Sports from the past week.

Past sports article for the week of 10/30/05

A guide to odd Swedish sports.

By, Cozmic

Ah, Sweden. The country that never wins medals in anything interesting, unless there's nothing but girls competing. The country where they play football with their feet, and baseball with different rules. And, of course, the country that always gets beaten by all the other countries in hockey so we can never win the gold, although we deserve it! No, I'm not bitter. After all, what hockey lover would become bitter by seeing his country lose the one sport he really cares about against a country who's so uninterested in hockey they even nearly killed off their national hockey league!? ..wait, where was I again?

Oh yes, right, Swedish sports. Well, aside from the ever popular hockey and football, Swedes seem to be very proficient in all the most pointless sports around, simply because we're the only ones dumb enough to play them. This includes, but is not limited to, curling, canoeing, women's golf and heptathlon. And hockey. It's all about the hockey.

Now, there are some very odd sports that aren't really popular in the US, and for somewhat decent reasons. First up, we have burnball/stickball/whateverball. It's slightly reminiscent of baseball, in that you have bases, a bat, and a ball. The difference being, we have a tennis ball and about half a million less rules. For instance, rather than a set amount of innings, it's time based, all taggings are done at a single base where you place a random person who never seems to be able to catch the ball, and you get extra points for scoring homeruns. In short, it's the reason no Swede manages to understand baseball.

The other odd sport that feels typically Swedish is floor ball. Floor ball is, quite simply, a wussy sport. Or, it gets accused of being a wussy sport constantly. Why? Because you have a stick, you have a ball, and you have two goals, one for each team, and two goalies on their knees with their hands up in the air looking like they've just been caught dealing less than legal substances. And you can't tackle near the edges of the court, smash your stick into another player's stick, hook, or take the blade of the stick above your knee when you shoot. Now, in all honesty, floor ball is quite fun. Mostly because of it's insane pace and the insane amount of hurt the ball will inflict if you slap shot it into someone's face. Trust me, I know. But of course, ignorant as we Swedes are, most of us play it with rules more resembling hockey. Yes, we Swedes like to hold sticks in sports. It seems to be what we do best.