivista Outside. Sì, perché c'è gente che a Quidditch ci gioca per davvero. E si fa anche molto male. Eric e Hrund ce lo raccontavano divertiti, ma anche un po' orripilati. 

Il racconto di Eric è apparso poco tempo dopo sulla rivista. Se siete potterheads e volete leggerlo tutto, lo trovate QUI. Altrimenti, siccome è molto lungo, vi riporto qui di seguito i punti salienti.

"Sunset on a Saturday in early November. The playing fields of Randall's Island, New York City. It's near the end of the first day of the surprisingly violent 2011 Quidditch World Cup, and we of the Outside Magazine Partially Icelandic Quidditch World Cup Team—OMPIQWCT for short—are ready to kick some Potter ass. (...)

But here are the basics: Play happens on an egg-shaped, 50-yard-long pitch. Each team fields seven players, two of whom must be women, and all players have to wear team jerseys and colored sweatbands. Critically, everyone must at all times straddle a broom at least 46 inches long, to simulate flying. (...)

'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.

(...) 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. (...)

Source

Quidditch was invented at Vermont’s Middlebury College in 2005, when a group of buddies—fans of J.K. Rowling, of course—got tired of playing bocce and decided to improvise something more exciting that involved brooms and bath-towel capes. They drew up a loose Quidditch rulebook and encouraged other students at tony schools to play.

In 2007, a reporter from USA Today covered "the first inter-collegiate Quidditch match." (...) Within months of the story’s appearance, the intramural sport had magically spread from campus to campus. (...) The height of the mania quickly became the annual World Cup, held each fall and open to any teams registered with the Bedford Hills, New York–based International Quidditch Association."

Source

Se poi il Quidditch non vi interessa, potete sempre dedicarvi al combattimento con la spada laser, imparando i Sette Stili di combattimento Jedi nell'apposita Accademia.