Grab your broomstick and soar to quidditch tryouts
Toronto’s community team gives budding athletes the chance to live out Harry Potter fantasies
A brand new batch of muggles will have a chance to fulfil their wizarding dreams this weekend as Toronto’s only community quidditch team hosts an open tryout.
No potions, spells or previous experience are required. All you need to bring are cleats, athletic attire and water. A broom might help, too.
“As long as you want to learn and don’t mind getting tackled, and don’t mind tackling other people, we’ll love it,” said Jessalynn Tsang, one of the team’s comanagers. “Really, you can take any set of skills that you’ve learned in your life and you can apply it to quidditch.”
The Valhalla team, ranked fifth nationally in the sport, was born in 2012 as a way for people in Toronto not affiliated with a formal university quidditch team, of which there are now about 20 in Canada, to get involved in the sport.
At a time when the Harry Potter series is enjoying a resurge in popularity thanks to the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the real-world offshoot of J.K. Rowling’s fictional wizard-world sport also continues to grow. Every two years, Canada sends a national team to the international quidditch World Cup, which last month took place in Germany.
The real-life version of the game bears close resemblance to the fictional sport in which players fly around on brooms dodging bludgers and catching snitches — but with elements that require magic removed, to accommodate sorcery-free muggles.
“Quidditch is a very new sport,” said Tsang, who plays the beater position on the team. “People from different backgrounds come here. It’s very easy to learn and a bit of a process to master.”
There are at least 21 players on any given roster. Tsang is expecting at least 40 people at the tryout, which takes place at noon on Saturday and Sunday at Riverdale Park East.
In the game, each team fields one keeper, similar to a goalie, who guards the other team from scoring on its three hoops. Three chasers on each side score 10 points by throwing or kicking a quaffle, a partially deflated volleyball, into those hoops.
One seeker from either team can end the game and boost their team’s score by 30 points by catching the snitch.
Unlike the flying golden ball in the books, the snitch is an impartial person running around with a flag in the back of their pants, attached to a sack with a tennis ball inside.
Meanwhile, each team fields two beaters, whose job is to disrupt chasers and seekers by throwing dodgeballs at them, known as bludgers.
“Quidditch is a very multi-faceted sport. In basketball you have one goal, to score. In hockey you have one goal, to score,” Tsang said. “Whereas in quidditch, it’s not just scoring. There’s another element to it which is the beaters, which honestly mess everything up.”
The sport is full-contact and features rugby-style tackles, permissible below the shoulders and above the knees.
Players also hold a broom between their legs throughout the entire game, giving them one hand to per- form all other tasks.
“People are like, ‘why don’t you just remove the broom?’ But it’s very much a part of the game,” Tsang said. “It actually really challenges you in terms of your agility skills, in terms of how you tackle and even just dodging dodgeballs because all of a sudden you have this broom that’s an extension of your body. It just adds an extra layer of competition.”
Quidditch is mixed-gender and strives for inclusivity. More than four players of one gender identification cannot be on the field at one time, according to the rules.
“As a female, I found that playing in female leagues, you’re not allowed to be as physical for whatever reason, whereas as male leagues you’re actually encouraged to be more physical and to tackle other people,” Tsang said.
“I think for a lot of females, the allure is that you’re on the same playing field as everybody else.”