Newswise — Imagine the sport of hockey played on small, open-air rinks. Trade the hockey stick for a wooden-handled broom with duct-taped bristles.
Substitute sneakers for ice skates, a ball for a puck; add a legion of excited students, and you’ve got broomball—one of the unique ways that university students in the frozen northland celebrate winter.
In Houghton, Mich., on the snowbound Upper Peninsula, snowfall often tops 200 inches a year. A tradition on Michigan Technological University’s campus since the early 1990s, Inter Residence Hall Council (IRHC) broomball is the winter activity of choice for thousands of students each year. And with regulations covering everything from player behavior (no slashing, no striking, no throwing of brooms) to the brooms themselves (no exposed bristles, no plastic handles, slant not to exceed 30 degrees), this is no simple after-class game. This is serious competitive sport.
See photos and videos of broomball at http://www.broomball.mtu.edu/news
http://www.broomball.mtu.edu/photos
Live play: http://www.mtu.edu/webcams/
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