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The McGill Quidditch team recently earned a national championship, proving that they’re no run-of-the-mill Muggles.

by Juliet Waters

It’s a Saturday afternoon in early November, and McGill’s Quidditch team is practicing on the lower field.  Tucked between the players’ legs are regulation broomsticks imported from Florida. Not the Nimbus 2000s of Harry Potter fame, but, according to team president Reid Robinson, “these are second from the top of the line.” Despite the imposed handicap – one hand on the broom at all times – players are maneuvering with impressive skill, as fit and determined as any college athlete.

The team normally practices four times a week; but this week they are practicing daily, preparing for the 2011 World Quidditch Cup in New York City.  The only evidence of silliness is relegated to the sidelines: a truncated plastic Vileda broom wrapped in silver duct tape and the toilet plunger favoured over a broom by one of McGill’s seekers.

Quidditch has become relatively serious business in the five years since it started taking off as an intercollegiate sport. The first three world cups were held at Middlebury College in Vermont, where the Muggle adaptation of the game made famous in the J.K. Rowling series, was first developed. Then in 2010, the event moved to New York. Network cameras followed, and soon the number of teams scheduled for the 2011 World Cup more than doubled.

McGill was an early adopter. After beating Carleton at the end of October to win the first Canadian Quidditch Cup, they are the reigning national champions. “Our team is a big community,” says Robinson. “We often hang out with each other outside of Quidditch practices and during the winter months we play intramural sports such as inner-tube water polo and volleyball.”

Most of the players grew up reading Harry Potter, but not all of them. “I was never a huge fan,” admits Chelsea Gilliam, McGill’s “Golden Snitch.”  In the book, the snitch is a magical winged ball that, once captured, automatically ends the game.  In the Muggle version, the snitch is usually a quick-witted cross-country athlete dressed in yellow, sporting a sock/tail stuffed with a tennis ball. “When I heard they needed a runner, I decided to try out,” Gilliam says.

Each member of the team has a nickname. Gilliam’s is “Honey Badger,” the ferocious African rodent of YouTube fame, who outmaneuvers rats and sleeps off cobra bites with barely a hangover. Even in yellow tights, Gilliam manages to convey a slightly fierce attitude. Being a team player is not foremost in the snitch’s required talents. “Ideally at tournaments we don’t play in matches involving our team, and I usually spend my time hanging out with other snitches.” During game play, the snitch leads seekers on a scavenger hunt. McGill’s seekers have found snitches in libraries, bus terminals, and a Tim Horton’s.

“Theatre plays an important role in the game,” concedes chaser Laura Diebold, whose nickname is “W.”  (“I’m from Texas,” she explains ruefully.)  The first time Diebold heard that people were playing the sport – people who shared the same non-fictional realm of existence as her – she immediately wanted to give it a try. “I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter books, and I’ve also always been athletic. I’m also fairly open-minded to novel activities, so Quidditch seemed like a wonderfully fun combination of two things I love.”

“Most people come out to the pitch for the first time and don’t believe what is actually happening,” says Robinson. “They try it once and love it. It’s an intense experience. It involves a lot of physical contact and running with a broom between your legs makes it a lot harder to do everything. At some point you find yourself screaming up the field for a pass and then you remember you are playing a fictional sport.”

It might be fun, but Quidditch presents players with some very physical challenges. On this beautiful fall day, members of the McGill team are busy negotiating at least two balls: the Quaffle, a volleyball that “chasers” attempt to throw through hoops, and a Bludger, a dodgeball that “beaters” use to knock opposing players off their brooms.

All the practicing appears to be paying off. In the 2010 World Cup, McGill finished in 12th place. They went into the 2011 Cup ranked seventh. In the end the team fell to up-and-comers, the University of Florida, who in turn lost to the five-time world champions, Middlebury.  ”When I started the team in 2008, there were about 12 teams at the World Cup. This year there were 96,” observes Robinson. “I really do think that Quidditch is here to stay.”