Underwater- football (US)

At first, this was the site for Sean's UW-football info, under bsi-BOBLEN's pages. He soon got his own pages, this page is just kept for "historical" reasons :-)

Now we strongly recommend Sean's own Official Underwater Football Site (BTW: It has pop-up ads).

Written by Sean D. Ennis (Manitoba), fall 1994.

O.k. main concept of the game. Take a 10lb pool brick (known here after as the 'ball') from one side of a pool to the other. Five people on each team (plus alternates 2 or 3 - if any). Two teams line up on opposite sides (the farthest ones apart) of the pool (15-20 feet deep and I'm guessing 40 feet wide, and 60 feet long)

The ball starts out in the middle of the pool. At the start of the game the two team race to the ball and try to score a goal. A goal is defined as 'placing the ball _under_control_ (i.e no throwing) on the side of the pool between the goal lines (two lines pained about 6 feet in from either side of the pool)

You must remain completely submerged while holding the ball (unless you are within an arm's length of the other team's goal). That includes you mask, snorkel, and fins. If you are not completely submerged, and holding the ball, this is called a surface-carry, and your team looses possession of the brick, and your team has to retreat to the far side of the middle of the pool, or the wall (if you were near the goal, and surfaced, then you go to the halfway point, if you were closer to your own wall, then you go all the way back).

As far as conduct goes in the water. Try not to hurt anyone. No head-tackles (they are dangerous - i.e. you can't put anyone in a choke hold). And NO equipment removal (grabbing someone by the face mask would be considered VERY bad sportmanship). Different teams are indicated by the presence (or lack of) tape on their wrists (trail marker's tape). My guess is that UW_rugby is VERY similar to UW_football (and even more so when we get a proper football weighted properly, instead of that lump of steal (I got hit with it ONCE, and I hope it never happens again - OH WHAT A HEAD ACHE).

We've been using the pool brick for a long time (probably 10 years) - that's how our group started out playing.

                    1 foot (30 cm) 
            /--------------------------------+ 
4inches    /                                /| 
(10cm)    /                                / | 
         /________________________________/  | 
         |                                |  |     
4inches  |                                |  /   
(10cm)   |                                | / 
         |                                |/ 
         +--------------------------------+

All sheathed in rubber so that it doesn't damage the pool (or us - well not much). Fit's just nicely in the hand and is passed (by most people) by laying it on your hand (pointing where you want to send it) and giving it a good push. It's also kind of hard to steal away from someone who doesn't want to let go.

Converting to ball:

We tried out a handball and an NFL football, and have been playing around with different kinds of liquids to fill them with - including a short excursion into barium-sulfate (really heavy stuff used for x-rays, and more-or-less non-toxic). Well, we finaly came up with a good solution (pun intended). We got a friend who was a nurse to get us a giant syringe (it's either for a spinal-taps, or cardiac-needle). The kind they have in cartoons - and looks scary =B-) So then we took the syringe and used it to pump corn-syrup into the ball. It now weights 8-9 lbs (3 or 4 kg), in is just what we wanted (doesn't even hurt (much) when you get hit it to the head with it). We've settled on a standard NFL football (with the pebbling ground off to reduce the drag from the water).

Here is what we do in UW-Rugby.

How many teams are there?

It's kind of an under-ground sport. In our group we have about 15 regular players but I know there are two or three teams here in Winnipeg (Manitoba, Ca), a couple in Calgary (Alberta, Ca) - I keep hearing that there are lots of others, but where? As far as extantions... I don't know.
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