Anyone happening to wander near the Magnolia Playfields on July 24 may have stumbled upon an unfamiliar, even an exotic sight: the championship match of the Seattle Hurling Club.
Hurling is an ancient sport originally from Ireland requiring a combination of skill and bravery. It is Europe's oldest field game. But, to Rob Mullin, the club's team manager, hurling is really all about craic (pronounced crack), Gaelic for fun.
Five sports in one
The Seattle Hurling Club has been in existence for the past three years and is part of the Seattle Gaels, a 25-year-old Gaelic football team. According to Mullin, "Hurling is ice hockey with rugby, with soccer, with baseball thrown in. The moves are similar to these sports, including hitting, passing, running and catching."
The key pieces of equipment are the hurley, which looks like a snub-nosed, spatula-shaped hockey stick made out of ash, and the sliothar (pronounced slighter) which looks like a baseball with the seams raised and exposed.
The team purchases the gear directly from Ireland; a player can be fully outfitted, including helmet, for about $150.
The game consists of two, 35-minute halves with 15 players. Teams are allowed five substitutes but, unlike other sports, there are no timeouts permitted. Points are scored when players hit the sliothar over the crossbar of the goalposts (1 point) or into the net beneath (3 points).
The team having the highest overall points wins the game. The game is played all year round - rain, snow, it doesn't matter. Mullin proudly boasts that he's been hurling every weekend for the past three years, and loving it.
Hooked on hurling
Wade Chitwood echoes Mullin's excitement over hurling. As the public relations guy for the team as well as the assistant manager, he met Mullin during a Bellevue Community College movie production. Mullin had already been playing the game with friends in the Society for Creative Anachronisms, and introduced him to the sport.
"From the start, I was hooked," Chitwood said. "I had played rugby before, and other sports. But with hurling, the whack of the sliothar was like a good shot in rugby, a sweet perfect shot in golf. I was hooked from the get-go.
"And it's such a dynamic game," Chitwood added. "The crowd is mesmerized and you'll hear lots of oohs and ahhs. For me, mentally, it's stimulating as well. I'm thinking all of the time."
But the band of players continued to play and fumble around, not sure if they were playing hurling correctly, not sure of the rules, hand positions on the hurley, etc.
"None of us really knew what we were doing," Chitwood said. "It was like learning how to swim by looking up swimming in a book and studying it. Then Dan and Dermot showed up and got us straight."
The real thing
To really excel at hurling you need someone with lots of experience and the proper training, who can strike out old habits and prevent new ones from forming.
Dan McElligott, club player, and Dermot Randles, the team's coach, fit the bill. Both were raised in Ireland, both have played the sport since they were kids and continued with it through their teen years and in college, and both are exceptionally talented players. McElligott was discovered near Green Lake pucking around with a sliothar. He was ecstatic to learn about the group, and promptly joined the team.
"In Ireland, the three top sports are hurling, Gaelic football and soccer," said McElligott, who hails from Lixnaw in County Kerry. "We play by age, with villages competing against each other. Loyalty and rivalry are very big in the sport. It's not unusual to have 80,000 people attend the All Ireland Final, the (hurling) equivalent of the Super Bowl."
Randles runs the drills and training for the team, along with teaching team members the finer points of the game.
"My goal is to increase the overall capability of members within the club," he said. "I want to raise the standard and level of play and over time set a standard for the new players so they'll improve faster. Right now we're training for nationals which takes place Labor Day weekend in Philadelphia."
Mullin proudly shares the fact that membership has doubled this year as the word gets out and members' skills improve - thanks, in part, to McElligott and Randles. "Last year we played Vancouver, B.C., in an international competition and we lost. This year we tied," he said.
Joining the fun
Chitwood and Mullin are eager to tell the community about hurling and get more members to join the fun.
"We want to make hurling accessible to everyone," Mullin said. "It's the newest old sport in town. It's a sport that is played around the world, not just Ireland, with teams across America in large metropolitan areas."
"We want players who are committed to the sport," Mullin said, "who have the passion, some skills, and might be willing to travel to out-of-town events. But we accept everyone. In the end we're all friends... It's really all about craic."
For more information of the Seattle Hurling Club, contact Rob Mullin on line at www.seattle-hurlingclub.org.[[In-content Ad]]
