You played what in PE?

Yesterday I was chatting with a younger (15 year old) friend of mine. I asked him how his day was, and he said it had been OK, and that they had played Quidditch in PE.

Um... what?

Quidditch.

Apparently some company has devised a game similar to the fictional game of Quidditch as featured in the Harry Potter books. A quick Google search reveals some information about people trying to introduce the game, this being a good example. As an aside, a similar search also finds this explanation of British words in the HP books for Americans, which might interest some of my British readers.

Anyway. The game as described by my young friend did indeed involve 3 vertical hoops at each end of the pitch, a ball to throw through the hoops. So far so good. Each team had a seeker, and the snitch was a small ball on a cone in the center of the pitch; when the ref blew a particular whistle the seekers had to run for the ball and whoever got it and put it through one of the hoops scored extra points. Close enough. Sadly no sign of bludgers and quaffles, but these pale in comparison to the the glaring omission of the most prolific quality of quidditch. I refer, of course, to the lack of flying broomsticks. Apparently these are not involved in the game. My suggestion that the players place hockey sticks between their legs and pretend was met with some measure of derision.

As ever, research into aeronautical household cleaning equipment is just not moving fast enough to keep up with the demand.