IC Quidditch travels to the World Cup

Last November, a group of students from Ithaca College traveled to Randall’s Island, New York City to compete in the 2011 Quidditch World Cup as the community team The IC Hex.

Quidditch’s jump from a fantasy sport to a real game was made in 2005 at Middlebury College, when a group of freshmen adapted the game to real life. Their endeavor to remain as close as possible to the sport’s roots in the Harry Potter novels resulted in a full contact co-ed sport where athletes run with a broomstick between their legs, and handle each of the game’s five balls one-handed. Protective gear is optional. The largest differences between the fantasy sport and the real life game are the bludgers and the snitch. In the Potter books and movies, bludgers are two black, flying, fist-sized balls directed by a beater’s bat. Bludgers in Muggle Quidditch are three dodge balls, thrown at other players by a team’s two beaters. A human runner has replaced the snitch, which is a flying, golden, golf ball in the Harry Potter world. This runner dresses in gold and has a sock containing a tennis ball that is attached to the back of his shorts. Catching this sock is worth thirty points in real life rather than J.K. Rowling’s original one hundred fifty.

The International Quidditch Association grew out of that original team at Middlebury College, and from that the World Cup, Quidditch’s largest annual tournament.

Tom Aroune, a junior at IC and the president of Ithaca Community Quidditch, had wanted to take an Ithaca team to The World Cup since he heard of it in 2009.

“My freshman year was an unrealistic goal since we didn't even have a team yet, and last year we didn't have enough interest from the team about going,” Aroune said. This year, thanks to an overwhelming number of enthusiastic freshmen joining the team and despite difficulties organizing housing and transportation, a group of 21 players and two coaches were able to make the trip to New York City for World Cup V.

The tournament took place around Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island. Ten Quidditch pitches were set up around the stadium with the newest design for Quidditch hoops, commentator’s booths, team benches, and bleachers for the thousands of spectators that arrived to watch games throughout the weekend. Fourteen brand new Shadow-Chaser-model brooms were donated to each of the ten fields, and a team of referee’s and official snitches rotated between the ten pitches.

Dotted in-between each playing field were tents selling merchandise from the IQA, Alivan’s master wand makers and broom merchants, the popular website “MuggleNet,” and Harry Potter themed entertainers. Along the perimeter of the Quidditch pitches was the bright yellow Waffle truck selling New York’s finest Belgium waffles, and a two hour long line of people eager to taste another food vendor’s butterbeer.

94 teams from the United States and abroad showed up to compete and Ithaca was placed in a pool with the University of Miami, Texas A&M, Vassar, and NYU. Teams had to win the majority of their games in order to advance into the bracket from there, they’d compete in single elimination games to determine which two teams would vie for the title of World Cup Champion.

Toby March and Caitlin Geghan, the assistant coach and vice president of the Quidditch team, were the two coaches who lead The Hex at the cup.

“We did about as well as I expected in the tournament,” Toby admitted. “Of course, I would have loved to have been the [World Cup V] equivalent of the Tufflepuffs [Tufts Quidditch] and have shocked everyone by making it into the bracket, but for our first outing of league-standard play we did pretty well.”

Geghan had glowing praise for the team. “World Cup V, apart from being one of the most intense and amazing experiences I've had in college, was so fulfilling,” Geghan said. “The elephant in the room… is that we did not come out of the tournament with a winning record. But we learned SO much.”

Ithaca was quickly defeated in their first match with Texas A&M, a team that later made it into the semi-finals. Against Miami, they lost, but like the Bulgarian team in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, they managed to catch the snitch and end the game with thirty points.

Their game against Vassar was a win and a loss. Tom Aroune phrased it best when he said the Vassar players “were a very intense team, but weren't completely in-your-face about the fact that they were more physically prepared than we were. They were a very friendly team off the field, and I'm happy to say that I think we have a budding team friendship for the future.” The match that Geghan and March are proudest of is Ithaca’s game against the NYU Nundu. They had outscored NYU 50 to 40 before the snitch dashed on to the field closely pursued by the seekers. It came down to a close snitch grab. NYU’s beaters had control of two out of the three bludgers and closely guarded the snitch and seekers.

When a Quidditch player is hit by one of the bludgers they must dismount their broom and sprint back to their teams goal posts. They cannot be involved in play until they have tagged their goals. NYU’s possession of the bludgers enabled them to catch the snitch, and those extra points cost Ithaca the match.

The team was not discouraged by their losses. They hold their love of the sport far above their desire for a championship title, and are realistic about their skills compared to other more experienced teams.

“I wasn't sure if our team was going to make a major impact at the cup, since it was our first time competing with other teams,” said Erik Jarowski, a freshman chaser and keeper. “It was amazing having the full experience of Quidditch, by seeing other teams, and officials like Alex Benepe.”

Kendall Griffin, a freshman who plays chaser, keeper, and seeker didn’t see the team’s losses as failures at all. “I think the team did wonderfully. They tried their hardest and they never gave up. Even though at some points we were getting our faces beat in, they stuck together like the family they are.”

The Hex did not leave the tournament in last either. Amongst the sixty teams that played in the division one section of the tournament, Ithaca ranked 51st, sandwiched between St. Lawrence University and Eastern Michigan. They have high hopes for their next intercollegiate tournament next month. Ithaca is one of eight teams invited to Vassar’s annual Butterbeer classic, and they’ve spent the winter preparing.

However, the Hex hopes to change its status as community team in the near future. They’re in the process of becoming an official club sport at Ithaca College. The Hex “recently met with a college official to discuss the rules and regulations of Quidditch,” Geghan said. “There are some safety concerns like where the snitch can go on our campus and where they can run on tournaments…we're working on the application as we speak.”

Expect to see more of IC Quidditch in the coming year. The IQA has recently re-organized the structure of the Quidditch season, ensuring that each Quidditch team in the league plays five official matches each year. The Hex is looking forward to those games and making a comeback in the 2012-2013 Quidditch season.