The magic of “Harry Potter” hasn’t ended. This weekend Centerville hosted the second annual Utah Snow Cup. It was complete with the newest brand of Nimbus 2000s, golden snitches and fast-traveling bludgers. It wasn’t Hogwarts, but with the sound of whooshing brooms and fluttering snitches, spectators could have closed their eyes and imagined it.
The Cougar Quidditch Team was among one of the teams flying into the tournament along with the Utah Crimson Fliers, UNC Griffins, NAU Narwhals and Denver Dementors, as well as two mixed teams comprised of athletes from colleges around the country. Quidditch is not an official college sport but, according to the International Quidditch Association, it “is a magical nonprofit dedicated to promoting the sport of Quidditch and inspiring young people to lead physically active and socially engaged lives.” There are more than 300 universities and high schools in the United States that have adapted the sport, as well as 12 other countries.
Quidditch is for athletes and Harry Potter fans alike. Matthew Williams, who plays for the Utah Crimson Fliers and co-organized the Snow Cup, said he loves the game for this reason.
“I love quidditch because of how inclusive it is,” Williams said. “You get a spectrum of players from book nerds, who play because they like Harry Potter, to athletes, who play because it’s a fun sport.”
Jen Jewell, co-captain of the BYU team, also believes quidditch can be fun for everyone.
“You can take the nerdiest of nerds and the jockiest of jocks, add in some quidditch, and suddenly they have something super important in common, which leads to friendships that would’ve never happened otherwise,” Jewell said.
On the technical side of the game, the rules of “muggle quidditch” are similar to quidditch in the magic world — minus the obvious of course. Players do play with brooms and they still fly, in the figurative sense. Each player must hold a broom between their legs with one hand. There are three chasers who move the quaffle down the field, two beaters who kick or throw the bludgers at opposing chasers, one keeper who guards the team’s hoops and one seeker who searches for the snitch. Here’s where the game gets interesting. The golden snitch comes in the form of a snitch runner who dresses in all gold clothing, and sometimes wings, and then runs around with the snitch (or tennis ball) in a sock hanging from the back of their pants. Seekers must find the snitch and snatch it from the golden runner. Once the snitch is snatched, that team earns 30 points, and like in “Harry Potter,” the game is over.
After watching hours of the game, spectators can learn to enjoy the game for its many facets. A lot of people are hesitant with the competition at first, feeling that the famed “Harry Potter” game couldn’t actually work without the enchantments of witchcraft and wizardry. The commissioner of the IQA felt that same hesitance when his good friend in college first told him about the idea.
“It definitely sound[ed] really weird,” Alex Benepe said. “I didn’t think it would work and I thought it would be stupid. We gave it a try and after the first time, I was totally hooked.”
The game is physical — tackling, kicking, throwing and long-distance running. It requires finesse and hand eye coordination. And while playing or watching, athletes can just feel the “Harry Potter” mystique running through their veins.
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Benepe said. “Anyone can have a lot of fun playing whether they’re a veteran athlete or they’ve never played sports before.”
The Snow Cup was a huge success. After a hard fought battle, BYU came up short but a Utah team did run away with the House Cup in the end. The veteran Crimson Fliers took home the well-deserved cup and helped prove that the west is where quidditch was won.
