“What is quidditch?’’ Moy mused late last week while speaking on the phone from her home in Sunderland, near Amherst. “Well, the best comparison is probably rugby … it’s like playing rugby while holding a broomstick between your legs.’’
Go ahead, laugh, because humor is part of the game’s creed and infrastructure, if not its full-muggled mantra and being. Through the centuries, quidditch has been the game to play at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where a newly arrived Harry instantly became a big man on the make-believe campus when he gobbled up the Golden Snitch, the walnut-sized ball of flying whimsy with elongated hummingbird-like wings that is the prized catch of every quidditch match.
When two quidditch teams meet, they field seven players aside and, along with all the ball tossing and catching, capturing the Snitch is at the center of the game. You don’t have to be a Potter fan or accomplished quidditcher to fall head-over-broomstick in love with a sport aimed at corralling a Snitch. Heck, until recently, the wizards at the FBI ran helter-skelter all over the world trying to catch famed snitch James Bulger for 15-plus years. Who didn’t enjoy that game?
In real-life quidditch - that is, real life that imitates the fantasy and wizardry of Hogwarts quidditch - the Snitch is a human (yes, I know, bor-ing) who typically dresses in all-yellow attire. The real-life Snitch gets chased up, down, and across the playing field, his or her demise only met when a competitor successfully grabs the tennis ball that the Snitch keeps tucked in a tube sock attached around his or her waist. The Snitch is the only broomless, though often the most entertaining, participant on the field.
