Game of the Week: Quidditch

Quidditch...at least in the beginning...was a magical sport created by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling as a counterpart to the predominant English sports of soccer and rugby.  In the series' first book, The Sorcerer's Stone, young Potter finds himself unexpectedly pushed into being on the Gryffindor House team at Hogwarts Academy after a professor discovers his broom-flying and catching skills while in a tussle with his arch-foe Draco Malfoy.  In Chapter 11, team captain Oliver Wood brings the Quidditch equipment and gives Harry the low-down on the game and how it's played and scored.  There are four types of players: Keeper, Chasers, Beaters, and Seeker...along with three "balls": Quaffle, Bludgers, and Golden Snitch.  All while flying around on broomsticks, of course, the Chasers on each side try to throw the Quaffle through one of the three-ringed goals guarded by the opposing team's Keeper.  The Beaters have the job of protecting their teammates from Bludgers, which aim themselves at players to disrupt them.  And the Seeker has but one job: find the small, elusive flying Snitch and catch it...once that's done the game's over.  Teams get 10 points for their Quaffle goals, but since the side that catches the Snitch gets an extra 150, it's the Seeker who almost always decides the contest. Naturally, it's for the central, crucial role of Seeker for which our young hero is selected.  In the earlier books, Quidditch is an integral part of the story line, but as the epic conflict between Harry Potter and evil dark lord Voldemort increases in intensity and emphasis, then so decreases the significance and presence of this wizards' sport...the peak was probably at the beginning of the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, when the Quidditch World Cup is held between Ireland and Bulgaria.  In real-life there is a "muggle" Quidditch version played on a field with certain necessary rule alterations...they've gone so far as to have an "official" Quidditch governing body along with a World Cup and Premier League.  Not that I'm interested in any of that fake stuff, though...I'll just "stick" with Rowling's "real" version.  By the way, although I am often critical of screen adaptations of books I've read, I was very impressed with how the Harry Potter movies vividly showed Quidditch matches...