I have a couple guesses.
First, they protect the ears, which would often get hit by a ball and could cause hearing loss.
Second, they just keep water out of the ears, which would happen a lot in this sport.
Third, they have transmitters and they can hear their coach’s strategy and formations.
Which of these is the primary function and what am I wrong about?
I’m making the guess that the helmets are the uniform of the players as the head is the only body part above water.
My SO was asking about this the other day. I suppose being able to wear a different color helps determine whom to pass the ball to, but I’d also like to know the purpose of the ear protection. Does it make it easier to hear?
Nevermind.
I just realized Wikipedia has an article on the helmet itself(called a "cap).
It’s all three, though I dislike the tone of the article. It doesn’t sound authoritative.
I never knew the caps had headsets in them. However, water polo is a bit of a violent game and the caps also help to protect the ears from other players who will pull on anything they can. Watch the women sometime and see how small their suits are. Players try and get away with a lot of things. I tried playing for a few months and was told to do things by the coach that I had to ask about later on only to find out you’re not really supposed to do them. Most of it was how to push off of another player.
Ditto. Wet heads tend to look alike and there’s very little to differentiate one another. So different colors for different teams and numbers to know who’s who.
I think the ear thingys are partially for protection, but mostly for hearing. if the wet caps covered the ears, it might make hearing your teammates difficult.
Ear protection is not to be under-rated as a reason. You can get smacked upside the head really hard sometimes, and the ear cups might just keep you from rupturing an eardrum.
The caps keep your brains from squirting out your ears when you get smacked upside the head.
… and I can’t imagine how having a radio in 'em would help at all. The likelihood of actually understanding anything a coach might be shouting at you over the radio would be rather slim.
To protect you if you get thrown by your water polo horse.
I think you mean seahorse.
Don’t be silly, those are much too small. You need something like this to play water polo. Well, it would certainly make the game more exciting, anyway.
It’s the protection thing. Water Polo is rather violent when played competitively. Getting an elbow to the head was fairly common. And the stuff that goes on under water is not to be believed. We learned real quick to shave our armpits. Having an opposing player grab that hair and give it a yank made one much less focused on the task at hand.
I played about half a season in high school my senior year. Coach dropped me because while I could swim well due to 3+ years of swim team, I didn’t have the skills of some of his guys who had been doing it since middle school.
They wore two or three suits besides the helmets, because some guys would hook their toes in an opponent’s suit to either give them some extra height, or distract by stripping the poor guy. If you’ve got extra suits, you don’t care so much about losing one.
