Ahh, Broomball!

This morning, whilst enjoying some breakfast and the company of my husband, he casually asked me about broomball. I’m not sure why he asked, but it brought up a bazillion memories.

I used to play broomball, back in my graduate student days. There was (and probably still is) a city league in Laramie, Wyoming. Every Sunday, teams would meet up at the local hockey rink and play. Some teams were really serious and almost brutal, others, like us, the Treacherous Ice Toads, were just there to have some fun.

Before I go on, undoubtedly some of you have never heard of broomball. I certainly hadn’t before living in Laramie. But it’s a real sport. There’s even a governing body for broomball! The way I usually explain it is this. Imagine hockey. Now, replace skates with shoes, replace the hockey stick with a paddle of sorts (the broom), and get a ball. The rules and positions are similar, though not exactly the same.

The league in Laramie was a co-ed league. Because of some ‘issues’ with more aggressive male players not allowing their female teammates to handle the ball, the league had rule that should a woman score it was worth two points, whereas a man could only gain one point. And suddenly the women were getting the ball!

In five years, I scored twice. I was hit in the face once. (I am so grateful that we had to wear full face masks!) I walked away from many games with some really awful looking bruises.

But I learned how to run on ice. I learned how to maneuver on ice. I discovered that I didn’t really have the mass the check anyone (of course checking wasn’t allowed anyway), but that meant that I could ricochet off of others to change my direction if needed.

Yeah. I loved it!

My buddy, fellow graduate student, and field partner, would ride to the games together each Sunday. We’d pop a tape in the radio and listen to “The Hall of the Mountain King,” and have ourselves good and wound up by the time we hit the ice.

As the Treacherous Ice Toads, we would hold ‘Toad Homage’ at half-time every game. This entailed putting a stuffed frog at center ice, making a ring around it, and flinging ourselves at it whilst trying not to collide with each other.

Sigh. Thirteen years ago.

The highlight for us every season was the Slime Cup. The league did have a tourney, but we seldom did well, given that we were competing against teams full of hockey players. But we would each season play at least one time a team called the Slugs. That game was for the Slime Cup. We used a plastic goblet and a tube of Vaseline for the cup, which went each year to the victorious team. Yeah, the Slugs were great. They had the same attitude about the game as we did, and about the same skill level. It was always a good game.

I know that there’s a broomball league in Rochester, where I work now, but I haven’t joined. I don’t think it’d be the same. Many of the Toads are paleontologists, and good friends outside of ice rink. I see them yearly (and sometimes more often) at professional conferences. No such friendships exist here.

But maybe one day I’ll pick up the broom again. Or not. Either way, I’ll always look back fondly on those days. Those were good times.