Quidditch Tournament

Next date: Wednesday, April 09, 2025 | 02:00 PM to 05:00 PM

Quidditch^[2] is a sport of two teams of seven players each mounted on broomsticks played on a hockey rink-sized pitch.^[3] The pitch is rectangular with rounded corners 55 metres (60 yards) by 33 metres (36 yards) with three hoops of varying heights at either end.^[4] The sport was created in 2005 and is therefore still quite young. However, quidditch is played around the world and actively growing.^[5] The ultimate goal is to have more points than the other team by the time the snitch, a tennis ball inside a long sock hanging from the shorts of an impartial official dressed in yellow, is caught. Rules of the sport are governed by the International Quidditch Association, or the IQA, and events are sanctioned by either the IQA or that nation's governing body.

To score points, chasers or keepers must get the quaffle, a slightly deflated volleyball, into one of three of the opposing hoops which scores the team 10 points.^[6] To impede the quaffle from advancing down the pitch, chasers and keepers are able to tackle opposing chasers and keepers at the same time as beaters using their bludgers to take out opposing players. Once a player is hit by an opposing bludger, that player must dismount their broom, drop any ball being held, and return to and touch their hoops before being allowed back into play.^[7] The game is ended once the snitch is caught by one of the seekers, awarding that team 30 points.^[8]

A team consists of minimum seven (maximum 21) players, of which six are always on the pitch, those being the three chasers, one keeper, and two beaters. Besides the seeker who is off-pitch, the six players are required to abide by the gender rule, which states that a team may have a maximum of four players who identify as the same gender, excluding the seeker,^[9] making quidditch one of the few sports that not only offers a co-ed environment but an open community to those who do not identify with the gender binary.^[10] Matches or games often run about 30 to 40 minutes but tend to be subject to varying lengths of time due to the unpredictable nature of the snitch catch. If the score at the end of the match including the 30 point snitch catch is tied (such that the team that caught the snitch was 30 points behind the other), the game moves to overtime where the snitch is constrained to the pitch's dimensions and the game ends after five minutes or when the snitch is legally caught.