So I was flipping through the late night cable channels and ran into something my cable provider only called “Gaelic Games”. It was a match between Clare and Galway of some sport I absolutely couldn’t identify that looked like a cross between lacrosse, hockey, and ultimate frisbee - a bunch of guys, some of whom wore helmets and some did not, smacking a little ball around a huge field with sticks that looked to me like rice paddles or salad servers. They also seemed to smack each other quite a lot. They wore little shorts and little jerseys and some, but certainly not all, wore helmets (the primary smackers seemed to not, the others did). They also had very nice legs. They played towards what looked like soccer goals with nets above them to catch the high balls. It all looked extremely unsafe and like something seven year old boys would love to play.
Anybody know what it was? Is it just an Irish thing, or a British Isles thing, or a European thing? Or a thing they made up in a Monty Python-esque way to fool us gullible Americans?
Hurling. Its an Irish thing. Quite possibly the fastest land sport in the world. The sticks are called “camáns” or “hurls” and are made of ash, the small leather ball is called a “sliotar” (slit-er).
no pading is worn, and helmets are mandatory in the youth game, but optional in the senior game (what you were watching).
Its a brave man or woman that plays hurling. Very fast, very physical, and all completely amateur. Best to watch at the match itself, but great fun in the pub too, especially at a big game.
The link so kindly supplied by Ruadh will give you the rules. Its a great game. if you have any questions, I’ll do my best to explain.
So does anybody know if it comes on TV regularly? It did look like loads of fun (but I guess I’ve turned into my mother, I’m worried about those poor boys smacking each other with sticks). We watched for maybe fifteen minutes and I only saw one injury, from an elbow, and everybody else just kind of kept playing waiting to see if the ref was going to blow his whistle or not. (How on earth do you referee this thing?!)
I did think it was enormously cute when two of the guys were concentrating so hard on smacking each other away from the ball that they overshot it by like twenty feet and had to run back to it.
I remember that hurling used to be shown occasionally on Wide World of Sports back in the early seventies, and one thing they always mentioned was that the game is not stopped for injuries.