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Having a (broom) ball
The sport with the air of a snowball fight may be the biggest thing to sweep college campuses since streaking.
from the May 3, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
A national hall of fame is planned for Cambridge, Minn., next year to celebrate the careers of adult-league Great Ones including Mick Sletten and Tom Thaden. (At some levels, clearly, skill does become a factor.) Mr. Denesen is working with broomball's international federation toward winning heritage-sport status for broomball at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
That would be a fitting world-stage debut. The game swept down into Minnesota from Canada like a cold-air mass in the 1930s. In the 1960s an adult-league boom took hold there. And in this decade, Denesen says, YouTube-type word of mouth has stirred national collegiate interest that has broomball proponents excited about the prospect of a feeder system.
Many schools across the northern US maintain old broomball traditions. At BU it was first played in 1975 – when a law school team and one from Shelton Hall paraded down Commonwealth Ave. behind the school marching band before their tilt.
It has since become the school's most popular intramural sport by far, topping 100 teams for the first time in 2004. Students come out in baggy sweats or cargo shorts and athletic shoes – often late at night, when the ice is free – to learn the intricacies of a game that looks like a hybrid of ice hockey, field hockey, and a run down a well-waxed bowling alley in socks.
Referees – it is at least formal enough to have referees – have been known to skate out and rough up the ice around the crease to improve playing conditions. Not that conditions are top-of-mind for some college players.
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