“An Inside Look at the Surprisingly Violent Quidditch World Cup”, Eric Hansen2012-05-04 (exercise, sociology)⁠:

The Quidditch World Cup sounds dorky, and make no mistake: it is. But these sorcery-loving Harry Potter fans play pretty rough, as Eric Hansen found out when he captained a bad-news team of ex-athletes, ultimate Frisbee studs, slobs, drunks, and some people he knows from Iceland. Brooms up, and may the best Muggles win.

…But there were portents of violence, like when I spoke to a longtime player who gave me strange-sounding advice that I relayed to the team. “‘Hide your girls?’” Josh kept asking. “What does that even mean?”

…“Drepa, drepa, drekka blód!” we shouted, thinking then that “Kill, kill, drink blood” was the height of irony.

…A goalie—the keeper—guards his team’s hula-hoops, usually by swatting the quaffle out of the air with his hand. Or so we thought…I try, but he barges past with the flailing arms and unblinking eyes of a proper Potter psycho. For reasons unknown, just shy of our goal the bastard chooses to ignore the hoops and instead clobbers my wife, Hrund, who isn’t even in the game.

I see the whole episode from just inches away, a dirty lock of his hair waving in my face as I sprint behind him. One moment she’s relaxing on the sideline, looking away, not even holding a broom. The next, this freak lowers his non-broom-carrying shoulder and blasts her in the sternum. The impact sends her flying through the dusky air, nearly completing a full back layout before landing on her head.

…I didn’t catch a whiff of the terrifying stench of Quid Kid hostility until I ambled out into the parking lot at the south gate and ended up chatting with a tired ambulance driver who was having a smoke. He was one of 30 EMTs posted at the event. “Easy duty”, I said. “This is just the quiet before another storm”, he corrected. “I’ve had eight concussions, two people taken to the hospital, bloody noses, scrapes, twisted ankles. I stopped counting injuries after 10.” My teammates weren’t as surprised by these stats as I expected. One recalled stopping a young female chaser just short of the goal, only to have the girl yell an extremely unprintable comment. Another teammate recalled watching a man in Division 1 lift a girl, spin her like the blades of a helicopter, and throw her to the dirt. The violence was not only pervasive but gender neutral. Hide your girls, indeed.