18. Curling

Curling has gained a strong ding as one of the weirdest sports using a household appliance. Curling involves brooms or brushes, which are used to clear the ice so the polished rocks will hit their targets.

 

The sport is played on ice that is 16 feet by 5 inches wide and around 146 feet long. The ice is carefully prepared to ensure that the court will be levelled. The two teams take turns sliding heavy granite rock on the ice court towards the house of the opposing team. Two players follow the rock to direct the stones to their target by sweeping their path.

 

The sweepers using their brooms consider art and science in guiding their rock to the other house. One cannot touch the rock or else it will be considered as burning the stone. Other team members shout to give the sweepers instructions. However, the skip is the captain of the team and calls the strategy to be followed.

 

The scoring is based on the delivery of eight rocks each for the opposing teams. Points are determined by measuring which of the rocks are closer to the button of the house.

 

The names of the teams are also based on the last name of the captain but not during international tournaments. Players can be all men or mixed with the opposite gender.

 

The sport is thought to have originated from medieval Scotland and found its way to other countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Korea, and the United States. Today, it is considered an organized sport included in the Winter Olympics.

 

According to players, curling is not an easy sport. Some even consider curling as chess on ice, but most of the time the audience rather than the players resign from watching the game.

17. Kabaddi

Kabaddi is not a character from the Star Wars Saga but a game that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The Kabaddi is properly defined as a team sport that involves strong lungs and good speed.

 

The origin of the Kabaddi may be traced back to the pre-historic times when people used to intimidate attackers from other villages.

 

The game involves two teams playing on a field that is 12m by 10m and divided into two. There are two teams in the game with seven players each. The main objective is to send a player as a “raider” to tag or touch as many players of the opposing team in one breath. In the Indian version of the game, the raider chants the word Kabaddi while going after his competitors.

 

The raider is prevented from returning to the base by the opposing team. If the raider is able to return to the base before catching another breath, all tagged opponents are considered out of the game.

 

Different versions are well known throughout South Asia. There is the Surjeevani, which follows the “out revival system,” and the Gaminee, which fields nine players for each team.

 

The Kabaddi has organized World Championships and was once a demonstration sport in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. There is no historical document showing whether Hitler loved it or not.

 

Kabaddi was also featured on British television. It never gained popularity and was axed after its host collapsed during a Kabaddi match due to shortness of breath.

16. Trugo

Trugo is a genuine sport of the land down under, which enters the category of unusual sports.

 

Trugo was invented in the 1920s by the workers at the rail yards of Newport in Melbourne. The sport has never gained popularity but has managed to survive the 21st century due to the loyalty of its players. It is said that the name of the sport is coined from the initials of its founder, Thomas Greaves. Some suggest it was derived from the expression “true go” of the people when goals are made.

 

Trugo is played on a grass court where the objective is to hit the rubber wheel with a wooden mallet so it will reach the goal at the other end of the green. The trugo season runs from August to April and players have to pay a registration fee of $13.

 

The sport welcomes both men and women who have explored different strokes to hit the goal. Most women try the side-sweeping stroke just like in croquette. Most men, on the other hand, prefer the tunnelling style done with the mallet swung between the players’ legs, which they find more accurate.

 

The game lasts about an hour and a half divided into halves. The time of play is every midday on Thursdays. The players take turns in hitting sets of four rubber wheels. Each player has a total of twenty-four attempts or twelve from each end of the green. Like any other game, the team with the most goals after the time allotted wins.

15. Underwater Hockey

Underwater Hockey is like hockey but everything is done in the bottom of the pool. It has officially changed its name to Aquachallenge.

 

The objective of the game is to make goals by pushing the 1.5 kg puck into the goal of the opposing team. Six players from each opposing team are at play while the other members of the team are waiting on the deck.

 

The players wear masks, fins, and a snorkel to play. A short stick of 35cm in length is used in either hand to push or pull the puck. The common play positions are 3-3, 1-3-2, or -2-2-2. The numbers denote the positioning of the players for optimal offence and defence manoeuvres.

 

There are also referees during the match. There are two water refs and one deck referee. The water refs call violations, which may include using one’s hockey stick to hit other players, blocking of opponent without playing the puck, or using the body or other things to stop the puck. Players can be ejected of the pool or puck advantage may be given to the opponents defending on the gravity of the foul.

 

One may just wonder though how referees whistle or call the fouls.

 

The game lasts for about thirty minutes or two halves of fifteen each. The teams change goals after halftime.

 

The aquachallenge or underwater hockey doesn’t attract big crowds. Imagine in 1954 when the sport was invented, spectators had to watch from the bleachers wondering what was happening in the bottom of the pool.

 

 Good strategy in the game involves not forgetting to resurface for some oxygen.

14. Tough Guy

The Tough Guy Competition may be the most demanding one-day survival tournament in the world. Participants are asked to sign wavers of death or a “death warrant.”

 

The gruelling endeavour may be as short as ninety minutes or as long as five hours but the organizer claims that no one has really completed the courses thus far. The first event was held in Perton, England.

 

The challenge involves a six-mile cross-country run, an up and downhill slalom, a series of ditches and jumps, electrified frames, high walls up to four meters, rope crossing between platforms, burning hays, tunnels with barbed wired, underground tunnels, sucking knee-deep mud crossing, pond crossing with cargo nets all over, barrel bridge crossing, wall climbing, steep hill climbing and long muddy crawls are among the “killing fields” of the event.

 

Signing up for the event involves accepting potential fractures, bruising, burning, falling, dehydration, acrophobia, claustrophobia, joint dislocations, sprains, muscle tears, and a lot more masochistic injuries one can think of.

 

Organizers have encouraged agonizing contestants to shout “Yohimbe!” at some points of the killing fields. The word means “I have a bigger dick than you!” as derived from name of a tree, which is claimed to be a sexual stimulant.

 

In 1998, Nettle Warrior was introduced. This is the summer version of the Tough Guy Competition.

 

The Tough Guy Competition has raised big funds to support the House of Unfortunate run by Mr. Mouse who founded the event in 1986. Training with frozen peas down one’s pants may be worth it after all.

13. Chessboxing

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to hear the phrase “Lets get ready to rumble” during a chess match?

 

It cannot get any stranger when you see chess geniuses battle it out on the board and slug it out on the canvass for eleven rounds of alternating chess and boxing.

 

The man responsible for chessboxing is conceptual artist Lepe Rubingh who was inspired by the fictional ideas of a comic book by Enki Bilal. The proponent actually organized bouts to promote chessboxing.

 

Amid French Defence, Queen’s Gambit, Sicilian Defence, or Ruy Lopez, the players after four minutes of brutal chess get a minute to change gear and prepare for the bloody strategic game of boxing. It’s a mix of sheer strength and clever minds to either to win in the chess or boxing part of the game.

 

A winner is declared if there is a knockout or a checkmate. A flag down or time elapsed for the chess match can also mean defeat. A judge issues a decision in the event of non-knockout or mate.

 

The players who join the event are respected chess masters with excellent Elo ratings who also have great physical prowess for jabs, hooks, straights and uppercuts.

 

The events are now governed by the World Chess Boxing Organization. A big crowd gathers during big fights but one cannot find in the rulebook when they are allowed to cheer and heckle. Boos during the chess part? That is definitely a different experience.

12. Underwater Rugby

Underwater rugby is still a very young sport and was invented by Ludwig von Bersuda, a member of the German Underwater Club. He thought of coming up with a ball game underwater but what motivated him to do so is not really clear these days.

 

Underwater rugby is like rugby except that everything including the passes is done under a pool that is 3.5 to 5 m deep. Two teams have eleven players each who try to go for a goal with the weighted ball. The ball is injected with seawater so it can be kept underwater.

 

It is a fast-paced game that can test one’s strength and stamina to its limits. The gravitational effects are less due to the buoyancy in the water, allowing players to move in all dimensions just to move the ball and score big points by successfully placing the ball into the opponent’s bucket.

 

Not a lot of players are into the game since it is underwater, despite that underwater rugby has spread to Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and some countries in Asia.

 

Thanks to underwater cameras nowadays people can witness the excitement happening in the water. Who can imagine the good old early days of this sport where people spent a lot of time staring and wondering what was happening.

 

Websites have been organized to monitor the growth of underwater rugby. Results from all over the globe, news, updates, and equipment sales are posted on different websites devoted to the sport.

 

Underwater rugby has never recorded any history of drowning.

11. Haxey Hood

Haxey Hood is a game played on every 6th of January in North Lincolnshire, England, between Haxey and Westwoodside. Battling teams try to get the hood, a rolled leather or canvas, into their own pub where it will stay until the games next year.

 

The game is actually a sort of re-enactment of what happened in the 14th century when Lady De Mowbray rode her horse to cross the hills between Westwoodside and Haxey. The gust of wind blew away the lady’s silk riding hood and thirteen farmers chased after the hood. The one who got the hood first was too shy to give it back to the lady so the hood was passed from one farmer to another until one decided to hand it back.

 

The one who returned the hood was considered to have acted like a lord or boggins while the first one who got it was considered a fool. The lady donated vast lands with the condition that the act of chivalry will be re-enacted every year. The hood dates back to 1359 and makes this tradition the oldest in all of England.

 

Leading to the day of Haxey Hood, people wear their festival costumes and chant while marching into the pubs for free drinks of good luck. The pubs participating are the Carpenter’s Arms, Duke William Hotel, The Loco, and The King’s Arms.

 

The Hood starts swaying at 3pm, moving slowly towards the direction of the pubs. The pushing can get a bit confusing since the teams aren’t really organized and people may be squashed into the mud. The game ends if the Hood reaches the doorstep of one of the pubs where the owner will pour beer on it and keep it until New Year’s Eve of the following year.

 

Around 200 people on average join the rugby scrum like swaying of the Hood with a crowd of 1,000 spectators. In its history, Haxey Hood has witnessed cars being pushed and thousands of people being drunk with the free ale from the winning pub.

10. Goat Racing and Crab Racing

Names like Trouble Maker, Be My Hero and Dust in the Wind may lead someone to think that he is watching thoroughbred horse racing. Not. These are names of goats in the island of Tobago where goat racing is a serious deal.

 

The tradition was started on the Easter Tuesday of 1925 and it has been continued ever since. Goat racing is an organized affair filled with spectacles involving stables, trainers, jockeys, and the steeds.

 

The owners of the goats spend a great deal of time and money in choosing, grooming, and training the goats for racing. Jockeys, or more properly called handlers since they don’t ride the goats but control them using long leashes, are also trained strictly.

 

The jockeys are subjected to rigorous physical conditioning since they have to keep pace with the steeds, which will race in the 100 meter length lawn course.

 

Race day begins with a parade of the participating goats as comments about their performances are announced. The steeds are then brought to the box until the starter sends them off. The crowd goes wild as hooves roar in the track and bets will be won when their favourite goats cross the finish line.

 

Tobago has been home to another traditional race. Big blue crabs are chosen to race.  Like the goats, these crabs have handlers who control them using the strings harnessed onto their crustacean body. Control is not really done by tagging them but by prodding and poking them to move fast and forward.

9. Cheese Chasing

An average of three thousand people watch the race between cheese and man every year at Cooper Hill in Brockworth, Gloucestershire. This tradition is centuries old and has attracted people from all over the globe.

 

The Double Gloucestershire cheese is rolled from the top of the hill and participants will try to race it down the hill to the finish line. The cheese gets a head start so the participants can not really catch up with the cheese, which gathers speed of up to 70mph.

 

The council of Gloucestershire has tried to ban the Cheese Chasing because of the injuries incurred by the participants and spectators. A rugby team often waits at the bottom of the hill to stop those who cannot control their speed.  Unfortunately, some of the people, including the rugby players, get hurt with the bullet fast eight-pound cheese from the top of the hill.

 

The locals estimate the tradition to be around two hundred years old but it is not clear if the origin dates back to the Roman times or is rooted to Pagan healing ceremonies. One thing is for sure: participants take enough doses of alcohol to build their confidence in chasing the cheese down the steep Cooper Hill.

 

The injuries and all cannot stop the tradition, which is far from a Mickey Mouse competition. The cheese will definitely keep rolling with ankles to be bruised and bones to be broken for centuries to come. 

 

Other parts of the globe are starting to follow the tradition. We can expect more ambulance sirens to bring the adventurous crowd to the emergency rooms.