Broomball

I’m awful at ice-skating. Well, I actually only tried once when I was in the 6th grade, but I was worse than horrible and I haven’t tried since. However, broomball is a different story. If you don’t know what broomball is, it’s similar to ice-skating, except there are no ice skates, you don’t have to wear hideous outfits, you wear a helmet, brooms and Nerf balls are involved, and you will fall on the ice multiple times. Now that I think about it, broomball is more similar to hockey than it is ice-skating. Okay, so imagine hockey without all of the pads, regular shoes in place of ice skates, 50 people at once on the ice, hopefully no fighting, and an excuse to look ridiculous in cool protective gear. When you get this pictured in your head you have yourself broomball.



Every fall semester the Cascade student body rents out the ice-skating rink at Lloyd Center, the 3-story mall, for one precious hour of intense broomball. Oh, I forgot to mention that during this one hour the mall has already been shut down and the rink is open only for Cascade students! I must say that this is the highlight of the year. Like I mentioned earlier, broomball is kind of like hockey, only not. For broomball you have the usual, 2 goals and 2 teams. As far as how many people on each team and on the ice goes, we don’t play by the rules. What I mean is, if you have a helmet and a broom come on out, otherwise it’s the sidelines for you buddy. I’m pretty sure you understand the concept of scoring and if you don’t it’s all the same for soccer, football, basketball, hockey, and anything that involves a goal.
I don’t really know what else to say or explain about our night of broomball. It is an insane amount of fun though. It’s competitive, but not. For those like me who have no coordination what so ever, broomball requires that you let your pride fall and accept that everyone is going to laugh at you. Yes, everyone falls, but those who lack coordination fall every time they try to take a step. One minute you may be perfectly balanced and the next your feet come out from under you and you are making out with the ice. I’ve found that the best thing to do is to just run on the ice and if you fall you fall.



I could tell you multiple stories of how hard people have busted and how funny they looked while falling, but I’m not going to. Here are some pictures that show just what broomball is all about.