Weird College Sports You Have Likely Never Heard Of - By: Aubrey Moulton

Sure many of us have watched lots of of football, hockey, baseball, and basketball games, but have you ever seen a round of octopush? How about elephant polo? These games are not what we’d call typical, although I bet they’d be pretty interesting to check out. We are talking less obvious than than volleyball or track here, folks.

Octopush is basically underwater hockey. The game includes people competing to get to the plastic covered 1.5 kilogram puck. By the way, this puck is not buoyant. Team members pack a dark or white squat stick which may not be longer than 350mm. The color of the stick identifies which team they are on. They wear gloves and mouth guards much like in hockey, but also sport snorkels and swimming caps. The game starts when all eight players on each team line up at opposite ends of the pool. The puck is placed in the center of the pool, a whistle blows and players compete to gain possession. Players may go anywhere in the pool, there are no off-sides rules like regular hockey. Play continues until either the referee calls some kind of penalty or a goal is scored. The goals are three meters wide at opposite sides of the pool. Octopush was started by divers in the mid 1950's, in Britain. The game came to North America in 1962 and is now played worldwide, but is still largely unheard of.

Elephant Polo is featured the world over. It is exactly what it sounds like: polo. But this polo is played while astride elephants. An elephant has a pair of riders. The first rider is the elephant’s master, and holds the reigns. The second rider is the polo player. You might imagine the playing area would be colossal to accomodate these immense creatures, but actually the field is three quarters the length of standard polo field because elephants are intrinsically slower than horses. Like the polo game we are familiar with, there are three players on each team. Many regulations exist to protect the elephants and reduce the danger of them getting hurt. The stick used to hit the ball is similar to a typical polo mallet, except it is between six and nine feet long. There are rules that bar elephants from lying down in front of the goal or touching the ball with their trunks. Even the referees ride elephants during the game. The game is made up of two seven-minute chukkas with fifteen minutes of rest between them. The team with the most goals claims victory.

Sure we’ve all watched plenty of football, hockey, baseball, and basketball plays, but have you ever seen a game of octopush? How about elephant polo? These games are not what we’d call typical, although I bet they’d be pretty amusing to check out. We are talking less obvious than than volleyball or track here, folks.

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